Walt Bilofsky
My feedback
231 results found
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12 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
shared this idea
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208 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
We use bundles for household memberships. Postal mail can be sent to the bundle administrator.
We keep address and contact data only in the bundle administrator's record. One of the fields is "Address couple as". This has to be hand-entered for each account, although the field can be fairly easily computed using a spreadsheet export, exceptions fixed by hand, and reimported into WA.
There are problems doing this. For example, we wanted to email to parents with children in a certain age group. That data is in the bundle administrator's record, so there's no way to pull email addresses for the other spouse/partner.
Many of these problems could be solved by finishing the implementation of secondary/alternate email addresses, the top wishlist feature with 465 votes. https://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8825614-allow-secondary-alternate-emails-for-members
<rant>I'm really tired of getting weekly invitations to seminars on how to communicate with our membership, while WA ignores for years the wishlist features that we need to do just that.</rant>
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
We dealt with this by using a dummy email address for the other members. For example, if fred@aol.com is the primary, then his email-less wife Jane could be fred+j@aol.com, and similarly for the kids. WA accepts this address.
Jane can log in, and can register for events, but of course can't get email.
I don't know if this would work, but possibly Jane and the kids could all have their secondary email address set to the family address. Their registration emails would bounce from the dummy address but go through to the family address.
Does this help?
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15 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
As I said, we have to use bundles because WA doesn't permit two independent email addresses. With the secondary email, both addressees must have the same email preferences. Many of the couples in our club want to have different individual settings.
As I said, there are 453 votes for that feature. Whoops - now it's up to 462 and at the top of the wishlist by a huge margin.
I'm getting tired of the constant emails inviting us to seminars about how to run our organizations. WA, please put those resources into giving us the features we are telling you we need in order to do just that.
Walt Bilofsky
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3 votesWalt Bilofsky
shared this idea
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486 votes
Team Husky
responded
Sorry for the late update.
The first step was finished and emails can now be carbon copied to contact’s alternative emails. To do so the contact fields which store the alternative emails must be explicitly marked on the email setting page.
Unsubscribing will unsubscribe all alternative emails simultaneously because they all belong to the very same account. The person clicking “unsubscribe” is warned about this on the unsubscribe page.
For now we paused the development of this feature. but not for good. :) So I’m changing this wish status back to “collecting comments”.
Thank you everyone for a valuable feedback.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
This feature would solve a member communication problem for us.
Our memberships are mostly two person bundles. There are 37 contact and member fields that apply to the whole membership, so these are only entered for the bundle admin. (Maintaining those fields for both would create a lot of problems.)
I need to send an email to both members based on one of these fields - say, the zip code. I can create a saved search to select the bundle admins, but there is no way to create a saved search to select the bundle members based on the zip code stored under the bundle admin.
Using a bundle is a stupid way to store a two person membership. The only reason we are forced to do it is to allow each member to set their own email preferences. If this wishlist feature were implemented, I could do the required search.
But that's not possible. So I can't use the fancy new email editor; I have to export and create an email list to be used outside WA.
Member communication is one of the most important functions of WA. This is the top wishlist item by a wide margin. Please help us communicate with our members.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
I second Robin's call to allow selection of additional email fields for an email to be sent to.
I just spent a lot of time preparing an email to go to a search of our members with children, only to realize that it will only go to the primary member and not the spouse, because the member info, including kids' names, only goes in the primary member's record. (Yes, we could duplicate all the member info for the secondary member, but that's a lot of work and has other drawbacks.)
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
Thanks for the initial implementation of this in release 5.16: https://help.wildapricot.com/display/DOC/Release+5.16
But this won't help us merge our husband-wife memberships. Having two emails is the only reason we use bundles for those, and that creates other problems.
This feature won't help because typically the two people have different email preferences. If they can't individually reduce their email stream from us, members will either read fewer of our emails or else unsubscribe.
For those who need invoices copied to a financial contact, it would be helpful for that contact not to have to wade through event announcements and email blasts.
