TOPIC:

Hello,

I got an admin message that a member clicked on the 'Not a Member' link in an emailed agenda and so was removed from the Members list and moved to the Former Members list.  I assume the member thought they were supposed to do that since they were unpaid at the time (or somehow did this by accident), but has since renewed and so I moved this person back to the Members list.  Anyway, this prompted me to test out the feature.

I clicked on the 'Not a Member' link in a "Guest" account I previously created (in case we had a guest presenter, for example) and clicked on 'I am NOT a Member of this club' in the webpage that was brought up.  I got a similar admin message, except that some fields weren't filled in, including the name (i.e., Guest) and the club number.  This guest account is not associated with any phone number but does have the email address of the club.  Despite receiving the message, there was no removal of the account from the Members list.  (I suppose this is because the name field is unfilled, but why it is unfilled is unclear to me.)

I then tested it with my own account as a member and the feature worked.  I of course put myself back into the Members list.

I also explored some settings and noticed the setting associated with including the 'Not a Member' link in emails had an unchecked box.  It also said removal from the Members list (moving to the Former Members list) was automatic upon clicking the link whereas there was an extra button that the recipient would have to click.

So there are a few things here:
-the feature did not work properly for the Guest account
(-the Guest account was created in the first place because there was no way to simply put in a guest speaker in an agenda slot)
-the link got put into the agenda emails despite the box being unchecked
-the explanation should clarify that it is not automatic upon clicking 'Not a Member', as the person would now have an additional choice of clicking 'I am NOT a Member of this club' versus 'I am still a Member' on the webpage that comes up.

Anyway, I hope you're able to look into this and make any necessary fixes.  Thanks.

Vicki

So I migrated some fields from one db table to another new one and the Not a Member field was supposed to be one of those but it got missed.

I have added that and moved the associated data to the new db table.   The issue should be fixed now.  (please check on your end)  Thanks for the report!  

Hi Steve,

Thanks for looking into this.  I did some more testing and can say it's partially fixed.

I noticed that the box was checked by default after the changes you made.  So I unchecked it and sent a test agenda email to myself, and the 'Not a Member' link was not there.

Then I went back to an old agenda email (i.e., before the changes) in the email inbox associated with the Guest account and clicked on the 'Not a Member' link and it now seemed to work in moving the Guest account from the Members list to the Former Members list, as well as filling in the name and club # fields in the notifications.

Then I checked the 'Not a Member' box in the settings and did another test agenda email, but the 'Not a Member' link was still not there.  It did not come back after checking the box again.  (I didn't do a initial test email with the box checked before I had unchecked it, so it's unclear if the link might have initially been there.)

If you can look into it again, that'd be great.  Thanks.

Vicki

 

The code was still referring to the field in the old db table after I moved it.   Fixed.  Could you please check once more on your end?   Thanks much for your patience. 

Hi Steve,

I meant to get back to you earlier, but got busy with other things.  Anyway, I tested it.  Overall, the function seems to work now -- thank you!

There are a few other minor related issues (they're just wordy to describe):
- If someone forwards the email to someone else (let's say, they are inviting a guest), this other person can click on the 'Not a Member' link and unsubscribe the (first) person very easily, since there is no password needed.  Maybe it can be changed so that it is password-protected like for dropping a role.  Now I get the fact that when someone wants to unsubscribe, they don't want a fuss in case they forgot their password; so if it's not done with password protection, then maybe when they click on 'I am NOT a member of this club', there can be an email sent to their email address and they click on a link there to really confirm.  (I noticed this issue when someone replied to me and I was able to click on the 'Not a Member' link that was specific for them.)
- The explanation next to the checkbox in the settings could clarify that it is not automatic removal upon clicking 'Not a Member', as the person would now have an additional choice of clicking 'I am NOT a Member of this club' versus 'I am still a Member' on the webpage that comes up.
- For the message box upon admin login, is it supposed to say "{clubdistrict}'s", or is it supposed to be "club's" or "district's", depending on what's being logged into?  Not a big deal, but it just looked odd.  See attachment. 
- I set up an account called 'Guest' in case we have a guest speaker.  Are there any plans to generally allow selection of a guest for a role in the agenda, or is a guest account creation the best way to deal with this?  (Currently, for my club, the guest account has an email address associated with the club, so it makes it easy to forward the agenda to an actual prospective guest who's emailed the club.  So it's not a big deal for my club, but I did notice there were some other users in other posts wanting a solution to such an issue.)

