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Eliminate Multiple Member Logins on Your Site

The Dilemma

Our clients commonly use third party web applications to provide unique or specialized member or customer benefits. These unique applications / content often require separate logins in order for the member to access each application and this can result in the member needing to keep track of several different login IDs and passwords. 

One user / many applications  =  Many login IDs and passwords

The Solution

Implement Membee’s Member Single Sign On (MSSO) service.  That way your member can use their Membee login for Membee features like the Profile as well to gain access to other secured applications or content on your site.

One user / many applications  = 1 login ID and password

Making it easier for your member to login to all areas of your website means that they will stay on the site longer and their experience when they visit your pages will be more pleasant.

Reduce Workload

Having multiple logins for your members also creates more work for you and your staff since you have to develop, communicate, and maintain multiple usernames and passwords for each member.

With MSSO implemented,  you can even use Membee's Programs & Access Roles feature to define subsets of members within Membee who are the only members permitted to access a specific section, page, or feature in your third party application or site. For example, a content page that is only visible to the members of your Board of Directors committee managed in Membee.  To give the Board permission to access that part of the website all you need to do is add the person to the Board of Directors Committee.

What you Need to Implement MSSO

You will most likely need the assistance of your web developer or the developer for your third party application.  The developer needs to have experience in working with standard authentication protocols and the third party application developer must be a registered third party application developer with Membee.

Getting up and going is easy by simply following these steps:

1. Review the MSSO Documentation including the Technical Reference Section with your developer.
2. Create the program and any associate roles (if needed) within that program within Membee.
3. Add the login capabilities to your application/site - see the Technical Appendix section of the MSSO Documentation.
4. Test the third party application using the new page in the application by using a person's username and password stored in Membee and try to access your third party application or site

Take a look at he Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce site at http://www.greaterkwchamber.com to see a site for one of our clients who has implemented MSSO on their site. This third party site has a member's only content area.  Access to the secured areas of their site is managed through Membee.

 

Use Membee’s Social Login to Tear Down the Login Barrier to Member Participation

Member login has become a dilemma in professional membership management as more and more member benefits took the form of content and features on member organization websites.

“We need to place content and features behind login to reserve the benefit for our members but the login prevents the consumption of these benefits by the very people it is intended for, our members.”

That’s the problem with a locked door – it’s locked. There has got to be a better way!

What is Social Login?

It’s simple. It is the ability for the member to login to “members only” content (a content section of your website) or features (the member’s profile) using one of their social network identities (usernames and passwords).

A few days ago, we quietly released a powerful new feature in Membee entitled “Social Login”, that allows your members to login to any “members only” feature or content on your website using either their Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Twitter, or LinkedIn username and password. A username and password that they remember and likely use every day (in 2011, 50% of Facebook’s 800 million users logged in each day).

As usual, we have developed detailed “how to” steps on how to plunk this new feature into your website but, in this post, we’d like to focus on why you shouldn’t delay in launching Membee’s Social Login feature. We’ll also quickly touch on seven of the really big capabilities that will have you and your members loving this new feature.

Why Should We Use This Membee Feature on Our Site?

There’s tons of research out there that confirms a lot of the things most of us long suspected about the fundamental member participation barriers created when you place content behind login. We did find one consumer study performed by Blue Research and funded by Janrain that aligns with the member behavior we have witnessed over the years.

The Challenge

The Solution

Let the member use a username and password they remember and take advantage of the following:

Some Highlights of Membee’s New Social Login Feature

a) Support for the Top Five Social Network Identity Providers

The last data we looked at shows Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, and LinkedIn accounting for the vast majority of social network identities used by people worldwide. In fact, if your member has a login identity on a social network, chances are, it is one of these – a 93% chance.

Some close scrutiny of the login identity market share data shows a couple of other identity providers ranked ahead of LinkedIn in terms of total share of social network login identities.  Remember the goal here – make access to your “members only” features and content as easy as possible for members.

Business people of all types use LinkedIn and business people (and their companies) are members so including LinkedIn despite its lower (much lower, down around 11th place in total share of issued usernames and passwords) ranking is important because it is popular with members. So, we moved it up the list.

b) The Member Chooses the Login They Want to Use

As the consumer research above clearly indicates, the last thing a member wants is another username and password that they need to keep track of.