So I hope you'll work on the ability to set preferences for each secondary email.
And how are you handling unsubscribe in this release? This should be in the documentation.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
If you're not going to allow the members to set separate preferences for primary and secondary emails, then at least do not let one email addressee unsubscribe the entire account.
If a secondary email unsubscribes, it should remove "Automatically send copies to secondary emails." It should not unsubscribe the primary email. The unsubscriber(s) should be warned that all secondary emails will unsubscribe from all types of emails, not just the type they are unsubscribing from.
If the primary email unsubscribes, and there are secondary email(s), they should be told that the secondary email(s) will also be unsubscribed and asked to confirm.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
Thanks for the redesign, which has a lot in it. It gives us some good tools, and there are obviously complicated implementation issues constraining what you are able to offer. I see one small and one serious problem.
1. Can secondary emails can receive a type of email and the primary member not receive them? It's important to allow this. An executive might want to receive newsletters but only have his assistant receive event workflow.
2. The serious problem is the Unsubscribe link unsubscribing all emails on the account.
Member communication is critical to an organization. Unsubscribe handling must be accurate and not lead to undesired results. As designed, one email recipient can unsubscribe everyone on the account, cutting off all our email communication with the membership. An unsubscribing member is likely to be irritated and in a hurry, so may not take the time to read and understand what they are doing.
Here's what I suggest;
Currently clicking Unsubscribe brings up:
member@org.com - please confirm: do you want to unsubscribe from email blasts?*
[Submit] [Cancel](* - or whatever type of email)
Ideally the Unsubscribe link would only unsubscribe that addressee, not other addresses. Let's try to come as close to that as we can.
The Unsubscribe link should not automatically unsubscribe all email addresses connected to an account.
If the clicker is the primary address, or is the only secondary address on the account, then no problem, just unsubscribe their one address. This assumes you have taken my suggestion #1 above; if not, then you have to tell them that the secondary will also be unsubscribed unless they make it the primary, and give them some choices.
If they are one of several secondary addresses on the account, then their Unsubscribe link would give:
secondary1@org.com - WARNING: secondary.2@org.com shares your email preferences. So it is also subscribed to receive email blasts.
Do you want to unsubscribe all these addresses from email blasts? [Yes] [No] [Explain]No or Explain gives:
All the email addresses on your account, except for the login email primary@org.com, share the same email preferences. To only unsubscribe secondary1@org.com, you must remove it from your account completely.
[Edit your profile to make that change] [Go back to unsubscribe all addresses] [Cancel]Finally, every email address that is unsubscribed should get a confirming email telling them how to resubscribe.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
Most of our members are couples (two person bundle). If the Bundle member doesn't want emails, we don't want to force the Bundle administrator to opt out too.
So in order to make use of this feature, we will have to have two fields - one with the Bundle member's email address for our directory and the other that can optionally be filled in with the Bundle member's email for them to opt into emails.
We could set this up initially by exporting all the Bundle members who have opted in to emails, and then importing their emails into the new Secondary Email field. (First it would be necessary to switch roles in those memberships where the Bundle administrator opts out but the Bundle member opts in.)
Initially I filled out the survey (the comment field isn't working) that this wouldn't work for us. But I think this way we can make use of it. (And I'm glad of that because I always agitate for partial solutions soon rather than perfection eventually.)
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
Thanks! One secondary email address would satisfy our club's needs.
Please provide user profile settings for each email address to separately opt in or out to:
Workflow emails
Event announcements
Email blasts
SubscriptionsAn error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
It looks like only the primary member (what WA calls the Bundle Administrator) can renew a membership.
So we have the touchy duty of telling our members (mostly couples) to please renew, but we only consider the husband (usually) qualified to do it. The wives might well find this offensive.
I hope I'm misunderstanding this. But if not, could you please provide an option for all bundle members to renew?
Or even better, implement the suggestion https://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8825614-allow-secondary-alternate-emails-for-members so we can get rid of bundles entirely in our organization.
