Database maintenance

Community Tech Support | Meta
#1

Here’s a thread for requesting changes to the database on the NZLARPS website.

Some immediate plans, to make life easier for committee members who are managing society memberships (requested by Rowena):

  • A new “region” field on users that will be compulsory for NZLARPS members. [color=#008000]DONE[/color]

  • Sorting of users by membership expiry date and region. [color=#008000]DONE[/color]

  • Automatic expiry of members when their expiry date passes. It may be this will not happen until the next time someone visits the website, because I don’t think I can create a scheduled job. [color=#008000]DONE[/color]

#2

[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]* A new “region” field on users that will be compulsory for NZLARPS members.

  • Sorting of users by membership expiry date and region.[/quote]
    These are done. I also added sorting by name and by membership status (which is the default). Sorting currently only happens in one direction (ascending), despite my use of a double-arrow icon for it.

Note that sorting by expiry date gives some curious results, which requires this fix sometime:

  • Fix issue with blank dates being treated as “31 Dec 1969” [color=#008000]DONE[/color]

I have also added a spambot stopper to the registration process, as we were getting automated registrations.

Regarding this change, when I first implement it members whose expiry date has passed but who are marked as “Verified” will be marked as expired automatically. This will currently affect Karen Dransfield and J. Berit Bolstad I think. Do we want to handle these expiries manually before I put this in place? We probably also want this to automatically send the users an email letting them know their membership has expired and how to renew it.

#3

[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]
Regarding this change, when I first implement it members whose expiry date has passed but who are marked as “Verified” will be marked as expired automatically. This will currently affect Karen Dransfield and J. Berit Bolstad I think. Do we want to handle these expiries manually before I put this in place? We probably also want this to automatically send the users an email letting them know their membership has expired and how to renew it.[/quote]

Thank you for all your work Ryan. I am sure this will make using the database much easier.

I can confirm that Karen’s membership expired and she was sent an email asking her to rejoin on 26 Sept 2010. I must have missed her when I updated the database. This is one of the problems with having the membership listed in two locations.

I have checked my records and J. Berid Bolstad should still be a current member - my guess is that I made a data entry error when inputting her membership, as the date was correct only the year was wrong. Thank you for noticing this, and I have corrected it now.

I do have a template I use when sending out emails reminding people that their membership is expired/expiring. I have included it below. I usually just add their name and the expiry date manually. And automatic email would be very efficient. I am happy for input on wording if people have suggestions.

[quote]Dear

Thank you for your continued support of NZLARPS. Your membership to nzLARPS expired on

Being a member of NZLARPS has many benefits. The discounts in particular add up very quickly; you’ll make your membership fee back within a few games and then start making savings.

Benefits:
• Discounts on larps
• 20% discount on Paddywhack products
• Access to members-only events
• News about upcoming events
• Voting each year for a new society committee
• If you want to run larps, we’ll fund and help you
Membership is only $20, or $15 for full-time students and community services card holders. Memberships last for a year from the date of joining.

If you would like to rejoin please make payment to:

Account name: NZLARPS
Account: 02-0290-0086913-01
Bank: BNZ 262 Queen St
Reference: your name (Surname, initial).
Particulars: Membership

Please also update your details in the NZLARPS database nzlarps.org/database.php

Thank you for supporting larp in New Zealand.

Rowena Knill
National Secretary, NZLARPS[/quote]

#4

That letter looks good Rowena. Should I also send a notice email to the Secretary and Treasurer addresses when someone expires, so you know to look out for a renewal payment and mark them as a Verified member?

This is done.

#5

If anyone’s wondering why some users appear with their names bold in the list, it’s because they’re admins (i.e. members of any committee). The admins are the only people who can see the list of users, view other users, and add groups. I added the bold in so I could easily ensure that all the correct people, and only the correct people, were marked as admins.

There is a also a “developer” permission (a super-admin, really), that gives permission to set people as admins and to delete users. At present myself, Anna, and Rowena have this permission. I haven’t made any change yet to display who has it, I’ll probably make the names bold dark red or something.

The main use of these markings is to allow easy identification of who has what permissions when new committees get voted in.

#6

[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]That letter looks good Rowena. Should I also send a notice email to the Secretary and Treasurer addresses when someone expires, so you know to look out for a renewal payment and mark them as a Verified member?
[/quote]

That sounds like a good idea.

#7

The automated expiry has just gone into place.

The treasurer and secretary should have received a couple of emails about members who expired today.

This is not the email the user gets, they get the one Rowena wrote above and it appears to come from secretary@nzlarps.org.

Let me know immediately if there are any issues, like multiple emails about the same user expiring.

#8

I received the two emails advising me of the expired members. Seems to be working well from what I can see :slight_smile:

One issue with the database, when I try and sort by branch, it sorts the Wellington users fine, but the Auckland users are all interspersed with the none users.

#9

Thanks, fixed now.

I think I’ve completed everything on the immediate list of things to do.

I’m going to take a break from adding new features, but please let me know if anything is broken or needs tweaking and I’ll fix it.

In the mean time, I would really appreciate it if we could encourage larps to try out the new online booking and character management aspects of the site for a real larp. I’m happy to help event arrangers with this, and I think arrangers and players will get real value from it.

The next feature I have in mind for the database is the ability to display articles. These could be news, how-tos, society notices, lists of resources, anything really. My thought is to load it up with past material from Immersion. It would also act as a kind of society webzine going forward, where anyone registered in the database can write contributions and they can be vetted by any committee member and then released for public consumption. My plan is to build the articles within the existing look and feel, and they can get a graphic design overhaul along with the rest of the website when we get to that.

#10

Note to treasurer and secretary: I just expired a test user to make sure the email to the user was working. Please ignore the notification email you will have just received.

The test was successful. I did this test because I asked one of the users who just expired whether they had received the automatic expiration email, and they apparently hadn’t, so I wan’t to make sure it works.

#11

To do: put “change password” onto a separate page from editing of user profile. That way admins will be able to edit other user details without having to know the password. Also, it will be clearer to users where to change their password.

To do: allow users with “developer” permission to give other users “developer” permission.

#12

I’ve just received the usual automated expiration email for my membership, and noticed it had Rowena’s name at the bottom as national secretary. It’s a hardcoded thing, and I’ve changed it to Ellen.

We may want to either make it generic (no name, it just comes from “National Secretary”) or make it configurable (can be edited in the database). Possibly we could put all the committee positions into the database, able to be associated with users, and that way we could automatically show the names of people holding positions on emails or anywhere else like the Contacts page.

#13

I like the idea of having them in the database and being associated with who is in what position. If you have someones actual name at the bottom of those emails it makes it easier for someone to respond, and to know who they can contact.

Is there anyway to change those emails about membership expiring to fire off a week or a calender month before your membership actually runs out?

#14

Okay, I’ll look into storing who is in what position in the database and using that.

Sure. Perhaps we can send an email two weeks before the expiry date letting them know their expiry is coming, and then only send the expiry email on the day they expire if they haven’t renewed. Two weeks is close enough for people to feel some urgency, but long enough for the Treasurer and Secretary to process their renewal registration. If one week is long enough to process registrations then that would be even better - we just need to be careful not to send “you have expired” emails to people who have renewed but haven’t been processed, as it may alarm them.