Giving the member the choice over which of their existing social network login identities they wish to use on your site actually has a positive opposite effect. Having the choice actually encourages participation and consumption of the great member benefits you have secured behind login.

 

c) It Doesn’t Matter Which CMS You Use to Manage Your Site

Whether you manage your site in WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, or one of the other popular content management systems (CMS), you can still use Membee to manage access to “members only” content by utilizing Membee’s recently upgraded “Member Single Sign-On Service (MSSO)” which now fully supports this new Social Login feature. The advantage to members is that they enjoy a true single sign-on experience and only login in to your site once. Whether they access their profile first (a Membee feature) or members only content  your web developer has secured using MSSO or in the opposite order, the member only needs to login in once!

d) “Members Only” Features Can Automatically Recognize a Returning Member

The best login is no login at all. If your member tells their social network site to “keep me logged in” then Membee can use this setting to eliminate the need to present the member with a login page.

Instead, Membee will welcome the member back to your site and remind them which social network login they are using to access “members only” content.

In one click of the mouse, the member is authenticated (logged in) transparently and is off to the secured content or Membee feature.

In our example, “Bill” has decided to use his LinkedIn identity to access the “members only” content.

e) The Member Gets Convenience While You Maintain Complete Control

Even though the member is using one of their social network identities to access your “members only” content and features, you still maintain complete control over the member’s access and you can remove that access at any time.

Technically, when the member chooses to use a social network identity like their LinkedIn ID as an example, Membee is “associating” that social network ID with their identity in Membee. When a member uses their social network identity to access “members only” content, Membee is using their social network identity to look them up in its structure to then determine if the member should or should not have access.

As a result, if you “deactivate” the member’s access in their record in Membee, you are turning off their access regardless of which social network identity they have been using. In our example, deactivating “Bill” will instantly remove his ability to access “members only” content and features using his LinkedIn ID. Bill can access his LinkedIn account normally, he simply lost access to your members only content and features.

The member gets great convenience while you maintain control over access.

f) Not Ready For Social Login Quite Yet?

No problem! Membee’s new login functionality still allows the member to use their email address as their username and lets them setup a password that is familiar to them.

In our example, member “Jane” has complete control over the password she decides to use and if you decide not to accept any of the social network identities for login then those options are not presented to her.

Even with this option, the number of login-related inquiries from members is reduced substantially because they set their password to something familiar to them.

g) It’s a Membee Widget So It’s Easy to Deploy

Since the new login capabilities are configured in Membee as a “widget” that you in turn, drop onto a page in your site, the member gets great capabilities right from your site, not from some foreign page that raises flags and/or prompts questions.

Like all Membee widgets, your web developer can style the widget to use your site’s fonts, spacing, and layout design.

Ready to Get Started?

We’ve worked hard to develop detailed step-by-step instructions to walk you through deploying this great new Membee feature. We have even included steps, complete with screen shots, to complete the one-time setup steps within the social networks themselves that permit Membee to use their user identities for login.

It’s all here, just follow the link below (remember to have your Membee username and password handy):

http://membee.zendesk.com/entries/20662423-social-login-making-secured-access-easier-for-members

Make More and Save More in 2012

At the beginning of the New Year, we like to take stock of our plans for new features and enhancements whether they are just around the corner or a little farther out into the year. We take time to look at the non-profit environment to examine the challenges our clients will be facing in the coming year and consider how we can best enhance and expand Membee to meet those challenges.

Global predictions for economic activity in 2012 indicate that most economies will remain sluggish. Given such an environment, non-profit organizations must work hard to increase revenues and reduce expenditures. We are looking at additional features that we can incorporate to help your organization achieve both of those goals. 

 

Here are our areas of focus for 2012-

Help You Increase Revenues:

• New Member Onboarding – Create new online methods for you to add to your membership roles. Online new member onboarding will increase membership numbers, reduce administrative burdens by automating setup, and add to membership dues income.
• Events – Look at the events online module with a view to helping you bolster online event registration numbers through further simplifying event registration.  More online registrations mean more revenue.
• E-billing – Encourage the use of e-billing by simplifying deployment, which can improve timelines for collection of your Accounts Receivable by making paying their bills easier for your members.
• Billing – Examine ways that Membee can be used to bill for other recurring sources of non-dues revenue both online and within the software.
• Gifting / Donations – Enhance the ability for you to use online methods to collect contributions and make it easier for your members to donate.

