Kim Skimmons
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9 votesKim Skimmons
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9 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Kim Skimmons
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133 votes
Many thanks for your comments and feedback in this thread - it was super helpful for us in analysis and design of the feature.
I'm happy to announce that we're working on adding donations to compensate payment processing fees. This feature will be released later this year.Some design decisions I wanted to speak out explicitly:
1. We decided to proceed with optional donations to compensate credit card processing fees as opposed to surcharges/convenience fee.
Main reasons for this is that there are too many regulations around mandatory charges to compensate fees: it's illegal in some countries/states, there are caps on how much you could charge, etc. To avoid all of this legal complications we decided to suggest members to opt-in to compensate processing fees, as opposed to make them obligatory.
All these transactions will be recorded as donations in WA and can be later used for tax deduction.2. You…
An error occurred while saving the comment Kim Skimmons
commented
Evgeny: You should be able to give a discount for non-credit-card transactions without violating the merchant contract. So instead of a 3% surcharge for credit card transactions, set the base price higher and allow a 2.9% discount (the equivalent).
Kim Skimmons
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12 votesKim Skimmons
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49 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Kim Skimmons
commented
I'll take it a step farther and suggest being able to duplicate gadgets across pages, not just on the same page.
Kim Skimmons
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An error occurred while saving the comment Kim Skimmons
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I'd like to be able to duplicate a gadget too. Content gadgets are easy to dup by simple copy/paste, but things like directories, calendars, forums, blogs, etc. are more difficult because of all the settings involved.
~ Kim
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275 votes
Evgeny Zaritovskiy
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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 Kim Skimmons
commented
One very important suggestion on the 'reply-to' default address. This is from my experience managing Yahoo Groups listservs for many years. You need to allow the admin to specify the default reply-to address for each forum. Choices are (a) reply to the forum in which case replies go to everyone (i.e., "reply all" equivalent), or (b) reply to the poster directly but not the entire forum. 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.
I am really looking forward to having this listserv capability. Please couple it with the other WishList item to allow admins to subscribe members, have subscription option in membership app, and default subscription settings for new members.
Kim
An error occurred while saving the comment Kim Skimmons
commented
Any idea when this will be ready?
- Kim
Kim Skimmons
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An error occurred while saving the comment Kim Skimmons
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I agree with the previous comments. Having email notifications from forums is better and accomplishes the same objective.
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46 votesKim Skimmons
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171 votesKim Skimmons
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71 votesEvgeny Zaritovskiy
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Please review our current proposal: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/123zVAgAcSLQb02vC6v8zj-6qoEAEW56cJ-3ioqv5WEc/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000
An error occurred while saving the comment Kim Skimmons
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Will this ever be implemented? How hard can it be? You've already done it for forums. It's been talked about since at least 2010 and it's still in "Development Queue" status.
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116 votesKim Skimmons
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4 votesKim Skimmons
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An error occurred while saving the comment Kim Skimmons
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I'm referring to the emails that come from the WA company to admins of WA sites, not the "system emails" that a particular site generates (e.g., membership application confirmation emails) because those can be edited by the admins to include the URL macro if desired.
I'm talking about emails that WA sends to its customers (i.e., site admins) such as billing and upgrade notifications, account-related emails, even the periodic WA newsletters you send out that contain tips, information, notices about impending WA updates, and so forth. Pretty much anything WA sends to its customers.
The problem for me is that I manage so many WA sites that when I get an email from WA I'm not sure which site the email is referring to. This isn't so important for general newsletters from WA and such, but it is important when I get an email, like I did the other day, with the subject "Your Free Wild Apricot Account" and it begins with:
The account number doesn't help me quickly figure out which WA site this email is referring to. This is just one example, but there are others. Sometimes you mention the site name or URL in the email (e.g. when a site is about to get deleted due to inactivity), other times you don't. I'd just like it if you could always put the site URL somewhere consistent in all emails to your customers (like at the top or bottom of the email, or both) so that I can keep track of which emails are for which WA sites.
Does that make sense?
- Kim
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47 votesKim Skimmons
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11 votesKim Skimmons
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3 votesKim Skimmons
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Kim Skimmons
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92 votesKim Skimmons
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An error occurred while saving the comment Kim Skimmons
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Anything new with this topic? I have clients who would like this also. Right now, it seems to tell the member to contact the site administrator to change a registration.
