Member Data
The member database has expanded over the years to include identities of all people who interact with the Booking Service.
This can include family of members, non-members who book regularly and even people who just receive your bulk emails but cannot login to the Booking Service.
Entries in the member database are categorised according to member classes. Admin can edit these via the Member & Transaction menu. Don’t worry, it won’t let you delete a member class if it is in use.
Member classes are used for three main purposes:
- Setting annual subscription fees
- Setting login and booking rights
- setting tariffs (if you have turned on TARIFF_BY_MEMBER in Site Configuration.
You assign a Member Number (can include numbers and letters) to each entry in the Member Database. A good plan is to use a suffix for family members, e.g. if the Principal Member is A101, their spouse could be A101s and children A101a, A101b etc. Member numbers can be changed by admin at any time and the new Member Number will show everywhere that the old one was seen previously, e.g. on historical bookings and transactions.
Members can edit their own data except for certain fields:
- Surname
- Member Number
- Member Class
- Date of Birth
- Principal Member
- Paid to date
- Joining date
Only admins with MEMBERS role can create new entries in the member database.
See more about Annual Subscriptions.
You can cusomise the order in which member data displays on your View Members screen so that family members display together. Update Site Config item MEMBER_SORT_ORDER. Three choices:
- ALPHA sorts by alpha characters in the Member Number first, then by any digits left over.
- NUMBER sorts by the digits in the Member Number first, then by alpha characters
- STRING sorts on the whole Member Number (this is the old behaviour). This option is suitable if you used number-number to group related members.
You can make email address mandatory in member records using site config item EMAIL_MANDATORY. Note this only applies to entries in the member database that have a member class with “can book” ticked. So family members or guests who can’t make bookings through their own login aren’t required to have an email address.
Members can update their details while making a booking, by ticking the update box at step 3.