Why does the system want me to add another member of the junior's family?
If you have made the subscription product type: Junior, then the system is expecting the junior to be in a group with an adult. This is a key feature of the junior subscription product type. We do this, because the vast majority of organisations that have junior members want to collect contact details for a responsible adult. See the explanation below.
The adult does not have to have a subscription, or be a member of your organisation, but they do need to be recorded in WebCollect as a separate person to the junior.
How to add the adult, and create the group
Step 1: Create the adult's account. From the admin panel, click on the Members link top left. Click on Add new member. Complete the details for adult. At a minimum, you need a first name and last name. If you don't know their name, you can put "Parent" for the first name, and the junior's surname for the last name. Click on Add.
Step 2: Create the group. You should now be on the individual member's page for the adult. Click on Create a new group top right. This automatically creates the group. The adult will have the Family Admin box ticked (note: this is important because the junior must be in a group with someone who is a family admin for the group).
Step 3: Add the junior to the group. Click on Admin home. In the quick search box, start typing the junior's name and select them from the dropdown list that appears. That takes you to the junior's individual member page. In the box, "Assign to an existing group", start typing the adult's surname. Select the correct group from the dropdown list that appears.
Why do you have this rule for junior memberships?
The benefits of this set-up are:
- Parents have their own account on WebCollect. They will be the purchaser of the subscription (not the child). Useful if you want to rely on legal statements made online (e.g. parental/medical consent forms)
- Where multiple children are members of the club, the parents are stored once (not once per child)
- Family information (e.g addresses/phone numbers) are stored centrally for the family and can be updated by a parent for all junior members in their family in one go.
We know that many clubs store the parent's contact details as part of the child's record, and that it is quite a bit of work to restructure the data to fit the WebCollect system during set-up. However, we have found that the system will work much better for you if you do. Storing the parent's details as part of the child's record can get really messy, particularly where you have sibling junior members. The parents and the child are separate people, and are best stored as separate accounts.
I don't want my juniors to have to be in a group with an adult
I am still trialling the system
You can't change a subscription product's type once it has been created. So, you need to create a new subscription product for your junior membership and this time select product type: Individual.
Deleting the old junior membership subscription product. If anyone has purchased the subscription product, or you have imported membership subscriptions, then you will no longer be able to delete the old subscription product. You can see whether it can be deleted by clicking on View All in the Subscription Products section. In the right hand column you will see either (cannot be removed) or a remove link.
If the subscriptions purchased are just test data, then you can ask us to run the cleardown script for you to remove the test data. You will then be able to delete the subscription product. If you have imported subscriptions or have real data, then edit the subscription product. Change the name to old and unpublish the product. Note: This means that no one will be able to renew these subscriptions, so consider carefully if you want to do this.
We are live with the system or have imported subscriptions
It is quite messy to change the subscription product type once you are live. You will need to ask us to take a data dump of the existing member subscriptions, remove those subscriptions and re-upload them into the new subscription product. We do have to charge for doing this, as it can be quite time consuming to do it. Please consider really carefully if this is the way you want to go. Then please drop us an email explaining what you want to do, and we can let you know what the cost will be.
Junior members that become adults
If you have a junior member that becomes an adult and moves to an adult subscription, you may decide that you no longer need to keep the adult's separate record.
Before you can remove the adult and the group, you will need to delete the junior subscription that the member used to have. This is because the system will expect them to be in a group, even if the junior subscription has expired.
To remove the subscription: Type the member's name in the quick search box and select the member from the dropdown. This takes you to their individual member page. Scroll down to the subscriptions section. Click on Edit in the right column for the relevant subscription. Then click on permanently remove this subscription. Whilst this deletes the subscription, you will still have a record of the order.
To remove the adult. Go to the adult's individual member page in the admin panel. Click on the remove link under the personal details on the left hand side.
To remove the group. Go to the junior member's individual member page in the admin panel. Click on the Family name (top right hand corner). Click on remove group.