Walt Bilofsky
supported this idea
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An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
Katya, yes, my club needs the ability to turn emails on and off for each of the two email addresses, independently.
But my suggested design gives even more control than that.
And since it is an extension of an existing setting, it will be familiar to users.
In our case, we need to create a second member just to have the additional email address. If you implement my design, we could export the existing preferences for the second member, tweak the spreadsheet, and import the preferences back as the preferences for the second email address.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
Your design says this is intended to cover cases where two people, such as spouses, share a single membership.
That's our situation. However, in many of our memberships the primary member doesn't want to receive emails, and the secondary member does. Regardless of who gets emails, we want both the primary and secondary members' email addresses in our directory.
This design does not allow for that.
Here is my suggested addition to your proposed design:
Currently each member has the following email preferences on their profile's email settings tab:
Workflow emails
Event announcements
Email blastsI suggest that you add a fourth one - Subscriptions.
Then provide two columns of check boxes, one for the preferences for the primary email address (login) and one for the secondary email address. The secondary address itself would be a system field.
This separates the question of who is the login email from who gets which emails.
It also gives the member better control over email flow. For example, an executive may want to receive announcements and e-blasts, but want workflow emails to go only to his or her assistant. My proposal allows that control.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
@Keith: I like that design. Then we could each name the field(s) appropriately for our organization. For us it would be "Spouse or partner's email," but for another organization it could be "Assistant's email".
If adding a field type is a problem for WA, a less flexible way to accommodate more than one alternate email address would be to permit a secondary email address field like "tom@aol.com,dick@gmail.com,harry@yahoo.com".
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
Ah, but that's not the only reason. We want the spouse's email in the directory for other members to see and email to her. We want it in the database when we export it to create our printed member directory.
Of course we could make a separate field for it. But then when the spouse email changes, the member would have to update it in two places, and they would probably not know to do it, or not bother.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
Evgeny, if I'm understanding this design correctly, it lacks one point of flexibility.
For our couples members, we need a field for the primary member's email and another for the spouse or partner's email. The spouse doesn't always want to receive copies of emails.
Under this design, the spouse's email would have to be entered twice, once under "Spouse's email" and then again as this alternate email (if the spouse wanted to receive emails). This is a complication for the member maintaining their own profile.
Can you enable the secondary email field for all contacts (or all members), but then put a checkbox in the member's profile so each member can decide whether the secondary email address will receive copies of emails?
This would still not address John Schroeder's issue below, which our club also has, where both people in a couple need their own email preferences and identification. For that, they would both have to be contacts in a bundle membership. Not all memberships would need to be treated that way, although that would create a complication for the admin.
This proposal would also not address the need for more than two emails for a membership. But it's a good start. Our club hopes it can be implemented soon.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
We are coming up against a number of limitations in WA in doing our first membership renewal. This is one of them.
We want to send out a renewal email listing all the contact information for both the member and spouse/partner, so they can update any changes. WA can not insert the bundle member's information into an email sent to the bundle administrator. It's silly to send out two emails, each with one spouse's information.
The fix is to have one login for the membership, with both the member and spouse/partner's information. And we can do that - except that we need to keep the partner's separate account because of that email address.
Please accommodate this situation in WA soon.
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373 votes
Evgeny Zaritovskiy
responded
I merged another very similar thread into this one, they should be solved together – the registration to multiple events should be simple and fast if possible. There are a number of suggestions in comments on how to achieve this.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
We avoid the strait-jacket of WA's registration system whenever possible by creating zero cost events with an additional cost item for number of guests in the party, or for meal choices.
Only when we need to use features like attendance limits do we put our members through registering for themselves and "guests", which is usually their spouse, and then we have to explain carefully that this is "additional guests."
We're lucky that we're a small organization with relatively uncomplicated events. I feel for groups who have to wrestle WA's registration system into working for anything more complex.
Even a simple thing like allowing a zero cost "extra cost item" would help us win some of those wrestling matches. Why can't that get done?
