Gordon Stewart
My feedback
27 results found
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5 votesGordon Stewart
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28 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Gordon Stewart
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152 votesGordon Stewart
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111 votes
Evgeny Zaritovskiy
responded
Merged multiple thread into this one. Please, vote (click Vote button) to increase its priority
Gordon Stewart
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10 votes
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26 votesGordon Stewart
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An error occurred while saving the comment Gordon Stewart
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We share the frustration with the failure rate of emails within a blast.
When these failures happen the system is fully aware of it and suggests that the admin attempt a re-send to the failed addressees. The re-send typically corrects the failure.
Occasional failures are endemic within communications systems and any well designed system handles them automatically as an essential feature of its design.
In this case, Wild Apricot :
1. knows exactly which failures have occurred, and
2. knows exactly how to correct them - do a re-send.
It's unfortunate that the WA designers chose to off-load the responsibility for correcting this system failure onto the admin.
In my communications with the WA help desk, I'm told that this results from the way WA sends blast emails and, unfortunately, there is no correction scheduled. -
14 votesGordon Stewart
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An error occurred while saving the comment Gordon Stewart
commented
I was almost embarrassed to submit a trouble ticket to find out what oversight I'd committed that allowed bundle members to not need email addresses.
I'm now embarrassed on your behalf to think that someone thought this was a good idea.
This issue goes back to 2011. Please explain why the system is improved by having members without email addresses. -
9 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Gordon Stewart
commented
Yes, Yes, Yes.
We're a bike club and members are frequently posting rides they plan but have no way to attach listing of the planned route. This could change much of what we do. -
179 votesGordon Stewart
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17 votesGordon Stewart
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6 votesGordon Stewart
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13 votesGordon Stewart
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7 votesGordon Stewart
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16 votesGordon Stewart
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267 votes
Dmitry Smirnov
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Even though it is not a direct implementation, I hope this could be helpful:
We just launched integration with Integromat platform, which helps to build automated workflows. We also provide several templates for quick start, and one of them allows to copy google calendar events into WA events. So if you share a google calendar for events submission, then the scenario could copy submitted events into your Wild Apricot account.
You can try this integration by this link https://www.integromat.com/en/integration/2275-copy-google-calendar-into-wild-apricot-eventsAn error occurred while saving the comment Gordon Stewart
commented
Excellent, Marvelous, Bravo !
This will be very useful, thanks.
Gordon Stewart
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An error occurred while saving the comment Gordon Stewart
commented
Wonderful, thank you so much for your progress and work on this. Looks great.
However, there is one feature that appears to be not present that would be very useful to us - the ability to upload a document with a link to it from the event description area. This would be the same as the "file" icon in the current admin version of the event editor.
We're a cycling club and we like to provide a document containing turn by turn instructions for potential participants to bring on the ride. We use this feature for all our current events and it would be extremely valuable in the member submitted events too.
An error occurred while saving the comment Gordon Stewart
commented
We too could make good use of a way for members to post their own events.
One way to approach this is to require the admin to set up a profile for the event that fixes some of the parameters - tags, enable registration, registration form, registration types, emails.
Then, the member sets up an event using this template and provides the remaining details - event title, date, location and event description....
Many of the comments here have discussed the need to have admin approval of these member generated events. I agree that this facility must be provided, but it should NOT be required. We're a bike club and I'd love to be able to give the members an option of posting a notice "I'm going for a ride on Tuesday, who wants to come?". There is normally no need to have posts like this monitored.
However there will be a few members who may abuse this privileged - It would be great to be able to put these folk in a group and specify that members of this group CANNOT use this event posting tool.
An error occurred while saving the comment Gordon Stewart
commented
I too would love to see this feature. Giuliano's description of the design from last January would work just fine for us.
Gordon
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29 votesGordon Stewart
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An error occurred while saving the comment Gordon Stewart
commented
In version 5 we can easily manage pages that are listed in a menu.
