NetagiAplinx

User's Manual

Member Manager

Short Description

The Membership Management plugin allows you to fully manage a large database of members in one or multiple membership groups. This feature can be integrated easily with a payment gateway and SSL certificate for secure online payments of membership fees. Built into the system is the ability to set expiry dates and automatic reminders for membership renewals.

See Also:

How to

  1. Setup in Control Panel
  2. Access Member Manager
  3. Create Membership Type
  4. Place a Membership Signup on your pages
  5. View Membership Signups
  6. Export Data:
  7. Add Special Interest Groups
  8. View Renewal Reminders
  9. Discounting
  10. View Daily Reconcile
  11. Manage Pending Payments
  12. Duplicate Membership Type
  13. Remove Membership Type
  14. Email Members

Setup in Control Panel

Before using the Membership Manager for the first time, please ensure that you check the setup in your Control Panel.

To access the Control Panel you must be logged in with the administrator toolbar visible at the top of the screen.

  • Select the applications button, and then 'Control Panel' from the bottom of the Applications menu.

The Control Panel window will normally load similar to the one shown below, however when the Membership Manager module has been activated on your website, additional features will appear here:

control panel window

Additional Control Panel Features with Membership Manager

Upon entering the Control Panel, you should see:

member - control panel settings

Description of the above settings:

Members Area:

  

Select a page in your website that represents the "Members Area" entrance page. After a successful login, members will be taken directly to this page. Click the PICK button to choose a page in your website.

Failed Login Page:

  

When a visitor to your website attempts a login, but enters an invalid username and/or password, they will be taken to this page. Click the PICK button to choose a page in your website.

Members Payment Page:

  

Click the PICK button to choose a page in your website. New and Returning members will be taken to the page you select, when they are required to make online payments.

Send Email when Make Member:

  

Each membership type you create in the Membership Manager may have various broadcast emails selected to be sent when certain events occur. To enable the sending of the selected emails, tick this box.

Member Username Prefix:

  

Each member's username must be unique. To ensure this, the Membership Manager can automatically create a unique username for every user that signs up. Generally, the username will be a randomly generated number. You may append a Prefix to the beginning of this number. In the example above, MM has been used. Therefore all usernames created will have the sequence MM#### (where #### represents the user's unique member number in the database).

Member Username Suffix:

  

Like the Prefix, above, the Suffix may be appended to the created usernames - this time onto the end of the username. If we add MM as a suffix, instead of a prefix, the username sequence would therefore be ####MM.

Member User ID length:

  

In the example above, four (4) numbers are used to create the member's username. Hence the sequence, MM####.  You may alter the length of the username - and consequently the number of members your database can contain - by changing the length of this unique number.

[Paid Member] Invoice From Name:

  

When an invoice is created and an email sent to the member, these details are used in the creation of the email.
Enter a name in the text box for who the invoice email is from. For example, you may wish to enter your business' name here, or the name of the person in your organisation who manages the memberships.

[Paid Member] Invoice From Email:

  

The recipient of the invoice email will view this email address as the sender. Again, this should represent someone in your business, or the person who manages your memberships - whichever is most applicable to your situation.

[Paid Member] Invoice Subject:

  

This field represents the subject of the invoice email that is sent. You may leave this at default, or alter it to something more applicable to the membership type that has been registered/paid for.

Renew Now Button:

  

Select a page in your website as the destination page that users will be taken to when they click on the Renew Now button.

Member Headings:

  

Select a style for all headings in the member section from the Style Manager.

Thanks Page:

  

Select a page in your website as the 'Thanks' page. Users will see this page once successfully submitting a registration or payment form.

You will also be given access to the Shopping Cart configuration settings. Most of the settings shown below are for the selection of a style from the Style Manager for the applicable area of the shopping cart during the event registration process. There are also two buttons that you may customise the wording on - their default text appears in the respective text boxes.

Shopping Cart Payment Gateway Options

A payment gateway may be setup to receive live, online credit card payments by those who register for your events.

Please Note: in order to have a payment gateway setup with your Aplinx® website, you may require an independent Merchant account (setup between you and your bank/financial institution) as well as an SSL certificate.