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109 votesWalt Bilofsky
supported this idea
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115 votesWalt Bilofsky
supported this idea
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9 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
This is why I never use the app.
Because I am a full admin, my password is impossible to remember, so once I'm logged out I'm out for good.
Walt Bilofsky
supported this idea
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170 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
My club president just asked me to provide a facility for members to exchange needs and thoughts during the pandemic, while we are all staying home and our club is shut down. All I could offer is the forum, which as discussed for many years does not fill the need.
Here's what would:
1. Include full text of posts in Immediate forum notification emails.
2. Include a link marked "To reply to this post ..." that goes to the post.
3. Tighten the subject line to feature the topic subject and remove unnecessary words.
4. When a user posts, automatically subscribe them to that topic with frequency Immediate.
5. Default topic subscriptions to Immediate instead of Daily.Is this something you would be willing to prioritize in the next release, to support your customers and our members at this incredibly stressful time?
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(This repeats my post from the listserv thread https://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8825587-listserv-i-e-ability-to-submit-forum-posts-by-ema . Perhaps this suggestion is bogged down because WA is fixated on a more general listserv capacity. The implementation effort should be modest and I hope it will get more attention as a forums feature.)
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
There used to be a roadmap that was updated periodically. Could that be revived?
And then anything not on the roadmap would be "This is not in our plans right now."
It would need to be understood that a roadmap is a snapshot, not a promise, and things may move down as well as up.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
There are a lot of good ideas out there, and they can't do everything.
I count 13 Wishlist items with more votes than this one. And there are some with fewer votes that probably have more impact.
It's frustrating when we want to run our organization better but need a new feature to do that. All I can say is that our club looks better and runs smoother with less work since we got on Wild Apricot. I'm not happy waiting for new features but it's part of the package.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
We now have another need for this feature.
Up until now, our administrative group could communicate with our club just by sending an email to our (non-WA) mailing list. But that is becoming unusable due to more stringent email validation practices.
Trying to get them to use the WA email system will be difficult. It is a multi-step process. The UI, particularly the text editing, is quirky. They don't need all the formatting - they just want to send an email.
If we could subscribe all our members to a forum, we could give our administrative group access to the forum page. This would give them a much simpler UI for just sending out a message.
No one will actually read this forum - it will just be a vehicle for sending emails to our club.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
I think you're looking for "Managing email subscriptions to forum updates" - https://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8826331-managing-email-subscriptions-to-forum-updates , with the addition of linking a group to a forum.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
In addition to default subscriptions, the admin should also be able to specify default notification frequency. As is, everything defaults to daily which is not always the best choice.
The Forum gadget should have settings for the default notification frequency (immediate, daily, weekly) for subscriptions to (a) the forum and (b) individual posts.
The Member profile will need four : immediate, daily, weekly and default. It would initially always be "default", so that changing the forum default would change any subscribed member unless they had selected something else.
I mentioned this in the Wishlist thread https://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8825587-listserv-i-e-ability-to-submit-forum-posts-by-ema . But these two are related and the design for one should accommodate the other.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
Since this feature is going to be part of the implementation of listserv functionality,* the admin should be able to set protection for subscription to a particular forum the same as for common contact fields: admin access only vs. contact can change.
In other words, the admin should be able to set whether the user can subscribe or unsubscribe to the forum.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
As we discussed in this thread, forums could be used to provide most of the functionality of a listserv : http://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8825587-ability-to-submit-forum-posts-by-email-to-use-fo .
But that will require this feature to have the full benefit; otherwise the lists will only be opt-in which is ineffective for most situations.
Walt Bilofsky
supported this idea
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An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
[quote user="OlegN"]
We have finished design and want to share progress with you. We have redesigned email settings and extended subscription options for event announcements and email blasts as well. See details in presentation below.
[/quote]
The slideshow is a private Google doc. Please make public.
