Kavi Help CenterKavi® Members Help
| Chapter 136. Add Individual Membership Type | ||
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Part VIII. Kavi Members Super Admin Tools | 
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Table of Contents
The Add Individual Membership Type tool is used to create a new Individual Membership Type. Membership types are typically defined in the organization's bylaws or constitution, have a cost, a duration and provide benefits and participation privileges that the membership holder can enjoy through the organization's website, mailing lists and other avenues. Set descriptive information for your new Company Membership Type including eligibility and benefits, then configure the term, availability, and whether this type is moderated, billed, automatically renewed or not. Finally, set expiration rules to determine what happens to membership holders when their memberships expire.
Each individual membership type is associated with one or more User Types, some of which confer roles that grant access website access privileges. To view a list of available User Types, or to manage these types, use the Manage User Types tool.
Back to topSet options to define the membership type, including the description, duration, access permissions and application processes.
Set which User Types are assigned through membership to convey roles and privileges. Configure the moderation step for new and renewing members. Define what happens when a membership expires without having been renewed. If Kavi Billing is installed, set membership fees.
Add descriptive information and select which User Types are assigned to individuals who acquire memberships of this type. When you are satisfied with your settings, click Next.
If you want to base this membership type on one that already exists, select that type in the Prefill list and click 'Prefill'. The information from the base type is used to prefill all membership type fields. Add a new name, then reset options or write over descriptive information as desired.
- Membership Type Name
This is the official name of the membership type (e.g., 'Member', 'Sponsor', etc.), and will be displayed on company membership signup and renewal forms.
- Description
A description of this membership type. This will be displayed to potential and current members.
- Eligibility
The eligibility rules for this membership type, including who can apply and any preconditions for membership.
- Benefits
Short explanation of the benefits acquired through this membership type.
- Display Order
This determines the order in which this membership type is displayed when membership types are listed on forms.
- User Types
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Select any User Types to be granted through this membership. User Types provide a searchable grouping mechanism and may, or may not, be associated with roles that confer Web site access permissions. This may be a default type such as 'Member' or a type specific to this organization.
Note
This list displays User Types in the category 'General (with membership only)', which are available for individual membership types. It does not include User Types from any other categories. For more information, see Manage User Types.
Set the membership term or duration, availability, and auto-renewal and expiration rules. When you are satisfied with your settings, click Next.
- Dates Available
Use this field to specify the first or last date—or both— on which this membership type will be available for signup and renewal. Leave these fields set to the defaults if this membership type is always available.
- Application Form Availability
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Use this option to specify whether this membership type is to be displayed on online application forms used by new members, by renewing members or both.
If neither, then this membership is hidden and cannot be selected by users, so it is only available to administrators. This is used in any situation where the organization wants to have an "invitation-only" membership type. Some organizations use this for top-tier memberships, or for honorary or discounted memberships.
- Duration
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Set the duration of this membership type. This information is displayed everywhere that the membership type and memberships based on this type are displayed, including membership signup, renewal and status forms, bills and invoices, and Admin area pages.
Options:
- Annual Fixed Term
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If the Annual Fixed Term option is selected, the membership duration is one year and the Start Date of the membership term occurs on the same day every year. The membership term's end date is one day before the next year's start date. This is usually synchronized with the organization's fiscal year or with the calendar year. For example, if the Start Date is set to January 1st, the End Date is December 31st. If the current year is 2007, the current membership term is January 1st, 2007 to December 31st, 2007. Next year's membership term would be January 1st, 2008 to December 31st, 2008.
The next year's membership is automatically created by the application unless membership type availability is restricted in the Dates Available option. Subsequent memberships are configured exactly the same as the first as far as fees, etc., so when membership fees increase, a new membership type has to be added. The easist way to handle this is to edit the existing membership type and set the Dates Available option to the end of the current membership term, then clone the membership type to create a new one and enter new fees and other information as necessary.
Billed membership types that use this duration can be configured to prorate membership fees for memberships acquired after the start date.
- Fixed Dates
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This duration is rarely used, but allows you to set specific start dates and end dates, regardless of the duration (e.g., the duration could be a year-and-a-quarter or some random fraction of a year). The advantage of the Fixed Dates option is that it can be used to set a date range that isn't available through other options (e.g., the Martian year).