However, I have many pages that are accessed through a link from a menu page but the linked page is not in the menu. This allows me to keep the menu area fairly clean but still provides access to the linked pages.
You provide a section in Page Management called "Not in Menu" which seems to be the obvious place to save these pages. However when we select the Reorder Pages option, the Not in Menu section is specifically excluded which means that all these linked pages are in random order that cannot be managed.
The page management issue would be much easier if we could leave the linked pages which are not to appear in the menu in the same hierarchy as the menu pages they belong to.
To do this, I'd suggest that you::
1. Rename the current "Not in Menu" section to "Page Archive", and
2. Provide a way to allow any pages that are in the Menu area to be flagged as "Do not Include in Menu".This would allow us to place pages that are not currently in use but may be revived in the future in the Page Archive. It would also allow us to keep the active linked pages logically associated with their parent.
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200 votesGordon Stewart
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An error occurred while saving the comment Gordon Stewart
commented
Yes, that would be a better way to do things. However in your post here http://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8827180-event-manager-for-specific-events-only-with-limite you stated that the topic "Event-specific administrators [10260]" was now considered closed after the release 4.4 which enabled an event manager to receive copies of confirmation emails. In my opinion, the ability to cc an event admin on a confirmation email does not constitute "Event Specific Administration".This thread "Event Manager for specific events only with limited access to other events [2548]" sounds a lot like thread 10260. My suggestion to provide an event admin a way to get a dump of the registrant database falls short of full admin capability but (maybe) is a less challenging task and could be implemented on a more aggressive schedule. I hope that these threads are not closed and that we can look forward to seeing some meaningful improvements how events are managed.
An error occurred while saving the comment Gordon Stewart
commented
We use the event registration system as a way to have members volunteer for committees. For a recent event we had 72 different committees, each with their own event and committee manager. The committee manager needs to be able to develop an email list to communicate with the committee.
In release 4.4 (?) we got the ability to direct a copy of confirmation emails to a member (committee manager). This appeared to shut down all the related requests to allow a member limited management authority over an event. This need still exists.
Many of the requests to have a member manage volunteers could have been met by providing the committee chair with the ability to request an "Export Registrants" of the committee they manage.
Whether this is implemented as part of the member system (like a group) or as a by-product of being the recipient of confirmation emails (or by an API?) does not matter but this ability would completely change the way committees are managed.
The basic need is for an event manager to be able to retrieve a list of attendees and their email addresses.
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10 votesGordon Stewart
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An error occurred while saving the comment Gordon Stewart
commented
I really wish I could give more details - that's the whole problem. I tell them what (I think) they should do and the customer may say it does not work and I have no way to investigate further - without asking for their password.
My typical recommendation is : "You can pay for a registration by logging in at the club website at http://www.srcc.com . You should have got an email from the system containing a password at the time you registered. You can log in with your email address and that password and you'll see a payment screen or click on "View Profile" (top right) to complete the payment process. If you can't locate the email with the password you can use the "Request New Password" option in the login area.". Maybe that is the wrong instruction!
One frustrated customer sent me his password with a "Hey - you try it" suggestion and he's right, it does not work. I reported this under ticket 216-16F6168A-F763. This may have been a system error but I had no way of helping him (or notifying you) without his perspective.
I can understand the audit issue and how this might complicate error diagnosis and maybe my solution is not a good one, but the problem remains.
Gordon Stewart
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11 votesGordon Stewart
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An error occurred while saving the comment Gordon Stewart
commented
A scan for invalid macros would wonderful if we could do it at a high enough level. If there were a single button that invoked a scan of all emails and checked the validity of all macros, I'd say YES, even if it only scanned membership new/renewal related emails.
However, if the scan is invoked as a by-product of the "Save" function after an email is edited, I'd prefer the color coding scheme I described initially.