[quote user="OlegN"]
We are planning to
* - Add new Email Settings page, which will allow administrators to:
* Setup default forum subscriptions for new contacts
* Bulk subscribe existing contacts to forums
* - Extend Email settings page in Contact details to allow subscribing to forum topics
* - (most likely) Add similar subscription settings for subscription sources[/quote]
This will be helpful.
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47 votesWalt Bilofsky
supported this idea
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An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
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275 votesEvgeny Zaritovskiy
responded
Please review results of our analysis and design:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1aBh3RKOIAbC-YOkpQtRJ8kv9kH3ZlXSID7Ezl1bCAlg/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000Post your comments/ideas right here. Until we see major disapproval, this is what we will develop in one of future releases.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
My club president just asked me to provide a facility for members to exchange needs and thoughts during the pandemic, while we are all staying home and our club is shut down. All I could offer is the forum, which as discussed for many years does not fill the need.
Here's what would:
1. Include full text of posts in Immediate forum notification emails.
2. Include a link marked "To reply to this post ..." that goes to the post.
3. Tighten the subject line to feature the topic subject and remove unnecessary words.
4. When a user posts, automatically subscribe them to that topic with frequency Immediate.
5. Default topic subscriptions to Immediate instead of Daily.These are from my post three years ago.
Is this something you would be willing to prioritize in the next release, to support your customers and our members at this incredibly stressful time?
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
Thanks for the clarification, Dmitriy.
I would strongly encourage you to first design a solution based on the original suggestions to expand forums to provide listserv functionality.
Then you can find more modern ways to implement or extend that forum functionality in the mobile app.
Why do I suggest this? Younger people these days - speaking generally - use texting and messaging apps to communicate. Older folks still use email and many do not take full advantage of smartphones. Lots of people use forums. All of these groups of people are represented among your WA end users.
If you begin a new design based on mobile functionality, you will cut off a large portion of your end user base.
So first fix the shortcomings of the functionality you already have, before doing something entirely new - even if it is more interesting.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
Dmitry, what do you mean by "we mostly think about mobile solution instead of direct implementing listserv"?
Do you mean you are prioritizing resources for the mobile app now and deferring listserv?
Or do you mean that you plan to provide a mobile solution in the place of listserv?
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
Searching on "listserv" will bring up this much-discussed feature.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
The Wishlist is set up for customers to give you input on specific missing features.
What we lack is a support forum more suited to exchanging tips with each other and with your support staff about ways we have found to use WA and work around issues and problems.
We've discussed this before, and I maintain it will cost you less staff time in the long run to have their answers visible to multiple customers instead of just the one who asks, and for users to be able to help each other and reduce the load on your support.
Lacking that forum, I'll do what I can here to free you up for managing improvements. :)
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
Thanks for your response.
We talk a lot on the wishlist about what WA doesn't have, and the things we need to work around, but overall it is a tremendous asset for us. Since switching, we've been able to advertise events, get registrations, have options for online and at-the-door payment, and look so much more professional than our old website with less effort, even though we are a volunteer organization. Our members are more engaged and our membership records more complete.
I also appreciate your plan to implement top wishlist items this year, and the features you have already added. I particularly like your workaround for color coding events; it has made our calendar more attractive and useful.
As a programmer since 55 years ago, I've always looked for the most results from the least effort. You at WA have a more meticulous and thorough process and look for complete solutions. This serves you well, and it's necessary in implementing large systems with hundreds or thousands of different users. I understand that it takes time and resources.
I'm just hoping to persuade you that my fast and cheap approach will be beneficial for this particular feature. :)
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
This feature has the 9th highest vote total of the suggestions not already being worked on. It can be largely addressed with modest development resources. I know you don’t like partial solutions, but please don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
With apologies for mostly repeating myself, here’s a design that can make this better, in two or three steps:
Phase 1:
1. Include full text of posts in Immediate forum notification emails.
2. Include a link marked "To reply to this post ..." that goes to the post.
3. Tighten the subject line to feature the topic subject and remove unnecessary words.
4. When a user posts, automatically subscribe them to that topic with frequency Immediate.
5. Default topic subscriptions to Immediate instead of Daily.This will provide a lot of the functionality of listservs. It’s a big improvement for relatively little effort. It requires no UI changes or additional mechanism inside WA. It shouldn’t require much testing since it only affects the content of the email notifications and one subscription setting.