Billed membership types that use this duration can be configured to prorate membership fees for memberships acquired after the start date.
- Fixed Duration
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Memberships of this type are good for a certain number of days, months or years from the date that the membership becomes current. Because the duration remains constant, fee proration doesn't apply.
Renewing Membership Start Date Behavior
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These fields are used to impose an anniversary date renewal model on the membership process, so that the start date of a renewed membership is set to the date that the previous membership ended. In this model, members have a series of uninterrupted memberships that have the same start and end dates every year.
If you do NOT want to use the anniversary date model, leave the date value set to zero and the 'Set a new start date based on renewal date' option selected.
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If you DO want to use the anniversary date model, set the date fields to the maximum amount of time during which a membership can be renewed online with no lapse in membership (i.e., have the start date set retroactively to the day after the previous membership expired). This time period is often set to the same value as the membership grace period, but can occur after the grace period expires to give members additional time to renew after experiencing deactivation. This time period can be no longer than the duration of the membership.
Now select what will happen when a member attempts to renew after this period has elapsed. By default this option is set to 'Set a new start date based on renewal date'. If you want lapsed members to be given memberships that begin on the date that all renewal criteria is met and the membership is approved, leave this set to the default. Note that except for the start date, these memberships go through the normal membership renewal process.
To prevent these members renewing through the normal online membership renewal processes, set this option to 'Disallow renewal and display the following message' and edit the default message as desired. Organizations that moderate new members but waive moderation for normal membership renewals should consider whether members whose memberships have lapsed by more than a year or so should still be eligible to renew online or if this option should be set to disallow online renewal so the organization can have administrators handle these lapsed memberships on a case by case basis.
An organization's bylaws specify a two-year term for Board members. A Super Admin adds a 'Board' membership type with the duration set to 2 years. The membership for a board member who joins in August 1st, 2008 has an expiration date in August 1st, 2010. This type of membership term is also known as an "anniversary term."
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- Lifetime
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An open-ended membership term that has a start date but no formal expiration date. Once a 'Lifetime' membership goes current, it never expires.
Founding members usually have a permanent place on the organization's board in recognition of the profound role these founders played in the establishment of the organization, so a 'Founding Company' membership type probably has a 'Lifetime' duration.
- Automatically Renew Memberships
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These options determine whether auto-renewal is enabled for this membership type and set the rules that control the auto-renewal process. Auto-renewal automatically initiates the membership renewal process but once initiated, the process follows the regular membership workflow, so any moderation or billing steps still apply.
Important
Credit cards are NOT charged automatically. If auto-renewal is enabled and there is a fee for this membership type, a bill is automatically created and an invoice may be sent depending on the Kavi® Billing Email Schedule.
- Automatically Renew Membership
If this option is set to 'yes', memberships of this type are auto-renewed, and the other auto-renewal options are used to configure the auto-renewal process and whether members can opt-out directly. Any membership type can be auto-renewed if desired except those with a 'Lifetime' duration. If this option is set to 'no' this type isn't automatically renewed and the other auto-renewal option settings are ignored.
- Allow Auto-Renewal Membership Opt-out
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If this option is set to 'yes', membership applicants are presented with an option they can use to opt-out of auto-renewal if they wish. Credit cards are NOT charged automatically as part of the auto-renewal process, so an opt-out provision is not required.
If this option is set to 'no', applicants cannot opt out directly, but administrators can set an opt-out switch on behalf of members when managing memberships.
- Auto-Renew With
Select the membership type with which this membership should be renewed. This is usually the Current or same type, but any type can be used. For example, if this is a special introductory membership type where you must be a new member to be eligible, the type might be renewed with some regular or standard membership type.
- Initiate Auto-Renew
The number of days prior to expiration at which membership renewal is initiated. If this membership is free and unmoderated, you could leave the field empty or set the value to '0' (zero) to have the membership automatically renewed with no disruption in membership continuity or user access. If this membership is moderated or billed, consider setting this option to '30' days or more to give time for the moderation or billing process to complete. If this membership type has a short grace period or deactivates member accounts, you may want to set this value to '60' days or more to allow plenty of time for membership processing and help avoid cases where access privileges are revoked unnecessarily because a membership renewal is temporarily delayed (especially if the membership type is both moderated and billed).