If you have arranged with your bank/financial institution to accept Diners Club and American Express cards, tick the relative option here.

Shopping Cart payment options

Access Membership Manager

To access the Membership Manager, you must be logged in with the administrator toolbar visible at the top of the screen.

  • Select the applications button, and then 'Member Manager' from the bottom of the Applications menu.

The Member Manager window will normally load similar to the one shown below:

membership manager

The Manager Options Menu appears on the left of your screen. Member listings will appear in the table to the right.

Create Membership Type

Before adding members to the database, you will first need to create a membership type. To do this, select CREATE MEMBERSHIP TYPE from the manager options menu.

The create member management screen will load:

create member management screen

Title:

  

Give the membership type an identifying name.

Make Public?

  

When set to YES, all users can view this member type.

When set to NO, this member type will only be visible to current/existing members only.

Member Application:

  

 

This field is used when a member's registration requires approval before being officially granted.

member application

If This is an application type is selected, then the membership type will be visible only if the member is not already registered to a type that requires application.

If This type requires approval is selected, then the member must already be a member of a type that 'requires application' in order to see this membership type upon renewal.

If Not Used is selected, all membership types will be visible to all members/users.

Data:

  

Select the source of the membership applications by choosing which form type, then which form, users (or admin users) use to sign up to this membership type.

In the example below, Form Manager has been selected as the form type. All Form Manager forms are then listed in the section below.

select membership form

Once you have selected the form, the seven fields below represent form field mapping - Which field in the form is used to represent the user's saved data.

Username Field:

  

Choose a field from the selected form that represents the user's UNIQUE username.

The value entered into this field must be unique. To ensure unique values, when creating the registration form it is recommended that you create a hidden Username field and nominate it here, allowing unique usernames to be autogenerated by the member manager upon registration. This field may be used by the member for sites that have been setup for member login.

Password Field:

  

Choose a field from the selected form that represents the user's password. This field may be used by the member for sites that have been setup for member login.

First Name Field:

  

Choose a field from the selected form that represents the user's first name.

Last Name Field:

  

Choose a field from the selected form that represents the user's last name.

Email Field:

  

Choose a field from the selected form that represents the user's email. This field will be used when a member is emailed.

Opt-In Field:

  

Choose a field from the selected form that represents the user has chosen to join this membership type.

You should then enter the expected value that a user would enter into this field. For example:

  • Text box - the expected value is plain text entered by the user. Text boxes are not recommended for this field as it is very difficult to guarantee or even guess at what your users will enter.
    The following are options where the value is predictable:
  • Select list - the value being one of the selected options from the list.
  • Checkbox - the value being that which is entered on the checkbox when the form is initially created - would be entered only when the checkbox is ticked.

Other field types may be used, however one where you can control the value entered is recommended.

Mapping Field:

  

Choose a field from the selected form to be mapped - this is optional and may be used to customise your membership type into sub categories.

Select a form field to be used for mapping, then enter a value. If the user enters that value (for example 'VIC') then they will be able to see this field. If no form field is selected, or no value is entered, this membership type will use 'public' to choose if it is visible.

Example: 'VIC' = only show if 'VIC' is selected on drop down.

Invoice Format Article:

  

Enter the ID number for an article. This article should contain text that will be sent to the user upon successful completion of their membership registration.

Invoices are sent to the user as plain text. It is recommended that you register yourself at least once (therefore sending yourself a sample invoice) to test this email first.

New Membership Cost:

  

Enter a numerical value for the cost of a single membership.

Membership Renewal Cost:

 

After/when a membership expires, existing members may be given the option to renew their registration. If you wish to disable this (default) set the Renewal Cost to be -1. To enable renewals, enter a numerical value. Renewal cost is available to members only.

Allow Offline Payments?

 

Offline payments allows you to nominate non Credit Card payment types for your memberships - such as cheque, money order, or telephone payments, etc.

As the admin user, you may then nominate that a member has paid (offline) at a date later than their initial online registration.

If you wish to enable this feature, select YES from the dropdown.