Phase 2: Provide some functionality for admins to mass subscribe members to a forum. For example, add a “Subscribe to forum(s)” function to search results. Or add forum subscriptions to member record export and import. No need to include mass unsubscribe; members get an unsubscribe link in notification emails.
Then later, or instead, implement "Managing email subscriptions to forum updates": http://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8826331-managing-email-subscriptions-to-forum-updates-941 . The design is already there and just needs a little tweaking.
This will get almost all listserv functionality. The only difference is having to click a link to reply instead of replying by email, and there are advantages to having it that way: keeping the chatter down and reducing the email load on the servers.
I hate to beat on you guys. I know there are a lot more needs than resources. But doing at least Phase 1 gets you a lot of customer satisfaction for relatively small effort. I’m trying to get an online discussion going in our club, and the existing forums put up barriers that don’t have to be there.
Thanks for your consideration.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
You say above:
"The biggest challenge is how to enable this without overloading our servers with email traffic. This can ramp up quickly."
There are two ways you can reduce this load:
1) Require the user to click a link in the email and go to the forum in order to reply, rather than allowing them to just reply to the email.
2) If you do allow reply via email, let the admin optionally set the forum so that email replies go to just the sender of that email, rather than to the whole forum.
I've mentioned both of these before, but want to highlight that they will help solve the server load problem.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
Those needing this as a critical function may be interested in our interim workaround. Our old website used GNU Mailman. When we switched over to WA, we didn't want to lose that functionality and have people complain that the new site was worse than the old one.
So we still use the Mailman listserv. My co-webmaster implemented a nightly API task which keeps the mailing list synchronized with our member list in WA.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
Another important detail (if it hasn't already been mentioned):
The Forum gadget needs to have settings for the default notification (immediate, daily, weekly) for subscriptions to (a) the forum and (b) individual posts. Currently the default is "daily" but for a good discussion listserv or forum it should default to immediate.
Note that a thorough implementation of this would actually have four notification settings in the Member profile: immediate, daily, weekly and default. So changing the forum default would change any subscribed member unless they had selected something else.
Reviewing the latest design (1/14/16):
I don't see the ability to specify whether replies go to (a) everyone and post on the forum, or (b) only the author of the post, and not be posted on the forum. As mentioned below, if you don't provide this then you have not provided listserv functionality.
You don't say that the subject line of the email notifications will be improved as Oleg and I discussed last year, down this thread. This is also important to get the users to pay attention to the emails.
I again note that if you implement everything in your design except the ability to respond by email, you will have 90% of the benefit of this feature with maybe 25% of the work. The message recipient will still have an easy way to respond using the link in the email. So if that can make this happen faster, I urge you to do it that way first and add email response (if it is needed) later.
Walt Bilofsky
supported this idea
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An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
Evgeny, I just noticed a serious design issue in your October 5 comment below.
Kim had emphasized the need to allow for email replies to go to (a) the full forum, or (b) only the individual posting.
You replied "The design we created works simpler: email reply posts a comment (or event a new topic) into a forum and then each participant is notified according to their notification preferences on the forum."
So you only allow (a) - reply to the full forum.
This would not meet your goal to provide listserv functionality, which almost always includes this admin setting. It would create a problem in having effective group communication with forums.
As Kim said, "Almost always I choose (b) as the default to avoid the slew of reply-all's that just say "Thanks!" or "I agree." or similarly trivial messages that just annoy the majority and cause people to unsubscribe because of too many emails."
Please revisit your design and allow the admin to specify option (a) or (b) for each forum. All this requires is for the reply-to address on the notification emails to be set to the forum reply address for (a) or the email address of the poster for (b).
