The membership management system recently implemented for NAAEE (March, 2006) is a database of member profiles combined with profile maintenance, search, export, renewal and member-to-member networking capabilities.  There are currently two levels of access: administrative and member.  There are also a number of automatic updates performed by the system.

A membership profile consists of:

•  - active designation (yes/no)
•  - flags (invalid email, invalid mail, pending, for deletion, needs attention)
•  - membership type(s)
•  - login, password and password hint
•  - name (prefix, first, middle, last)
•  - email address
•  - postal address (can include international addresses if needed, permits inclusion of business name for work addresses)
•  - address type (work/home)
•  - work phone/ home phone/ fax numbers
•  - membership dates (joined, last renewed, expiration, life member start)
•  - other membership categorizations (e.g. area of expertise, current profession, various commissions or special interest groups as defined by NAAEE)
•  - newsletter preferences and opt in/out
•  - audit trail (date, type, person, notes)

An Audit Trail Through System Logs

If you'd like to know the history of a member within the organization, the system automatically logs member profile changes (by administrative staff or by the member) including status changes due to renewals and expirations and events such as the member joining a Commission.  Each member has a log of events that have affected that member's record and who made those changes to the member's record.

Listserv Maintenance

Email is a powerful tool for reaching people.  As a result, NAAEE uses Email listservs to manage communication between NAAEE Committees, Commissions, and Councils.  This same tool also manages the membership version of EE-News.  Changes made to any group of members associated with a listserv result in an automatic update to the respective listserv.  Listserv membership is also updated daily based upon member status (active or expired), helping define group participation as a member-only benefit.

Administrative Features

An administrative user can add, edit, inactivate and/or remove any member profile at any time. Contact Paul Nowak if you would like a administrative login to our test system.

There may be more than one administrative user, allowing administrative duties to be shared.  The audit log of any change made to a member profile will indicate the administrative user who made the change. Members may also make certain changes to their own profiles and these changes are also logged in the audit trail. See the section below on Member Features for more info.

Additionally, administrative users may view and/or add a freeform note to a member’s interaction/change log at any time, thereby maintaining a log of steps taken to resolve issues or address needs so that other administrators can review and act appropriately.

Member profiles can be ‘flagged’ by administrators, and these flagged records can be retrieved by specific searches or, if desired, by listing on the administrators’ home page so they are visible at login.  It is possible to present a daily email of flagged members if necessary to ensure timely action is taken. 

Flags currently within the system are:

• Invalid email (do not include this user in email renewal lists or attempt to email from a search result – currently used by the system to qualify the member for renewal mail merge and disqualify the member from renewal and other group email)
• Invalid mail (this member’s mailing address is not valid – not currently used by the system, but should be used to qualify renewal exports for mail merge)
• Pending (membership requires validation – this is intended for future use with online member application whereby the user is granted full access upon application, but payment verification is required to maintain active status longer than some defined interval – not currently used by the system)
• For deletion (this record is no longer needed – duplicate, deceased, or some other reason where it is awaiting removal – not currently used by the system)
• ATTN - not currently used by the system; intended as a means of marking members with unresolved requests or needs for automatic or other notification to administrators

Members may be searched by most profile elements, and the resulting subset of members (or the default, full set of members) can be exported or emailed.  This feature allows emails to be sent according to relevance in areas not covered by a special interest group listserv.

Members can be categorized and searched by member type, areas of expertise, current profession, and membership in defined commissions or special interest groups.  These categorizations, or lists, of expertise areas, professions, commissions or groups, membership type(s), cultural groups, etc. are maintainable by administrative staff, allowing updates as necessary to the categorizations that help members network. 

Administrative users can view and update commissions, councils, or any other defined special interest group.  They can assign one or more chairs for each group, and can update group members, listserv moderators, black- and white-lists, and global black- and white-lists.  These listserv and global lists are used in daily listserv member updates, so administration can be very responsive through the system to adding or removing members from various (or all) groups and the associated listserv(s).

Administrative users can define desired emails regarding membership soon-to-expire, expired, etc. as desired, and can query members based upon a range of member expiration dates to either send a selected email or to export addresses for mail merge.  Either type (export or email) selected through the renewal interface will update each included member’s interaction log with the type of renewal and date.   The system doesn’t permit the same renewal to be sent to the same member within a 6 month period.  The text of each defined renewal is editable by administration, and can include html tags as desired.  It is also possible to personalize the emails (using specific tags within the text file) with the members first and last names, system username, and email address. Email renewals are entirely manageable by administrative users and can be updated as needed and sent as desired.   

NAAEE currently uses 4 email renewal notices – expired, expiring by the end of this month, expiring in the next month, and expiring in the next 2 months.  For the present, these are triggered once a month to the members with expirations in the appropriate date range.  Automating this process is possible and may occur in the future.  The notices themselves include links directly to the membership renewal page on NAAEE's on-line shopping cart so members have a quick path to renewal and NAAEE staff have an easy process for processing renewing members.

Administrators can also maintain the text and images presented on the member login page, allowing timely, member-relevant messages to be predominantly displayed.  Allowed messages are limited in characters, and are intended to be short and to link to additional information as needed.   As many short messages as desired may be defined; all defined messages will be displayed on the member’s home page.

Member Features

Members can update their personal profiles at any time, whether they are active members or not.  Inactive members will not be visible to other members in the networking areas or through searches.  Inactive members are notified of membership expiration at login, and are denied access to the networking area of the system, but can otherwise keep their profiles updated, including their preferences for email newsletter format.

Active members can search and (will soon be able to) export or email the resulting member list for networking purposes.  Search parameters include name, commission or group, expertise and profession, and will soon include state/province and country, for regional networking.

Any member designated as a commission chair can add or remove commission members, thereby maintaining both the commission and the associated listserv.  All members can view commission memberships and chairs and active members can join or leave specific commissions, but only chairs (and administration) can add / removed any member from a commission. 

Online Renewal Options

Online renewal for NAAEE members is not currently fully integrated with the membership management system, but this integration is planned for the near future (due April/May 2006).  While NAAEE maintains a more comprehensive store, which includes memberships as well as other member resources, this more comprehensive, open-source solution is not the only online renewal option supported by the system. 

An online renewal capability was provided for KS, using PayPal, for two basic levels of membership.   With this system, members are given the option to join, renew, or upgrade (from individual to organizational membership) online, using PayPal to remit the pre-defined membership fees.  An optional donation can be added to any of those transactions.

The existing interface for PayPal performs error-checking on data received from PayPal, emails the payee after successful renewal, and emails an administrator regarding the payment.  These communications are in addition to any communications automatically sent by PayPal to either the payer or payee.  Transactions are logged both within a database table, and in a text file, should questions about payment arise.  The renewing member’s expiration date is automatically updated after notification of successful payment by PayPal

Setting up a similar online interface for other clients is quite doable.  It does require the client to create and maintain a PayPal account (there is a fee for this) and NAAEE development staff would need initial access to this account for testing (and refunding) purposes, but once functionality is confirmed, the client alters the PayPal password and secure access is in place for production operation.  Once set up, any changes to the PayPal email address for the business account will require an update to the payment processing program.

The KS implementation interfaces with the state database system, so that organizational members are visible within the EE resource database (KS online community).  This functionality is optional, but is considered a member benefit. Membership-related online benefits should be well-defined at the onset of implementation and NAAEE staff can assist with this decision process.