When enabled, you will have access to the Message Post Cheque Payment details. This is a message that is sent to users who select non credit card payment types during their registration. Sample text is included in this message window. Please refer to this sample text and the Usefull Codes below for various information saved to the database, that you may wish to use in this email message.

allow offline payments

Enter a From Email Address, a From Name and an Email Subject for the email that is sent to this registrant type.

Membership Length:

  

Should the membership expire after a certain period of time?

If no, pick Unlimited from the Membership select list.

If yes, choose the number and length type from the select lists.

Membership Expiry Type:

  

This field affects memberships with a membership length measured in years. The field will only become active (for you to alter) if years has been selected in this field.

membership expiry type

Set to dynamic by default, the membership will expire a measure of 12 months (multiplied by the membership length) after signing up.

Financial Year - when selected, the membership will expire on the last day of June (after registration).
EG: If the current date is 1 March 2008, the membership will expire on 30 June 2008.

Full Financial Year - when selected, the membership will cover a full measure of 12 months (multiplied by the membership length), plus the additional days until the next 'last day of June'.
EG: If the current date is 1 March 2008, the membership will expire on 30 June 2009.

Calendar Year - when selected, the membership will expire on the last day of December (after registration).
EG: If the current date is 1 March 2008, the membership will expire on 31 December 2008

Full Calendar Year - when selected, the membership will cover a full measure of 12 months (multiplied by the membership length), plus the additional days until the next 'last day of December'.
EG: If the current date is 1 March 2008, the membership will expire on 31 December 2009.

Email Alerts:

  • New Member Event - To Member
  • New Member Event - To Staff
  • Renewed User Event - To Member
  • Renewed User Event - To Staff
  

When an event occurs, such as a user registering or renewing their membership, you may automatically send an email to the member and to one or more staff members.

Please note, these fields may not be available for alteration if there are no members in your database or the membership type has not yet been saved.

First, you should create a Broadcast Email for each of the different registration events that can occur in this membership type. Please refer to the Usefull Codes below to include member information saved to the database, that you may wish to use in this email message.

After you have created a broadcast email, its name and ID number will appear in the select list for each of these alerts. Choose the appropriate message for each event.

Staff email address:

  

For the email alerts mentioned above, nominate the staff email address/es for any staff that are to receive the alerts. If you are sending to multiple staff members, separate by ; if multiple.

Payment Gateway Options:

 

Once set up for your payment gateway, you will NOT need to alter this setting in most cases. Our technical staff will generally configure this for you, when securly linking your website and online merchant account.

Some banks / financial institutions that are used to register your Online Merchant Account with, may required that your website use particular 3rd party payment gateway. To accomodate this, additional payment gateways may be added to this list upon request. Please contact us if you require more information on this topic.

Modify Membership Type

To alter the membership type, select the radio button next to the ID number for the membership type you wish to edit and click MODIFY MEMBERSHIP TYPE from the Manager Options Menu on the left of the screen.

You will be presented with the same information as described above, when initially creating a membership type.

Membership Signups

If your website allows the public to signup for memberships, you will need to place a Membership Signup form and member objects (when Special Interest Groups or membership payments are required) onto the nominated pages.

Step 1 - Insert the form onto the initial sign up page

By now you should have created a form that is being used as the sign up form for memberships on your website. Most likely this form will be in the Form Designer Manager. [For more information please refer to the Form Designer section of this manual].

Please ensure that the Link page attached to the submit button on this form is the Members Payment Page as nominated in the control panel of your website (see top of this page for setup in control panel).

This initial form may be placed onto any page in your website except the Members Payment Page. In edit mode, select the INSERT button in the desired section of the page where it should appear. The insert content window will open, select Form Designer from the bottom section of this screen and then locate the form you have created. Click the Insert button next to the ID number of the correct form. The page will reload with the form in place.

Step 2 - Insert the membership object onto the Members Payment Page

Go to the nominated page where the member payments will occur. In the main content area you should insert the member type object.

In edit mode, select the INSERT button in the desired section of the page where it should appear. [This section of the page should be large enough to contain a payment form.] The insert content window will open, select Member Manager from the bottom section of this screen and then locate the membership type you have created.