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
Good catch, Kim. Yes, very important. Choice (a) is for a discussion list. Choice (b) is for an announcement list. Both are needed.
Just to clarify choice (b): In this case the listserv sends an email with Reply-to the sender, but From is still the email address of the list. So Reply will go only to the sender. If someone consciously wants to reply to the whole list, they must use Reply All, which will go to the sender, any cc's (from a forum there won't be any) and the entire list.
In this Reply All case, the listserv needs to look at the other addressees on the email (for a forum, only the sender of the previous post) and not send them a duplicate email, even if they are on the list.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
As I see it, there are three pieces to this (restating what I posted earlier):
1. Include full text of posts in Immediate forum notification emails. Include a link marked "To reply to this post ..." Tighten the subject line.
This should be simple and should be fast-tracked.
2. Implement "Managing email subscriptions to forum updates": http://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8826331-managing-email-subscriptions-to-forum-updates-941 . This is already designed and should be prioritized.
At this point, you would already have full listserv functionality except for the requirement to click a link to reply (not a huge problem IMO, and will help keep the email traffic down) and moderation (not in the current design but should be, IMO).
Then at a later date, consider adding:
3. Post reply via email (and maybe moderation of posts?)
When our club goes live on WA this month, as a temporary workaround we will keep our existing Mailman listserv. We are implementing a cron job using the API that will automatically keep the Mailman mailing list synchronized with the email addresses and preferences in our WA members database.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
Fantastic!
(Edit: The other half of the listserv functionality will be Admin control of forum subscriptions http://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8826331-managing-email-subscriptions-to-forum-updates-941 , which the roadmap http://help.wildapricot.com/display/DOC/Product+roadmap currently shows in the development queue.)
Could I also suggest that you consider (now or later) tightening the subject line of the immediate notification?
Current header:
("Members' Chat is the name of the forum.)
Suggested:
The From field is sufficient to identify the organization; it doesn't need to be repeated in the subject line. If we want it there, we could make the forum name "TYC Members' Chat."
"Summary" is still good for a digest.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
[quote user="OlegN"]In scope of Listserv we plan to change subscriptions to forums, so they will contain full text of topic/reply.[/quote]
In view of the delay, can this be split off and implemented sooner? It seems like a low effort change.
You already include the full text of the post in a Topic subscription.
Could you please just do the same thing for Forum subscriptions? (At least for Immediate notifications; maybe also for Daily and Weekly.)
(Edit:) This would provide most of the full Listserv functionality with very small effort. The vast majority of members could just follow the discussion in the emails. For the few that want to reply, clicking a link in the email is a speed bump but not a huge one. (It might even filter out some noise.)
When we transition to WA shortly, there will inevitably be complaints about things that don't work the same as the old system. We need some benefits. This would be a big one.
Members have mostly tuned out on our listserv emails. This would let us set up different interest groups as announcement forums. Members could subscribe to just the email (forum notification) streams they want. But it needs the full text in the email.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
[quote user="OlegN"]This is better to leave requests in related thread http://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8826331-managing-email-subscriptions-to-forum-updates-941 if there is any or create new - otherwise it is nearly impossible to find and prioritize them. [/quote]
OK.
Another problem with forums and email is that the email only contains a link to the post. It should contain the entire text of the post or the first part of it.
I have posted this in the related thread http://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8826256-forum-include-full-posting-text-in-email-digest , but note it here because most people following this thread are interested in the more general issue of member-to-member communication.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
I hope this will be implemented swiftly.
This is the remaining stumbling block for our webmasters to propose WA to our Board of Directors. We're facing the same hassle as so many others in this thread of maintaining our existing listserv in parallel with WA when the whole point is to consolidate.
So we really need this and the associated Managing email subscriptions feature http://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8826331-managing-email-subscriptions-to-forum-updates-941 .Additional helpful features:
* Ability to link a particular forum to group membership, so that anyone joining/leaving the group will automatically be subscribed/unsubscribed. If I understand correctly, at present a forum could be placed on a group-only page, but the subscribe/unsubscribe would have to be done by the individual members (see #3 above). And could the member leave the group and still get forum notifications?
