This article explains how ClubExpress uses the Internet to provide your club or association with its own website, member login and database, renewals, discussion forums and other features.
The ClubExpress Platform
ClubExpress is software that runs on powerful computer servers in the data center provided by a commercial-grade Internet hosting company. This company provides multiple hi-speed connections to the Internet, to ensure redundant paths for your data and to provide optimal performance. They also provide and maintain firewalls to protect your data.
Within the platform is a sophisticated database that is used to store everything associated with your club or association, including member information, the content of your website, financial transactions and even the photos used on various pages.
Users access the platform, and the website for a club or association hosted on that platform by opening an Internet browser and surfing to the site.
ClubExpress.com and Signing Up
ClubExpress.com describes our product and service to prospective customers. It is also built using the ClubExpress platform.
When a club or association wants to sign up for ClubExpress, it does so entirely online, creating its account that is entered into the database. An administrator steps through a short wizard to create the account and log in to the new website. They are then presented with a Setup Checklist of additional tasks that must be completed before the website and membership database can be turned on.
Initial Website
Once a club or association is signed up, ClubExpress automatically creates an initial website in the platform, with a default home page that can be extensively customized.
The public side of the website includes content that the club or association creates for non-members, including, for example, the benefits of signing up as a member, membership information, a list of member interests, a calendar of events, etc. This content can include any number of custom pages as part of your website.
Member Signup
One of the features in ClubExpress is a wizard that allows new members to sign up entirely online. Members provide their basic contact information, establish a user account and password, answer club-specific questions, select a membership type from options that you define, and pay for their membership by credit card or by printing an invoice and mailing a check. They are then entered in the membership database. You can also enable an option to require new members to be approved by the board before they are enabled.
Login
ClubExpress provides each member with his or her own login, including a user name and password. A “Forgot My Password” option allows members to retrieve a lost password.
When members log in, the system automatically detects their access level. Ordinary members have access to members-only features and special content that you designate for members only. Members see a different menu than the public and you can even define different menus based on a member type.
ClubExpress includes more than 22 purpose-built modules to handle many of the common activities that clubs and associations perform, including committee tracking, online discussion forums, documents, photo albums, surveys/polls, member interests, blogs, event calendar and registration, volunteering, etc. Each organization decides which modules to enable, how each module will be configured, who will have access to that module, and where the module will be placed on the visitor and member-only menus.
ClubExpress also allows clubs and associations to create any number of custom web pages, to control whether each page can be accessed by any site visitor or by members-only, and to access that page via a menu choice or an internal link from another page.
In addition, ClubExpress supports coordinators that you designate who have special administrative rights over a specific module or page, adding and updating content within that module or page only. Finally, the system recognizes a category of users called administrators who have complete control over the configuration of the site.
Renewals
ClubExpress can handle membership renewals for you. You have control over the renewal schedule, when and how renewal notices are sent out (by email or regular mail) and when members are “expired” from the organization. ClubExpress can also handle fully automated renewals and payments.
Static Web Pages and Custom Pages
Your website is made up of a few basic components:
- administrative functions only administrators and coordinators can access (like databases and setup options),
- built-in modules that have an administrative side used to configure the module and a user side site visitors access to use the module (for example, the Event Calendar), and
- custom pages you use to deliver information to your members, like your organization's history, or resources for members of a professional association.
Information collected from your website is stored in a database that feeds information into modules and searchable databases you use on your website. For example, the People Manager provides a way for you to search through members and non-members stored in the database. Similarly, the Transaction Search feature allows you to view information for every transaction generated on your website. Built-in modules are also connected to your database and use the information to determine what should be visible to members and non-members, and how they can interact with the module. For example, when a member accesses the Event Calendar, the member only has access to events based on their member type, or any selected interests or committees of which they are a member. The user interfaces (pages) of databases and built-in modules are built by combining your data and predefined HTML and displayed in a master page. The page is displayed after the data are inserted/altered by code. The HTML for these pages cannot be altered, modified or rearranged, and additional HTML cannot be added. CSS changes are permitted (e.g. heading styles, button styles, etc.)
Custom pages and the home page do not have any direct interaction with the database. The information displayed on these pages (your HTML) is untouched and displayed as it is stored in a master page. These pages are created by you and can be modified as often as you need.