Kim
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80 votesKim Skimmons
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An error occurred while saving the comment Kim Skimmons
commented
Would like this too. Prefer having the option to specify both opening and closing times.
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6 votesKim Skimmons
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17 votesKim Skimmons
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An error occurred while saving the comment Kim Skimmons
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Another alternative approach might be to alter the Privacy tab (in the Member Profile) so that there are two checkboxes in the Profile Access section instead of the one that is there now:
Just a thought... Thanks.
Kim
An error occurred while saving the comment Kim Skimmons
commented
Sure. Here's an example. A non-profit organization relies on corporate sponsors and needs a Sponsors page where all their sponsors are recognized. They used to simply use an ordinary content page onto which they uploaded a logo for each sponsor, but there was a maintenance issue as sponsors come and go -- they would forget to update the page -- and also there wasn't a good way to retain the sponsor's contact information in the database. So they decided to have each Sponsor in the membership database as a special type of member. That way they could capture all the information about the Sponsor that they want and they could always be sure that the Sponsor directory was up-to-date.
So the organization creates two membership levels:
Member (a human member of the organization) -- collect a full range of data on membership application: Contact Person's First Name, Contact Person's Last Name, address info, and lots of other member-specific information.
Sponsor (a financial supporter, usually a corporation) -- collect less data on membership application: Business Name, Logo, Contact Person's First Name, Contact Person's Last Name, Contact Person's Phone, mailing address info, Website URL
They have two membership directories on the site: one for Members and a second for Sponsors. The Sponsors directory is for public display. The member directory may be public or private -- doesn't matter. However, for the Sponsors directory, they really only want to show the directory page (and not the Profile page) for two reasons. 1) All the relevant information that they need to show the pubic appears in the directory listing: Business Name, Website URL, and Logo. There's nothing additional to be gained by going to the Profile page for the Sponsor. 2) They do not want people to be able to click into the Profile for each sponsor and see the contact person's name, address, email, phone, etc.because this information, for Sponsors (not for Members), is for administrative use only and they certainly do not want their sponsors being solicited by people who find them in this Directory.
The Member directory is different. On the Member directory, all the Members (humans) are displayed -- no Sponsors here. They do want visitors or other members to be able to click through to a Member's profile and see things like Contact Person's Name, address, phone number, email etc. because these fields are not admin-only for Members as they are for Sponsors.
When setting up the database fields, the default access level can be setup as either Anyone, Members Only, or No Access (admin only). The problem is that whatever setting you choose for a given field applies to all membership levels that use that field. So for a given field (e.g., Last Name), you can't set one level of access for Membership Level A and a different level of access for Membership Level B. Furthermore, field-level privacy can be set for individual membership records (via the Profile screen), but not for an entire groups/level of members which becomes a maintenance issue to remember to always manually change the field access levels each time a new member of a certain type is added. (I hope that makes sense.)
So a good (quick) solution would be to disable the ability to link through to the Profile page for certain directories or have a new type of functional page that is just a Simple Directory Listing.
A longer-term enhancement might be to implement membership-level-based field access settings so that a setting could apply to "anyone (contacts and members)", "all membership levels (not contacts)", or "specific membership levels (check all that apply)" and you could have different access settings for the same field depending on the Membership Level. But that seems hard to do and I'm not entirely sure that it's necessary. ~:)
Kim
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144 votesKim Skimmons
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An error occurred while saving the comment Kim Skimmons
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[quote user="Chief_Apricot"]Currently, changing levels is not connected to the renewal at all, As this thread shows, this is a frequent request and something our product design team plans to work on this year. [/quote]
I run into this frequently with my Wild Apricot clients. Typically, they have a fixed annual renewal date, say July 1 every year, which is the same for all levels. A member receives a renewal notification email, and on, say, 6/25 goes to the WA site to "renew" but they actually do a level change (in their mind it's a renewal and level change). [Side note: Some common reasons for changing levels are student->regular member, regular member->retired, silver->gold to get higher level of benefits. It's very common.] So they change levels and are charged the full fee for the new level on 6/25 (6 days prior to the annual renewal date of July 1). However, their renewal date is unchanged even though they just paid -- still 7/1 (six days from now) and they continue to get renewal reminder emails even though they just paid their annual fee when they changed levels.
It's very confusing for both members and admins alike. Hard to train people on how to do it because it's counter-intuitive. The bigger the organization, the bigger the hassle for the admins.
Any idea when/if this logic will be changed?