These broken macros are at the bottom of a cascade of design issues. Wild Apricot does not provide a way to name data fields in the member/event databases. When an membership entry form is being built we describe the data we need and that description is then used as the field name. For instance, I have a membership field "Family Member 1, do not include yourself (First and Last name) (and age if under 18)". This entire text string then becomes the field (or column) name. A year or so ago I added the comma to this description/name and in doing so broke the membership confirmation macro in twelve of my membership emails. Someone pointed it out to me last week.
So, to be of value a scan for broken macros would have to be a high level, perhaps an additional option under Settings -> E-Mails.
Of course it would simplify the field naming issue if we had the option of adding descriptive text to the data entry forms with a tool similar to the current Section Divider but without the limitations of the Section Divider.
Gordon Stewart
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11 votesGordon Stewart
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An error occurred while saving the comment Gordon Stewart
commented
Glad to hear that archived members will be able to renew.
In reviewing the actions taken after a member fails to renew, there are two opportunities for us to have the system make changes - after x days and again after y days.
After x days we can change membership level and/or change the renewal period to Never. After y days we can take these same actions but also lapse a member and/or archive him.
With the ability to have members renew from the archive, my preference would be to lapse a member after 30 days and archive him after 60. But the current tools do not allow me to lapse a member after x days, I have to wait until the y date.
Could we make the x day options the same as the y day options?
An error occurred while saving the comment Gordon Stewart
commented
I agree it makes no sense to have a member renew and still be overdue. This can only happen if the member is late by more than the membership period. A member who is five weeks late and renews does not present a problem if the renewal period is annually but does present a problem if the renewal period is monthly.
One solution would be to force the member's data into the archive when the member is overdue by the duration of the membership period. Thus a member with a monthly renewal would be forced into the archive when they are a month overdue.
In his post of 5/23 in this thread, Chief said :
To make this more flexible we decided to use Active/Lapsed status as administrator-controlled switch on whether to renew member from his prior renewal date (Active status - this situation assumes member kept using his membership privileges and thus owes back dues) OR renew from date of current renewal (Lapsed status).
This seems like it would be the best solution and the implication is that is is already available. Is this the case? I'm unaware of it.Regardless of the solution selected for this issue, the problem created by member's data in the archive preventing a member from renewing (discussed above) remains at the top of my list of renewal related issues.
An error occurred while saving the comment Gordon Stewart
commented
I understand that when a member does not renew they fall into a "Lapsed" state but at some time their lapsed period expires and they are archived - which marks the beginning of my problems.
The presence of a member's abandoned data in the archive prevents them from being able to renew and they only get a cryptic message (email address in use?) which they cannot get past. The result is that they either give up (most likely) or use a different email address or occasionally contact me and and ask what is wrong with the system. None of these alternatives is ideal or even acceptable.
For me, the ideal solution is that their membership could be automatically re-activated and their renewal date set to today's date. This is essentially what happens when I have to retrieve a member from the archive and reset the renewal date - except that I have to do it all manually and then only when the member contacts me.
This is a proposal to provide a "FileMacro" which would hold the name of a small file containing some text (html?) that could be inserted into the email at run time.
A FileMacro might look like "{resources/documents/macros/{Member_Level}name_of_snippet.html}". Note that there is a regular {Member_Level} macro embedded within this file name.
At run time the system would expand any standard macro within the FileMacro to create a valid path/file.txt file name.
When the system sees the FileMacro it would insert it into the email. If there is a standard system macro within the snippet, it too would be expanded.
For instance, FileMacro such as
"{resources/documents/macros/{Member_Level}_welcome.txt}"
when running at Gold Level would expand to
"{resources/documents/macros/Gold Level_welcome.txt}".
The system would search for that file, expand any macros within it and insert it in the email. It does nothing if the file is not found.
With this tool we could modify the text of a membership email in the same way as we can use a Macro to modify the member details at present.
This would dramatically reduce the number of custom membership emails required.
Thanks, Gordon