An Overview

The membership approval process is designed for those organisations who want to review an application from new members before allowing them to go on purchase.  This may be because you require references (e.g. proposer and seconder), or because you have limited space for certain types of member.  As everyone's process tends to be slightly different, we have tried to build in some flexibility in the set-up to accommodate this.

The approval process allows the member to go through the majority of the process of buying a subscription.  They add it to their basket, create an account, complete all of the relevant forms.  The process then stops just before the payment section.  The member receives an application confirmation email, confirming the details of their application.  Once you have approved them, they receive a confirmation email, with a link to revisit the site and complete payment.

Click here for details on what the process looks like for the members.

Configuring your organisation to include an approval process

To configure your organisation to require members to complete an approval process when joining, go to the organisation's administration page.  Click on Edit in the Customise Your Organisation section.  Click on the configuration tab.  Under Member Authorisation Policy, you have 2 options:  Full approval process or partial authorisation.  

Standard (Full) Approval Process

This option is recommended for the majority of organisations.  To set up this option, you should do the following:

• Select the Full approval process option for your member authorisation policy in the Configuration tab
• When creating your subscriptions, do not tick the "members only" box (so that prospective members can see the subscriptions and add them to their basket)

New members will add the relevant subscription(s) to their basket, proceed through checkout, completing membership and subscription forms along the way.  At the checkout, instead of being asked to provide payment details, they will submit an application order.  Once authorised, they will be given a link to complete the order by making payment.

Partial authorisation - a half way house

Use this option if:

• You have a subscription for new members that does not require an approval process (e.g. temporary membership in the first year), but full membership is restricted to approved members; or
• You have waiting lists that last for years, and you don't want application orders sitting around for that amount of time.  In this case, you need to create an initial (application) subscription that new members can purchase (probably for zero value)

To set up this option, you should do the following:

• Select the Partial Authorisation option for your member authorisation policy in the Configuration tab
• When creating your subscriptions or events, tick the "members only" box for those that can only be purchased by authorised members.  This means that these subscriptions/events will not be viewable to unauthorised members.  Leave unticked for those subscriptions/events that can be purchased by new members.

New members will add the open (not members only) subscription(s) to their basket, proceed through checkout, completing membership and subscription forms along the way.  At the checkout, they will complete (and pay if relevant).  However, they will not be authorised, so will not be able to see, or purchase, members only subscriptions or event tickets until you manually authorise them.  

Customising the application emails

When a member applies to join your organisation, they receive an email confirming that their application has been received.  Once approved, they will receive a further email confirming that their application has been successful, and asking them to click on the link to complete the purchase of their subscription. 

You can customise the wording of these emails.  To do that, from Admin Home, click on edit in the Customise your Organisation section.  Then select the Email Content tab.  Scroll down to the sections labelled Application confirmation email text, and add your content there.  Then scroll right to the bottom and save.