* Ability to moderate (pre-approve) forum posts. This becomes more important when texts of posts are included in email notifications. -
40 votesWalt Bilofsky
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221 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
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I repeat this comment from over a year ago. It's simple and won't take a lot of your resources. If you refuse to let us promote our own organization, at least stop forcing us to promote yours (and confuse our members into the bargain)!
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If we can't brand the app, how about at least removing the WA brand from it? The members don't know what WA is, and shouldn't be seeing someone else's brand if they can't see ours.
So give the app a generic title like "Your Membership" and replace the apricot logo with a membership card icon.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
+1 on remaining logged in. I no longer use the mobile app because my password is unmemorizable (being an admin) and I don't carry it around. Once the mobile users' app kicks me off, I can't log in again until I get back to my home PC - where I no longer need the app.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
If we can't brand the app, how about at least removing the WA brand from it? The members don't know what WA is, and shouldn't be seeing someone else's brand if they can't see ours.
So give the app a generic title like "Your Membership" and replace the apricot logo with a membership card icon.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
As much as I love WA, that's not the brand that will build a connection between our club and the members. Having our club's name and logo on the app will impress them incredibly.
And what a feature for WA to advertise: Your organization gets its own mobile app! (No, you can't say that now - all you can say is that members can use WA's app. Appearance is everything here.)
Android has the ability to change icons and app labels. As soon as the member logs into the app the first time, it should replace the app name and logo with one that we can specify in the Member app admin settings.
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An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
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This is already in the mobile app settings, for the features supported by the app. There is only one member directory but it can be customized.
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7 votesWalt Bilofsky
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18 votesWalt Bilofsky
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An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
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Part of this problem is the inflexibility of the process.
Only two emails can be sent before the renewal date, and only two after. We give two months of grace period, so don't start the renewal push until after the date.
So part of this request could be accommodated simply by allowing a negative number for the number of days before or after the renewal date. This would make all four timed emails available on whatever schedule works for the organization.
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5 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
This could be done by moving the payment options into the registration type. And it would be helpful if a registration type could be made available only to non-members.
It would not deal with the issue of a member registering but failing to send in a check, but apparently the OP is OK with that, as are we.
Walt Bilofsky
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76 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
The deadline to give caterers our attendance count is never at midnight - it's always in the middle of the day. WA forces us to either cut off registration before we have to, or go in to turn it off manually. Please make this feature part of the solution, not part of the problem.
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53 votesWalt Bilofsky
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154 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
WA's November Newsletter email was headed "6 WAYS TO BOOST YOUR VOLUNTEER PROGRAM IN 2020."
I can think of one more way. Implement this feature request.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
Has anyone found a good workaround for this? Maybe another web-based service that we can link to in order to get this functionality? We have tried Signup Genius but it doesn't do exactly what we need.
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
Has anyone found a workaround for this? Maybe another web-based service that we can link to in order to get this functionality? We have tried Signup Genius but it doesn't do exactly what we need.
(The main thread for this is at https://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8825953-volunteer-management-functionality and this should probably be combined with it.)
An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
commented
We just went live on WA last week, and I was reminded of the absence of this feature.
There are at least two other threads on this point:
http://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8827204-track-volunteer-jobs-for-events
http://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8825620-tracking-event-volunteersCan they be combined?
Walt Bilofsky
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An error occurred while saving the comment Walt Bilofsky
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I'm evaluating membership support software for our small volunteer yacht club.Without this feature, we can't consider WildApricot.
Turns out that if the image is left at the original size, and no size setting is changed, the image is responsive regardless of its size.
So I would now recommend that when the user selects Original Size in the size menu, instead of setting the image to that exact pixel size, the pixel size setting should be removed entirely, as if the image had just been inserted. This would fix the responsiveness problem.