TOPIC:

Paperwork submitted to Toastmasters International (TI) generates data on the TI site.
Members can update data (including 3 phone #'s, but no bios) on the TI site
Members can also update data (including 1 phone #, and bios) on the Club site.
Certain officers can update data on the Club site.
The member-data-to-Excel extract on the TI site doesn't include officer roles, and lists all 3 numbers, so I have to
a) either pick a phone # column or try to merge the 3 columns, and
b) remove officers from the extract and deal with their data separately.

That's a lot of different ways to maintain data, and those options lead inevitably to inconsistent data, without any indication of which values are the newest. There's got to be a simpler way. What do you do in your club?

Well, TM Intl does not share a data connection with our database, and we do not expect that to change.

That is why we have the current state of affairs. I think other clubs probably have the same situation--I run into the same thing in my home club.

I hope to implement an intelligent excel file import scheme in the future that would figure out which information is new in the excel file and just import that. I wish it was better, also.

Thanks for the note. Granted, the technical issues can't be solved readily. But surely there are "best practices" that clubs follow in dealing with the situation.
For instance:
Do they encourage members to update or discourage them from updating their own data on either web site?
Do they use the TI member-list-to-Excel export and import it into their Club site? If so, how do they deal with the phone numbers and the officer assignments?
Do they maintain biographies, telephone lists, or email lists independently of what's provide on the Free ToastHost website?

Thanks again.

When I create a new site, I use the export from TI, but only keep the name, education/leadership level, primary email and primary phone.
But, the data needs to be manipulated to work well. In Excel, I use formulas to merge the first name, last name and educational level. I temporarily include the office as part of their name, until the assignments are made. The phone numbers usually need to be cleaned up. Once I have them the way I need them in excel, I copy/paste those cells into membership management.

(Note: only an officer can get this information at club central, an area governor for their area, division governor for their division and district officer for the district.)

As far as the member biographies and making their profile public, I leave that up to the individual, but I do encourage that the profiles be kept up to date. None of the clubs I have set up maintain separate phone lists or email lists, as we have the information that we need on FTH.

robinrichm wrote:

Thanks for the note. Granted, the technical issues can't be solved readily. But surely there are "best practices" that clubs follow in dealing with the situation.
For instance:
Do they encourage members to update or discourage them from updating their own data on either web site?
Do they use the TI member-list-to-Excel export and import it into their Club site? If so, how do they deal with the phone numbers and the officer assignments?
Do they maintain biographies, telephone lists, or email lists independently of what's provide on the Free ToastHost website?

Thanks again.

Every club does things a bit differently. For clubs that want to showcase their members (via Meet Our Members) as a way to promote their clubs, they will push getting the bios and such entered and up to date. In some clubs, the admin will log in as members and update bios for them. Consistency in bio content may be a concern, so having some sort of bio template to follow is one approach to achieve consistency. My view is that the member bios and photos tend to benefit larger clubs and clubs that are actively promoting their clubs for membership growth.

While the excel copy paste into Membership Management is fine for a new club, I really do not recommend it for existing clubs that have a lot of role history. Reason: If you replace member info in such a way that the system thinks you are deleting a member, you can end up losing role history for that person. For that reason, be very careful about overwriting member info in Membership Management.

One thing I do for my club is have a Distinguished Members page. I do this to highlight my club's DTM's and most experienced members as a way to increase our credibility to a prospective new member looking at our website. For that page, I have a specific bio form that I created for gathering the page content. The form basically just enables me to create two meaty paragraphs about each person: one paragraph about the person's background, personal and career interests and accomplishments; and the second about their experience and accomplishments in Toastmasters. You could do something similar (a bio form) for each member, if desired.