Help You Reduce Expenditures:

• Batch processing - Wherever possible boost the ability of the software to batch process information (an example of this is the Batch Membership Management Report).
• Online Profile – Encourage the use of the online Member Profile by adding new features and making deployment easier so that members manage and update their own records saving staff time.
• Login – Make the login process more member friendly.  An easier login process will result in fewer inquiries and a better user experience. Making it easier for members to access self-serve components leverages the power of Membee’s online modules to save time and engage your membership.
• Events - Enhance functionality within the software to save more staff time and set the events module up to handle a greater variety of event tasks.
• Simplify Billing Templates – Simplify the process of setting up billing templates to reduce errors and shorten the learning curve for new or junior staff members.
• E-billing – Make deployment of E-billing easier with a view to reducing the amount of staff time spent preparing and sending manual bills. Simplify billing templates to reduce entry errors on setup.
• Manual Payment processing – Improve the ease and speed of manual payment processing.
• Integrations – Encourage a greater level of integration with other online tools to extend your ability to use member information with other tools, just like the integration with MailChimp allows you to use the power of MailChimp with member specific emails.

Watch for changes to the software to help you achieve your goals and to make the online experience for your members easier so that they are more engaged with your organizations.

Membee Future

We need your input.  As these objectives become proposed changes in Membee, we need your feedback BEFORE the feature is developed.  Remember that you can submit a ticket with an idea of your own at any time.  You are the closest person to your business and know what you need.  We are always happy to hear your suggestions.

Wishing You a Very Happy New Year and Much Success in 2012!

Membee Reminder - Year End Reports

For many Membee clients the end of the calendar year is also the end of their business year.  We just wanted to remind all of you accounting gurus out there that it is wise to run a series of year end reports to give you a snapshot of the membership and financial activity for 2011.

Historical Snapshot:

Along with the usual financial reports like Accounts Receivable, Cash Receipts, and Account Balance reports you might want to consider some of the other useful reports in Membee’s repertoire. 

• Often overlooked is the Parameters Report which can give you a very quick number of records for each status when you run it for the Organization Person Status.  You can also get a list of GL accounts set up in Membee by running this report on GL Accounts.
• A Billing Information report can give you a summary of all of the information on the Billing Templates for your member records.
• A Dues Invoice List can give you a list of all the invoices generate during the year.
  
• The Totals By Item Report is a quick way to get summary totals for various transactions like: Credit Memos, Invoices, Payments, Receivables, Write Offs or Transaction Activity
• The Transaction Activity Report provides a list of financial transactions within a date range.
• If you have set the membership billing and event items to track the New Dollar / Retained Dollar values this is a good time of year to run the reports.  You can use them to analyze where your revenue is coming from and answer questions like “Are new members attending and supporting my events?”
• Coming Soon! - Watch for a new report called the Check for Missed Invoices Report which is coming soon.  That report will allow you to run a check to make sure that invoices that should have gone out haven’t been missed.

As well as being a snapshot in time, a collection of the CSV versions of these reports over a five year period could be used in Excel to provide all sorts of trending data.   You could analyze your membership join and drop dates or use the financial reports to generate an analysis of your membership dues revenue for example.

Data Consistency:

This is also a good time of year to review your records and ensure the data consistency of your records.  Reports that can be used to help you with this include:

• The Parameters Report can be used for data  clean up too because it will give you a snapshot of the items in your list.  Run it on Categories to make sure you don’t have duplicate categories in your records or on Cities to make sure that there is no duplication there.  For example one of your staff may have entered St. John’s as St-Johns or Saint John’s.  You probably only want the city name entered in a particular way.  Seeing the list lets you easily identify those data inconsistencies.
• The Data Exceptions Report helps you to identify records where there is no category or no email address for example.  You can find the holes in your data records so that you can make an effort to fill in the blanks as a project for the new year.
• A Listing Exceptions Report can help you evaluate listings in a directory to find missing important information like blank phone number fields or members with no listing at all.
• The Verification Report displays which groups a member belongs to, what listings they have, what their dues are, etc., etc.