I don't necessarily expect fixes to these right away, since some may be more complex, but I thought to raise them before I forget and get busy with other things again.

Thanks!

Vicki

Please try to put individual issues in different forum threads if you can remember to do that.   It is less confusing for us to respond to.

I will look into the stuff you are mentioning where appropriate, but some of these things will not be changed for technical reasons or because we are specifically intending that the relevant functionality works the way that it does.   For example, we will not provide a more direct, simpler mechanism for guests to take roles in meetings... not going to happen.  Meeting guests are not members and normally should not be getting the same access to meeting roles as members.  Obviously, there are some exceptions, such as special guest speakers (e.g. district officers), but those people are usually just members of a different club.

We welcome users' suggestions and we do refer to them for updates, but I will pick and choose only the ones that I believe are really useful to most clubs and consistent with the "ethos" and overall goals of FreeToastHost.

The {clubdistrict} issue should be fixed now.

Thanks -- I see the {clubdistrict} issue has been fixed.

Just to clarify, for the guest account, I wasn't necessarily suggesting having guests be able to have accounts -- I agree, it's not worthwhile.  What my club has created is a dummy account called 'Guest' for the purpose of the agenda preparer (like VPE) being able to select 'Guest' where there was a guest that had a role (particularly guest speaker) on the agenda, and not for the guest to be able to log in and select anything with their name.  What might be an alternative to this issue is that 'Guest' is built in as an option in the dropdown list of members in agenda roles without having to create a dummy account for it to show up, or otherwise once the agenda preparer selects 'Guest', there is some functionality to allow the preparer to type in a specific guest's name.  I don't know if this is a possibility, or would you suggest it's just better the way my club currently has it, which is a dummy account called 'Guest' and for which the email address is the club's email address?

vickiiui wrote:

...

What might be an alternative to this issue is that 'Guest' is built in as an option in the dropdown list of members in agenda roles without having to create a dummy account for it to show up, or otherwise once the agenda preparer selects 'Guest', there is some functionality to allow the preparer to type in a specific guest's name.  I don't know if this is a possibility, or would you suggest it's just better the way my club currently has it, which is a dummy account called 'Guest' and for which the email address is the club's email address?

Hmmm.... that is an interesting possibility that no one has suggested before...  kudos to you for looking at things differently.    I will be coming back around to the agenda stuff eventually.  (everybody wants more agenda stuff lol)  Could you post this in the improvement suggestions section?   Support requests get locked and eventually deleted after they have been resolved, but improvement suggestions do not get deleted very often.  (which is why I am requesting you put it there) 

I'm glad you like it!  I just posted it under the Improvement Suggestions as 'Guest in role dropdown'.

I don't know if you can do something about 'accidental' unsubscribes that I've mentioned, like where person #1 can unsubscribe person #2 simply by clicking on person #2's 'Not a Member' link.when person #2 forwards their agenda to person #1 (or hits reply and it goes to person #1).  It was a quirk I noticed.  Some potential solutions could be
(1) needing to log in to confirm unsubscribing;
(2) a link sent to the person's email address that they would have to click on to confirm unsubscribing;
(3) a notification email sent to the person after the fact, though it wouldn't prevent accidental unsubscribing, but at least the person knows to get in contact with the web admin or other officer (and this notification email would only be sent for clicking on 'Not a Member' and not when the web admin (or authorized officer) uses Membership Management to move someone to the Former Members list).

Would this fall under Improvement Suggestions as well?