Thanks,
Kim
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182 votesKim Skimmons
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An error occurred while saving the comment Kim Skimmons
commented
Awesome :) Thank you.
An error occurred while saving the comment Kim Skimmons
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Thanks for the candor -- much appreciated. So... regarding the ~70 easier features... I wish/hope/plead that these are included (?):http://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308920-archive/suggestions/8833867-ability-to-select-recipients-for-event-announcemen
http://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8825956-late-fees-on-renewals-4846
Just askin'... :-)
~ Kim
An error occurred while saving the comment Kim Skimmons
commented
Hi Dmitry. Just wondering where the idea of linking family members' WA accounts stands, if anything has changed or is planned to change anytime soon? Here is a recent question I received from a client regarding this that demonstrates one aspect of the problem of not being able to link accounts together:
This is for a boy scout troop. There are two membership levels: adult memberships and scout memberships that are at different price points. A typical family will have one or two registered adult members and one or two scout members (4 independent WA accounts). There is not a single "family" price option -- each scout must be paid for each year as well as each adult, and a portion of each of their dues gets passed onto the regional organization. [Same is true of PTA organizations, btw, which also has the same parent/child problem as far as WA is concerned since kids' WA accounts are not linked to their parent's WA account.]
I've considered using bundles, but I don't think membership bundles works for this scenario since there are two different membership level prices and the total pricing for the membership is not at the bundle level but at the bundle member level (a summative calculation based on the number of individual members in the bundle and their respective pricing (scout or adult).) Unless I'm not understanding something about bundles.
To summarize, the outstanding issues with the current configuration are:
1. Communication/emails/invoices -- go to each individual WA account, therefore parents aren't always aware of the status of their kids' accounts unless they login as their kid.
2. Account administration -- No birds-eye view of the whole family for the parent or the WA site administrators. Parent name/address/phone/emergency contact info duplicated for each child's WA record.
3. Registrations and payments -- Not easy to register multiple family members in one step without using "guest" registrations feature.
Thanks,
Kim
An error occurred while saving the comment Kim Skimmons
commented
I strongly support this idea. I control multiple Wild Apricot websites for family-based organizations (PTAs, Boy Scouts, etc.) All of them have a need for what is essentially a "family membership" where one person, usually the parent, is the primary account contact for email purposes. The others are associated with the parents account (either contained within it or as separate "sub-accounts" that are linked/tied to the parent account).
There may be an event such as a camping trip that requires registration. For this event, any of the children can attend (usually at a discounted rate), plus either of the parents may attend (possibly at a different price/rate). We need to know exactly who is attending and their membership type so that we can send appropriate information (adults chaperones get special information, the scouts have information pertaining to them). Of course, we'd like to pay for all of this in one transaction.
Right now, what we do is create separate accounts for each adult and scout at different membership levels. When a parent registers their kid for an event, they need to login as the scout and register. Then they repeat this for each kid. Finally, to register themself, they then need to logout and login as themself to register. It's very tedious and confusing to them. Furthermore, since unique email addresses are required for each account and most of the kids don't have email accounts, we've had to make up phony email addresses for the scouts and create email forwarders to forward those emails to the appropriate parent. Big hassle.
So, yes, several of my clients would greatly benefit by being able to register multiple members at one time. Doesn't solve the unique email address problem, but maybe you could somehow incorporate the "main account/sub-account" concept into planning this by allowing one member's email to point to another's.
Kim
An additional wrinkle has to do with Bundle memberships where the bundle as a whole is allotted X number of FREE guests plus Y number of paid guests. The individual bundle members pay the individual registration price set for that membership level. However, we need to be able to control the number of guests each bundle is allowed to bring in total so that each bundle member doesn't bring a full complement of guests. Does that make sense?
Example from above:
- Gold membership level is a bundled membership.
- Assume I belong to this level and that there are 10 total members in my bundle membership (myself and 9 others).
- There's an upcoming luncheon event to which members can bring guests.
- Gold level members are free and can bring up to 4 free guests per bundle, and up to 4 paid guests per bundle.
We don't want each of the 10 members in my bundle to be able to bring up to 8 guests because that'd be 80 guests plus the 10 members (90 total max) when actually the intention was a max of 8 guests for this bundle plus the 10 bundle members (18 total max).
Other times this might be a desirable arrangement where we allow each bundle member to bring 1 guest (either free or at a guest rate) or even 2 guests (1 free and one at a guest rate).