Happy Reporting!

Merry Holiday Wishes From Membee

The holidays signal the end of one year and the beginning of a new one and they are a great time to take a breather and spend some well deserved quality time with family and friends.  This time of year is also a great time to take stock of the past year.

We have been busy bees this year and when we stopped and looked back at some of the changes and enhancements added to Membee, we were pleased with the work that has been done.  Some changes were big and some were small but all were designed to make your work easier or better in some way.

 

Here is our top 10 list of changes to Membee for 2011:

1. The Batch Membership Management Report
2. The New and Improved Directory with SEO Optimization
3. Enhanced Email Templates- Customization and Default Settings
4. New Org and People Entry forms
5. Type Ahead Fields Added Throughout the Program
6. E-billing From the Quick Event Sale Screen
7. IE9 Redevelopment
8. A NewBee – Get Started Guide in Help
9. Help Desk Chat
10. A Complete Re-Write of Help Articles and the Addition of Videos

Don’t bee shy.  Add a comment and tell us your what your favourite changes were this year.

A Reminder – Membee Holiday Hours 2011 / 2012

Membee's offices will be closed on December 26, 27, 30 and January 2 in observance of the holiday season. We will be open with limited staffing on December 28 and 29. As usual, we will continue to monitor all systems 24 X 7 X 365. We hope that you have an enjoyable and safe holiday season! We'll be back to regular office hours on Tuesday, January 3, 2012.

And finally the most important message of all

Happy Holidays to You From Membee!

Membee Users Gain Inside Track

Attending a user's group meeting gives Membee users an advantage, value, a voice, and connections. We were pleased to once again have the privilege of attending the semi-annual Ontario Membee User Group.  The meeting was graciously hosted by the Guelph Chamber of Commerce and was held at the Delta Hotel in Guelph, Ontario on October 27-28, 2011.

What do you have to gain by attending a User Group Meeting?

Advantage – Attendees get a first-hand, exclusive look at new features

Kathy gave the group a sneak peak at coming enhancements that include:

• the New Profile Widget Control to make configuring the Online Profile page a breeze.
• the redesigned look of the New Profile Page that makes the Profile easier for your members to update.
• Social Login to your members an option to use their Facebook, Google, Yahoo, LinkedIn or  Twitter logins or to choose their own password.
• the redesigned Person Entry and Organization Entry Forms to speed up entry of new member records.
• Authorization Programs and Roles will allow you to set roles for Groups and Committees so that they can be used on your website to restrict access to certain web pages.  Think - A Board of Director’s page that only the Board can see.
• New Member Onboarding which will allow brand new members to sign up and pay online from your website.

Value – Attendees get hands-on training on new features

Kathy presented a session on setting up the New Profile Widget which will be released in the next few weeks. The attendees are already a step ahead because they have seen the new widget in action and will be ready to go once it is added to the software.

Anita walked interested users through a session on setting up the Events Feed and creating an Events Feed Facebook App.  The events feed automatically lists and promotes select events on your web pages and Facebook page.  For how to information see: Promote Your Events Using Membee's Event Feed on Your Website and Facebook Page.  (Remember to have your Membee password ready.)

 

Voice – Attendees have a direct influence on software enhancements

Attendees at the meeting have an opportunity to provide direct input into the future of Membee by participating in highly interactive user feedback sessions. Users help Membee identify and rank the best future enhancements. An example is the new Person and Organization Entry forms unveiled at the meeting which were a direct result of feedback from from a previous meeting.

 

 

 

 

 

Connections– Veterans users share experience  & NewBees share fresh perspectives

Attendees are asked to come prepared to share their successes and ideas.

 One person’s association was interested in trying E-billing and an experienced user was able to share their success.  She said,  “Since we implemented e-billing and Beanstream, outstanding Accounts Receivable have gone way down."  Thanks for sharing, Nancy! 

 Next Time -

If you are from the Ontario region and couldn't attend this meeting mark you calendar for next year.  The next meeting is tentatively scheduled for April 26-27, 2012.  To make sure your name is added to the list please contact Wendy Brousseau at the Guelph Chamber of Commerce. This group also continues the connection year round by staying in touch using a Facebook page.

