Major Features Coming to Membee in the First Half of 2017

Posted on January 10, 2017 in Associations, Feature Updates, Membership, Nonprofit

Membee is happy to announce some new features that will be released in the first half of 2017! Reading this week’s blog post will give you a good idea on what Membee has planned for our first couple quarters and releases, including brand new features, and some current feature enhancements. So come and join in on the excitement!

We are constantly advancing Membee and 2016 was no exception with 8 major updates to Membee (one about every six weeks or so). Many users have commented that the lineup of new features released in 2016 may have been the best yet! In case you missed it, check out the “2016: Year In Review” post for a quick review the major features released last year.

While 2016 may be hard to beat, 2017 is shaping up to be a pretty big year in the Membee new feature department. We thought we would take a minute to share with you the features that are well into our development process and are slated for release in the first half of 2017.

Profile Enhancement & Responsive Design

Membee and its predecessors have had the ability for members to update their information from your website for a long time. Members’ attitudes towards managing their own information has shifted from something “I have to do” to something “I expect to have control over”. As a result, Membee’s Profile widget is the most popular and one of the main reasons why this widget will see a major update early in 2017. Profile is getting an update with a large list of new features. A sneak peak to some new features are listed below:

Profile will be receiving a responsive design making it easier to use on your mobile devices
A big new feature is Field Groups:
- Create unlimited groups that may contain user defined categorization and/or custom fields
- Move all field groups around (not only custom groups but standard groups like address, directory listing, etc.) on the Profile page
Member can view their event and committee participation history
Member can view their invoice and payment history and print their own receipts
Enhanced file upload so members can attached unlimited important documents or certification files to their profile
A new Automation so members can review key profile information in their email
- If they like what they see, they click a link to acknowledge their review and Membee writes a note-to-file of their acknowledgement on their member record
- If they need to change something, a second link will take them to their profile for revision

This enhancement has completed development and it is entering testing/documentation in January, 2017.

A New User Dashboard

We are beginning the long process of updating the side of Membee that you use every day. There are so many things we are looking forward to improving here and we’re starting with a biggie. You are getting your own personal dashboard!

With the new Dashboard, all users will land on their own personal dashboard page after they login to Membee.

Some cool features include:

A series of information panels that include;
- My Report Favorites
- My Outstanding To Dos
- My Shortcuts
- Recent Notes to File and completed To Dos
- Notifications
  - At a glance , review what Membee automations are about to run
- At a glance synopsis Year to Date Activity
  - New members count & revenue
  - Renewing members count & revenue
  - Total members count & revenue
  - Total event sales count & revenue
- Work Smart Index (WSI)
  - WSI will look at how your organization is utilizing Membee and make concise recommendations on how to enhance your organization’s efficiency and performance through unused or underutilized Membee features
- Membee News
  - Important news about Membee’s new features, events, and announcements
- Other Feeds
  - Add one of your organization’s social media feeds to your Membee dashboard
A new menu is being introduced to the dashboard page only, but may find its way into other areas of Membee based on your feedback
All panels are moveable and can be arranged any way the user desires
User can return to the Dashboard from anywhere in Membee
User will access their own personal Membee360 analytics page from their dashboard. See “Membee360” below.

This feature is in the late stages of development and will enter testing/documentation in early February.

New Member Signup Enhancement

New member signup is often all about conversion. Making it as easy as possible for the new member to join your organization is fundamental to your ability to grow and thrive. While getting the new member is key, this enhancement will eliminate even more work for Membee users as Membee does more things automatically for you.

Some of the new features include:

Assign values to a specified parameter field automatically on signup
- The premise here is really simple. The ability to automatically categorize an inbound new member in the Category & Types fields
- Combine this with the ability to define unlimited New Member Signup widgets allows you to categorize your different types and/or levels of inbound new members automatically when they join
More control of which Welcome Email is sent
Assign Membee Access Roles on signup
Greater control over how Profile Maintenance Rights are assigned
A new membership dues proration option to accommodate an increasingly popular scenario
Ability to Sell a “Lifetime” or a “One Time Only Fee” membership
- The concept of these memberships is the ability for the member to pay once and be a member for life
A type-ahead capability has been added to the Organization Name
- It is not unusual for former members to re-join using a Membee New Member Signup widget. This type ahead capability for the Organization Name field will help Membee to accurately identify the member’s previous information and simply add to it, rather than potentially creating a duplicate.

This feature is currently in development.

Membee360: New Graphical Reporting

Gathering data is only a worthwhile exercise if it yields actionable information. Membee has always had strong reporting but we’re taking it to the next level with the introduction of a new graphical reporting tool called “Membee360”.

The purpose of this powerful tool is to answer the all important “how is our organization doing?” question.

Some of the key features of Membee360 include:

Create membership and event performance targets for your organization
Choose from preexisting or create custom graphs to compare your actual performance to these targets
From your personal dashboard, you will access your own personal analytics page where you can
- Add, customize, and organize the performance graphs that matter to you
Automate reporting to key constituents using External Analytics pages where you can
- You specify which performance graphs are visible of each External Analytics page so you can shape the page to its audience
- Create unlimited External Analytics pages
  - For example, one page for your entire Board
  - A separate page for your membership committee
  - A separate page for your finance committee
  - Etc.
- Specify who can view the performance reporting page
  - Have Membee deliver a link to the specified list automatically
Graphically compare your performance to previous periods
- How do we compare to our event sales in the same quarter last year?
- How to we compare to our event sales in the previous year-to-date?
Compare your performance to similar organizations based on
- Organization type
- By budget
- By membership size

The development of Membee360 is well underway and given the significance of this feature, we’ll have much more to show you as it nears completion later this Spring.

Your Site Not Responsive? We Can Help!

If your website is not yet using a responsive design and you’re ready for it to be, look no further!

You may or may not know that Membee provides complete website development services. We develop modern, responsive, and member friendly websites only for Membee clients. With a few hundred membership websites under our belt, we know exactly what makes an effective and appealing membership site.

We offer two fixed-priced website development packages that are built in the world’s most popular content management system – WordPress

If you’re interested in learning a little bit more shoot us an email at websites@membee.com