Set these options to determine what happens when this type of membership expires before being renewed. All memberships are eventually archived, but expired memberships may enter a grace period before the membership is archived.
Archiving is synonymous with the revocation of types and access. When a membership is archived, all types assigned through this membership are automatically removed from the member's account, which revokes all the roles and access conferred through this membership type. If a company membership is archived, every user who belongs to the company loses whatever roles were inherited from the company.
When types are removed, Kavi® Groups commonly removes the lapsed member from any groups to which he or she belongs, since these permissions are commonly linked to types assigned through membership.
If the member account remains active, the member remains on the organization rosters indefinitely and continues to receive email from the 'members' mailing list and possibly from other mailing lists that are specific to the organization. Some organizations, particularly those that grant access to nonmembers, assign types to lapsed members to provide them with continued access to the website.
For more information and examples of the way these expiration options interact, see the Concepts document End-of-Membership Processes.
| Option | Description | |
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| Grace period | Set the grace period. This is a span of time that begins at the moment that the membership expires and ends when the time of the specified grace period is up and the membership is archived. | |
| Automated Deactivation |
If the account is not automatically deactivated when the membership is archived, the member's Status is still 'Active', so the member remains on rosters and certain mailing lists (e.g., the user may remain on the 'members' mailing list or other Kavi Mailing List Manager lists). If the member has any types beyond those assigned through membership, especially Contact Types, the user may have roles that allow her or him to log into Kavi Workspace. If this option is set to deactivate, the Status of this member and any dependent users (i.e. Company Representatives) is set to 'Inactive' , so these users cannot login, even if they still have roles conferred through a Contact Type or User Type that wasn't assigned through membership. If a member has renewed or replaced the membership being archived, the member is not deactivated. ImportantA deactivated member is unable to log into the website. |
If this type of membership has membership fees or membership applications should be sent for moderator approval, configure any billing or moderation steps. When you are done, click Save.
- Billing Information
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This section is displayed if Kavi Billing is installed.
- Price
Enter the dollar amount of the membership fee.
- Description for the Bill
Kavi® Billing automatically adds the following descriptive information to the bill: the name of the membership type, the membership price and the membership term. Any textual description entered in this field is appended to the description automatically generated by Kavi Billing.
- Prorate Fees
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If a membership type is billed and has fixed dates (January 1 to December 31 each year, for example) the membership fee can be prorated for new members who join or cancel memberships midterm. Memberships with fixed durations can also be prorated for members who cancel memberships midterm. If your organization offers different membership levels, proration can be enabled for members who may want to replace their current membership with a different level of membership midterm.
If membership fees should not be prorated, set this value to 'Do NOT prorate fees'.
- New Member Process
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Set these options to define the new member process according to the organization's rules.
Options:
- Moderate New Members
Set this to define whether this membership type is moderated or not. If moderated, every new membership of this type must be approved by an administrator.
- Moderation Instructions for New Members
Plain text or HTML instructions to be displayed to membership applicants who have submitted a signup form. These instructions are only displayed for moderated membership types, and then only if the membership is in the pending moderation state. For all other Membership Workflow states, standard default text will be displayed, as shown in the table Membership workflow state messages.
- Renewing Member Process
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Define the process that will apply to members when they renew a membership using this membership type.
Options:
- Moderate Renewing Members
Set this to define whether this membership type is moderated when renewed or not. If moderated, every renewed membership of this type must be approved by an administrator.
- Moderation Instructions for Renewing Members
Plain text or HTML instructions to be displayed to members who have submitted a membership renewal application. These instructions are only displayed for membership types with a moderated renewal process, and then only if the renewal is in the Pending Moderation state. For all other membership workflow states, standard default text will be displayed, as shown in the table Membership workflow state messages.
You've just added a new individual membership type, and the information you provided is displayed for you to review. If you would like to add another individual membership type, click Add Another.
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| Chapter 135. Manage Individual Membership Types |  |
Chapter 137. Edit an Individual Membership Type |