Do You Have Any “NewBees” ?

What do you do if you have hired a new person who has never used Membee and you don’t have a lot of time to train them?  You give them a link to the I'm A "NewBee" - Get Started Here article! (Make sure you add them as a staff user first because they’ll need their username and password to access the help system).

Start Your “NewBees” Off Right

The I'm A "NewBee" - Get Started Here article is one of our “new and improved” help articles.  In case you haven’t noticed, we have been posting updates to much of our documentation.  Most of the new articles contain short videos that walk you through the steps so that it is just like being online with a support agent. 

The NewBee article will:

• walk your new staff member through a series of short videos to orient them to the program
• suggest other articles to help them learn the basics
• tell them how to keep up to date on changes

Subscribe to Stay Up to Date

If you would like to stay current on changes you can subscribe to the Sections of  “Help From the Hive” or “Official Membee” that interest you.  Just click on the envelope icon at the top right-hand corner of the Section.  You will automatically receive an email when additions to that section are made.

Even seasoned users can learn new things!

Vote on Your Favourite Articles to Help Us Improve

Please vote on the articles to let us know which ones you like.  That helps us to know which articles you find most helpful so that we can pattern new articles after the ones with the most votes. 

You can find the Vote Icon at to bottom of each article.

If you are the first one to vote the link looks like this:
If you like the article too the link looks like this:

Don’t forget to vote for your favourites.

The Future Membee Forum

What is a Future Membee Forum?  It’s an opportunity for you to tells us what you think of our ideas.  Future Membee is an area in Help where we will post our plans for future enhancements or other topic areas where we want your input and feedback.  We will post topics, plans, or questions and your feedback will influence how we design and build our enhancements.  You will also be able to see input from other users and perhaps even share a few of your own pearls of wisdom.

We think face to face sessions are wonderful but we don’t get to see or talk with all of you and we still want your feedback.  Future Membee is another way for us to gather information and for you to tell us what you need.

The First Topic – Participation / Non-Participation Reports

We are excited to have just posted our first Future Membee topic, “What do you want a Participation / Non Participation report to be able to tell you”.  Please go to the topic to take a look at our plans, give us your feedback, suggestions, or ideas and see what other users have to say too.

You can get to the Future Forum by clicking on the Help Link at the top right-hand side of any Membee page.  In the Official Membee section you will see a new Forum Topic called “Future Membee – Your Input Please!”.  Just click on a topic name to see the discussion about that topic.

To have your “Say So” just enter your comments into the “Add a Comment” box at the bottom of the page and click on the Save Comment button.  You can also attach a file if you have something you would like to share. Your comment will be added to the top of the list.

Subscribe to the Future Forum

Here are the steps to subscribe to the Future Membee forum:

1. Click on Help
2. From the Home page Click on “Future Membee – Your Input Please!”
3. Click on the Subscribe Letter Icon
4. You’ll see a notice saying “You will receive emails with updates made here 

Now whenever a new article is posted in Future Membee you will get an email letting you know.

You can also subscribe just to a particular Future Forum Topic so that you will see what others have to say as they post their comments.

This works for any of the other forum topics or specific articles too.  You can subscribe to as many or as few as you like.  If you decide you don’t want to continue to follow a topic simply click on the “Unsubscribe” icon.

New Western Membee User Group Forming

Thanks to Linda Kitchen and the staff of the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce a new Western Membee user group is forming patterned after the Ontario Membee User’s Group. This group is open to any interested Membee user in Western Canada or the U.S. The Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce will host the first meeting for the new user group sometime next spring in beautiful Victoria, BC.   As with any group of this kind more attendees equals more and better ideas so Linda is looking for anyone who would like to be a part of the new group.

Interested in Attending? 

Please Contact:

 

Why Belong to a User Group?

Attending user group meetings gives you a chance to learn a little bit more about Membee and how others are using the software.  It is also a great opportunity to learn from peers and share best practice ideas. Whether your organization is a Chamber of Commerce, Trade Association, Professional Association or Volunteer Non-Profit Association you face many of the same challenges:

• How to serve your membership with limited resources.
• How to generate extra income.
• How to complete your tasks in the most efficient and effective ways.
• How to come up with innovative ways to keep your members engaged, one of the keys to membership retention.