Please note: if you have more than one membership type signing up via the same form, selecting any one of these will work. If you are using this form to sign up more than one membership type, select only one membership type object to insert onto the me.

Click the Insert button next to the ID number of the membership type object. The page will reload with the object in place.

Please note: this object will not appear as a payment form unless you have entered this page via the signup form (inserted onto the page in the previous step). When accessed via the sign up form, a visitor to your website will be taken through a series of steps with this member object.

Step 3 - Test the joining process

Go to the initial sign up page that you inserted onto the page in step 1 above.

Below is an example form:

eg form

Test the sign up process by filling in the form with some dummy data - click submit to continue.

After submitting this initial data, you should be taken to the Members Payment Page - as setup in step 2 above. Multiple steps may be triggered on this page. They all occur on the same page, loading in sequence until the member sign up is complete. The possible steps are:

  • Select the membership type you wish to sign up for - as a member signing up (or admin testing this process) you should choose one of the available membership types from the select list on this screen. Click the next button to continue.

    select membership type

    Upon clicking next, the button may change momentarilly to read Processing.... before continuing onto the next step.
     
  • If Special Interest Groups are available in the selected membership type, the next available step will be for the user to select one or multiple of these groups. If the user does not wish to nominate any SIGs they may continue by clicking the Next button.

    join SIG

    Upon clicking next (or back) the button may change momentarilly to read Processing.... before continuing onto the next (or previous) step.
     
  • Payment - The payment screen will load showing the selected items (title and cost per item) along with a total cost below these. The payment options (as set in the control panel settings above) will be available for the user to chose via the select list.

    select payment options

    The screen that is displayed after the Next button is clicked again, is determined by this selection. When Credit Card (or Amex / Diners Club) is selected the screen will alter to accommodate the user entering their card details:

    make credit card payment

    If you are allowing an offline payment type via a Non-Credit Card Payment, the Message post cheque payment (both this type of payment and the text are defined in the add / edit membership type settings screen) will appear. If you have opted to use this type of payment, please ensure that you have edited the Message post cheque payment text to reflect where you wish payments to be sent.
     
  • After an Online Payment has been made, the user will be taken to the Thanks Page (as defined in the Members section of the control panel). Newly registered members will be logged in. You may therefore wish to include a link to a member's area on the thank you page (if your site has a member's area). The overall layout of the thank you page is up to you.

    If your site does not have a member's area, you may insert a Member Status Object onto this page instead. The Member Status Object can be found in the Miscellaneous Objects Manager. This object acts as login form when a user is not logged in (image below left). When the user is logged in, it will display information similar to what is shown in the right hand image below.

    member status object - not logged in member status object - logged in

View Membership Signups

To view membership signups, select the radio button next to the ID number for the membership type and click VIEW MEMBERSHIP SIGNUPS from the Manager Options Menu on the left of the screen. The View membership signups screen will appear similar to the one shown below:

view membership signups

ALL users who have signed up using the membership form will appear listed in order.

If the user has entered the expected value for the OPT IN field in this membership type, their status will show in GREEN stating This Group.

For users who have not opted in to a membership type, their status will appear as Non-Member with a green Make Member button to the left of their status. Clicking on this button will prompt you to enter manual payment details for the user's membership fees. Clicking OK will then make them a member.

If a user is a member of another membership type, their membership status will also appear here.

Users may be members of multiple groups.

Registered members with a membership expiry date will have their respective expiration period appearing in the Expires column. When a membership has expired, it will appear in red.

Up to ten (10) users will appear on each page. Multiple pages will be shown by a select list appearing at the top of this table. If you have many members in your database, you may filter member records by using the filter options below the table. Simply type details into the filter text box and select a field to search by. Records may also be sorted by any of the applicable form fields. Click the FILTER button to sort.

Edit Member

To edit a user's details or membership expiration, they must be a member of this membership type.

Select the radio button next to the member you wish to alter and click EDIT MEMBER from the Member Options Menu on the left of the screen.

Here you may alter any of the details shown in the image below, including the renewal or cancelation of the user's membership.

edit member

To renew a user's membership, enter the payment amount in the text box at the bottom of this screen and click SAVE.

The Member Listing will reload showing the updates you have made.

