Memberships Process Tidy-up & streamlining

Community Tech Support | Meta
#41

Okay, an “Already a member” button sounds like an idea. It won’t specific whether they have a discount or not, but the society should know that already anyhow.

Renew buttons sound like a fair idea too. For the month before expiry or something? Not sure how to represent that in the database though, it kinda needs another membership status.

Have made you an admin. In this database “admins” are basically users who can see all the members and edit their membership details, but not their other details. I imagined that the whole committee would be admins.

#42

The ‘already a member’ should email the secretary (so they can check the membership, and set the expiry date on the membership record) but not the treasurer (since no money is coming in). A ‘renew’ button should email both, of course.

#43

Ok, so has the membership database been spammed already?
Where’d did the member “Larpers R Gay” come from and how do we stop this? Reverse order visual confirmation again?

#44

Larpers R Gay is me. Ryan asked for a few false rego’s to test the system, and Mordavia had a troll called larpersaregay. I thought I’d reminisce.

I was going to spam the database about the membership details page once we’re happy with it, rather than repeat effort.

#45

Oh.
Good to know I was getting all worked up for nothing. :stuck_out_tongue:

#46

We won’t have issues with spambots, automated users they only hit well-known software like phpBB. This is a one-off, only a manual crap artist could get in and even if they did there isn’t much they could do in it (yet - once events can be added there will be more)

#47

If that’s all the feedback then I’ll start fixing so we can get on with releasing.

Additional issues I’m aware of:

  • is not validating that required fields have text in them
  • session timeout is giving ugly SQL message
#48

Done:

  • improved handling of blank and invalid dates
  • membership number zero padding (curious what happens with over 1000 members)
  • ordered by membership status, lastname, firstname in list
  • removed SQL error on cookie session timeout
  • added extension of cookie session timeout on every page load

To do:

  • disallow html insertion
  • password verification (double entry)?
  • allow longer dates to be typed in?
  • add “already a member button” and resulting message
  • on new member email treasurer and secretary
  • on existing member email secretary
  • add “renew membership” buttons as expiry approaches? Email both.
  • check that required fields have data in them, give pretty "error messages if not
#49

I’m away for a week from tommorow.

Would have liked to finish this up today but too much on.

Back next Thu, will finish it then.

#50

Just mentioning something I noticed on the membership page.
It ask to state “Whether you are over 18”.
If we are interested in whether they are a minor or not than it should correctly read “Whether you are 18 or over”

#51

Maybe we should ask for Date of Birth instead…

#52

I think it would be better to get a clear confirmation that are indeed an adult. Otherwise they could make a “typo” in the year of birth and have a plausible denial once we found out they are underage.

#53

Well, it all depends.
Why exactly are we asking if they are over 18?

At the moment I’m thinking Craig’s suugestion is better because the statement is only going to be valid when they join nzLARPS. If they subsequently turn 18 during their membership year the we wouldn’t know.

#54

Done:

  • check that required fields have data in them, give pretty error messages if not

To do:

  • disallow html insertion
  • password verification (double entry)?
  • allow longer dates to be typed in?
  • add “already a member button” and resulting message
  • on new member email treasurer and secretary
  • on existing member email secretary
  • add “renew membership” buttons as expiry approaches? Email both.
  • check that required fields have data in them, give pretty "error messages if not
#55

Done:

  • add “already a member button” and resulting message

To do:

  • on new member email treasurer and secretary
  • on existing member email secretary
  • add “renew membership” buttons as expiry approaches? Email both.

Minor issues, may not be do before release:

  • disallow html insertion
  • password verification (double entry)?
  • allow longer dates to be typed in?
#56

Done:

  • on new member email treasurer and secretary
  • on existing member email secretary
  • add “renew membership” buttons as expiry approaches? Email both.

Minor issues, may not be do before release:

  • disallow html insertion
  • password verification (double entry)?
  • allow longer dates to be typed in?

So I’m pretty much finished. Treasurer and secretary, please check that you receive the various emails if you create a user and register. You can set the membership expiry date to in the near future to check for the “expiring soon” message and buttons.

One thing I’ve realised is that the system doesn’t automatically expire members when their expiry date passes (it doesn’t change their status to expired, that can only be done manually currently). I could probably do this by running a membership expiry script every time someone logs in, which means expiries wouldn’t be kept up to date unless people use the system. Sound alright?

#57

Assuming the emails and other changes are working okay, I’m ready to put the database live.

I guess it will need to have an area on the website, i.e. an item in the top menu. There’s not much space left up there, so will need to consider how to fit it in. Is there anything on the top menu that could be rationalised (e.g. by merging sections? )

Also, do we want to put a log in form on the home page? It could go in the right column, but it would either have to displace some other important content like the mini-calendar or go at the bottom and be hard to find…

#58

I think rationalising the top menu is a good idea. We could get rid of the ‘documents’ option easily, The project documents have links in the ‘project’ page anyway and the constitution link could be moved to either a bottom menu or to the ‘contact’ page.

As for the home page, i think it should repalce the ‘current projects’ & ‘current affiliates’ section.

Also, thanks for all the hard work you’ve put into this Ryan. It really is appreciated.

#59

I’m not sure about removing the current projects and affiliates from the front page. I think they are front-type page content, the stuff that casual visitors want to know about.

I’ve tried jamming it into the existing top menu, see this test:

nzlarps.org/new/

Ignore the fact that the rest of the content there is out of date, it’s just an old test page.

I found room by reducing the “LARP GUIDE” to just “GUIDE”, and “CONTACT US” to just “CONTACT”. It’s getting really verbose up there with all those links though.

I think we may be approaching the time for a more serious overhaul of the navigation, probably turning it into two-tier menu with main items and sub items. Don’t think that will work with the current design though.

The next thing I’d like to do is make it possible to add and edit projects and affiliates via the database. A committee member would add them, and then assign them to the owner to edit them.

Following that would be allowing users to add events, and allowing anyone logged in to register for the event online.

That sort of interactive content thing may require quite a different design to work visually.

#60

I think it looks ok, but you right, it is getting rather jammed. I still think it would be ok removing the ‘documents’ link though.