Members of the Ontario User Group consistently tell us that there is great value in attending these meetings so we would like to encourage our western clients to take advantage of this terrific opportunity. 

Interested in Starting Your Own Group?

Please contact us at support@membee.com.  We can connect you with other users in your area and help you get started.

Planes, Trains, Automobiles

All great ways to get to the Ontario Membee User’s Group meeting on October 27-28, 2011 in Guelph.  The members of that group take the time out of their busy schedule and use all means of transportation (planes, trains, and automobiles) to get to the meeting.  Past meetings have included sessions that provided participants with:

• An opportunity to network and share best practice information with their peers in other non-profit organizations of all types.  The best practice information has saved staff time and provided innovative ideas using Membee for generating income.
• Training on new and coming enhancements to Membee. The participants often receive training on things that haven’t even made their way into the production version of the software yet.  This provides a great opportunity to “hit the ground” running when the new features are released!
• A chance to provide face to face feedback to Membee staff.  They tell us what is important to them, discuss great ideas for new features, and offer constructive criticism.  These sessions are the part that we like the most! Many of the ideas generated by this group have already found their way into Membee.
• Sneak peeks at the new things our developers are working on and reviews of significant recent improvements they may have missed.

Here at Membee we believe that user groups are a great idea but we wanted to see what the participants think so we spoke to a few people who have attended meetings in the past to get their perspective.

Soumidh Mondal at the Real Estate Institute of Canada, Toronto, Ontario  (1 Hour Drive)

“One of the best things about attending the meeting is to see what's up and coming in the software. That's pretty neat. An example of this is the redesigned directory.  I can tell you one of our members, whose listing contains a picture and social media links, is a member of several other associations. He called to tell us that we are the only one of those associations who not only take the member's social medial info but who displays it publicly on the directory so that people can find and click on the links. We are one of the first associations to promote social media links and have jumped ahead of other organizations and we learned about this by attending the user's meeting.

Another benefit is that we learn from others in different organizations.  For instance, if you talk to 5 different people who use the software you get 5 different perspectives and you always learn something.  I was able to speak to others already using E-billing about their experiences and now we are almost ready to roll that out here ourselves.  We heard from others who were selling different features in the directory to generate new income and are now charging for images in the directory.

Even though the participants are from different kinds of organizations we have common interests.  I may not work for a Chamber of Commerce but they have many of the same problems as I do.  It is like if you have a shoe store or a clothing store.  The merchandise is different but the money and the transactions are the same.

The other thing that I like is that the meeting is one great way to tell Membee what I want from the software, what I like, and what I think needs to be fixed.

What is most important is the ongoing learning and becoming better and more efficient. The bottom line is that it may cost you once to attend the meeting but, in my experience, that money is translated into savings in data entry time on an ongoing basis.  Plant a seed to grow a tree!”

Sharlene Sissons - Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce, Sudbury, Ontario (5 Hour Drive)

“The best thing about the user groups is the peer to peer sharing that takes place.  We learn about the innovative ways that other people are using the software and I take my ideas with me and share them too.  You learn a lot more about the software by talking to others who use it.

One of the ideas that came out of one of the last meetings was a User Group Facebook page that I find very helpful.  It means that you can ask a question of the group at any time, even when you are at home.

The other thing the meeting gives us is an opportunity to put forth our ideas and suggestions.  We discuss the ideas and vote on them and I think this influences the direction the software takes.”

Dale Bennett – Membee, Calgary Alberta (Plane – 4 Hours)

"Our goal is to be the best membership management system out there.  We think that getting great feedback from the horse’s mouth helps us attain that goal.  Here at Membee we are always pleased to be invited to participate and are happy to send our staff whenever possible.  Nothing beats collaborating face to face."

The Ontario Membee User’s Group meeting is once again being graciously hosted by the Guelph Chamber of Commerce. If you are in Ontario mark your calendar for October 27 – 28, 2011.

Thanks to everyone who took the time out of their busy schedules to talk to us.   Thanks also to Wendy and the staff at the Guelph Chamber of Commerce for the championing this meeting and for inviting us to attend.

If you are interested in starting a user group of your own please contact us.  We would be glad to provide help to get you started.  Contact support@membee.com.