View Transactions

Transactions are recorded for a member each time their membership is 'paid' for - if the membership is free, you should enter $0 (zero) into renewal screens to ensure records are kept.

You may view transactions for a member by selecting the radio button next to that member, and then clicking on VIEW TRANSACTIONS from the Member Options Menu on the left of the screen. This will show you a list of all alterations made to the selected user's member status.

The image below shows an example:

member's transactions

If no payment is required upon initial sign up by a user to the membership type, no records will be shown here.

If a manual renewal or payment has been entered by an admin user (even if the transaction amount is zero) this type of transaction is recorded in the Info Field 1. The admin user's ID number is recorded in Info Field 2.

Export Members

To export members from a particular membership type, select the radio button next to that membership type's ID number and click EXPORT MEMBERS from the Manager Options Menu on the left of the screen.

The member listing will be exported as a .CSV file. This file type can be viewed in a text editor such as Notepad or Excel.

Member listings are exported with the file name ExportMembersGroup_XXXX.csv (where XXXX represents the ID number for the membership type you are exporting).

Export All Members

To export ALL members in your membership database, click EXPORT ALL MEMBERS from the Manager Options Menu on the left of the screen.

The member listing will be exported as a .CSV file. This file type can be viewed in a text editor such as Notepad or Excel.

Member listings of this type are exported with the file name ExportMembersGroup_ALL.csv.

Please note: this export type will NOT show users who have signed up using your registration form, but not selected the required 'opt in' value. It will however show members registered for multiple membership types. The third column of this export file will show the ID number for the membership type the member is registered for.

Export Transactions

In Content > Member Manager, select the Export Transactions link from the Manager Options Menu. This will download a .csv (comma seperated value) file which may be opened in notepad or a spreadsheet viewer such as excel or open office (openoffice.org).

Information exported in this .csv file relates to the transaction date/amount, who and what the transactions are for. This export type is for the website owner's administrative purposes only.

Export SIG Transactions

SIG stands for Special Interest Group (see below). A visitor may sign up for a special interest group when they purchase a membership. To export a list of SIG Transactions, select this option from the Manager Options Menu in the Member Manager. This export displays member's usernames, a count of members and the name or type of membership they have. For each special membership group that has been created in your website, an additional column will exist in this export showing a count of / identifying members in that group.

Special Interest Groups

On joining or renewing their membership, a visitor to your website may elect to pay an additional fee for a Special Interest Group membership. For example, you may have a sports membership type with associated special memberships of basketball, tennis and golf. In this example, the special interest group can allow you to further customise the type of newsletter the member receives.

To create a Special Interest Group, select this option from the Manager Options Menu in Member Manager. The Special Interest Groups page will load.

If no SIG's are in the system, the page will appear fairly empty. Click the CREATE NEW button to add a SIG. The following interface will appear:

special interest groups

Description is the name by which you and the members will identify the special interest group.
Public - this option allows you to keep the group private or public. Public means that new visitors to the website may view the group names/descriptions before they sign up as official members.
Click Save when you have filled in this information satisfactorily.

How to use SIG's

Once being created, Special Interest Groups must be added to a membership type before they can be used. This may be done when either creating or modifying a membership type.

Each special interest group that exists will appear (one per line) at the bottom of the create / modify membership screen. The SIG in the image below is called Group 1.

special interest groups

To add a SIG to the membership type, enter a numerical value into the Cost textbox. Click the SUBMIT button to save changes to the membership type.

View Renewal Reminders

If you have memberships that expire, the View Renewal Reminders section of the Member Manager allows you to identify them easily. Once identified, you may also use the Broadcast Email feature to send renwal reminder notices.

Before sending Broadcast Email via this screen, please create the desired broadcast email - perhaps one along the lines of "your membership is about to expire - click here to renew" and another like "your membership has expired, click here to renew your membership".

Here, you can search for and then bulk email specific members or ex-members of your website/company.

Select the View Renewal Reminders option from the Manager Options Menu, when in the Member Manager, to access this feature. The View Renewal Reminders screen contains an array of filter options. They are portrayed in the image below:

view renewal reminders

You may search for either members who have a membership Expiring in the next... or members who's membership has already expired. Enter the time range - from 1 day to 10 years - to search and then select the membership group to filter. Click the SHOW button to show results.

expired members

Each of the members who appear in the filter results may be sent a Broadcast Email. To do this, select the intended recipients by ticking the checkbox on the left hand side of their details. To select or deselect all at once, use the checkbox at the very top of this results table.

Once you have selected the recipients, choose one of the pre-made broadcast emails from the select list below the results table.
Click SEND EMAIL to proceed. The email will be sent by the server and your web browser will reload to show the main Member Manager screen (displaying the membership types and manager options menu).

Discounting

This feature is still in development - information coming soon... If you requrie assistance with the Membership Manager, please talk to your sales representative or contact us directly.

View Daily Reconcile

Daily reconciles may be viewed for the current or any past transaction dates. To access this, in the Member Manager select DAILY RECONCILE from the Manager Options Menu. Multiple days may be selected to view at once.

Daily reconcile date selection

From this screen, please select the from and to date and time. Times on this screen are defined in 24 hour values.

The Daily Reconcile will be displayed on screen showing each transaction and its relevant data on a new line. This export type is for the website owner's administrative purposes only.

Manage Pending Payments

Pending payments are created in the system when a visitor to your website has registered as a member and nominated to pay for their membership via cheque or another third party payment type. To view pending payments, in the Member Manager, select PENDING PAYMENTS from the Manager Options Menu.

When no pending payments exist, you will see a screen similar to the one below:

no pending payments due

Duplicate Membership Type

Duplicating a membership type will not duplicate the list of members in the group. This does duplicate the settings used to create the membership group and should be used to save time when creating multiple memberships with similar settings.

To duplicate a membership type, select the radio button next to the ID number of the original membership, then select DUPLICATE from the Manager Options menu. The new membership type will appear, highlighted, at the end of the membership table. You should next click MODIFY MEMBERSHIP TYPE in the Manager Options menu to firstly alter the name for the new membership, and primarilly adjust the other settings to suite the new group. Click the SUBMIT button at the bottom of the screen when done to return to the Member Manager home screen. For more information on editing a membership type, please refer to Modify Membership Type above.

Remove Membership Type

Removing a membership type from the system will also remove all record of a member belonging to that group.

Daily reconciles will still be accessible for up to ten years prior to today's date.

To remove a membership type, select the radio button next to the ID number of the membership type to be removed and select DELETE from the Manager Options menu on the left of the screen. An alert box will ask you to confirm this choice. To continue with the deletion, click OK. The Member Manager will reload without the membership type.

Email Members

To email members, you should be familiar with the Broadcast Email feature in Aplinx®. Once the Membership Manager has been activated on your website, you will now have access to additional tabs in the Broadcast Email settings.

Here you may select a membership group and add them as recipients for the broadcast email. All valid members within the group will automatically be added.

members broadcast email settings

Useful Codes

When creating an invoice email or a broadcast email, you may use the following codes*. When the invoice is sent to the user, the code will be replaced with details relevant to their transaction.

*Please Note: These codes may not be available or may vary dependant on your membership manager setup and the email recipient. It is highly recommended that you add yourself as a test member and send the message to yourself (as the test member) before any actual emails are sent.

First Name:
Surname:
Email:
Username:
Password:
Member Type:
Payment Amount:
Other Billing Information:

  

::firstname::
::lastname::
::email_address::
%%% username %%%
%%% password%%%
%%% member_type_text %%%
%%% payment_amount %%%
%%% billing_firstname %%%
%%% billing_lastname %%%
%%% billing_address %%%
%%% billing_state %%%
%%% billing_country %%%
%%% billing_postcode %%%
%%% invoice.payment.date %%%
%%% invoice.payment.description %%%
%%% invoice.payment.quantity %%%
$%%% invoice.payment.price_ex_gst %%%
$%%% invoice.payment.price_gst %%%
$%%% invoice.payment.subtotal %%%
$%%% sum( invoice.payment.subtotal ) %%%

Please use these codes only if you know they are applicable to the email you are sending. The values shown here are related to the Membership Manager package in Aplinx® only.

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