Note: Before you get started setting up your Membership Types, please review the Intro to Tendenci Memberships Helpfile.
Navigating to Membership Types
- To add and manage Membership Types, you must be a superuser on your site.
- Navigate to the admin back end of your site. Hover over Quick Links and choose "Admin Backend."
- Scroll down to the Memberships area (the items are in alphabetical order) and click "Membership Types."
Adding a New Membership Types
To add a Membership Type, click "Add Membership Type" on the top right.
Determining Membership Type Properties
If you are adding a new Membership Type, fill out the fields to set the settings for this Membership Type. If you are editing an existing Membership Type, these are the options you have.
Basic Information
Give your Membership Type a Name (this will be visible to Membership Applicants), Price (0 for free), and Admin Fee if applicable (this is a fee that only applies when they initially join for processing). Also add any Admin only notes you need (visible by all superusers but not the general public).
Expiration Method
Set the Expiration details for your Membership Type. Each Membership Types can have its own Expiration Method logistics.
If your membership type does not expire (i.e. a Lifetime Membership), check the top box "Never Expires" and ignore the other options in this section.
If your Membership Type does expire (most Membership Types will), set the Period Type.
Period Type Options Explained
The two Period Type options are Fixed or Rolling. Rolling means that no matter what day or time of year someone submits a membership application, their membership is good for a certain amount of time (i.e. 12 months July to July). Fixed would be if your Members must renew on the first of January regardless of when they signed up and became members.
Note: The most popular Membership Expiration Types we see are 12 month rolling and Fixed where each Member must renew at the end of every year.
Rolling Memberships
If you choose Rolling, the options will look like the above screenshot.
Choose your Period (i.e. 1 year) in Years, Months, or Days.
By default the membership will expire at the end of the full period. If you like, you can customize specifically which day the membership expires - for instance, if someone signsup on the 15th of March and you want them to expire the following year on the first of March. In this case, you would choose the second radio button "1 day at signup month."
There are two sets of these options because "Expires On" is for the first year of their membership, and "Renew Expires On" allows you to set different expiration date rules for if they have renewed and chosen this Membership Type.
Fixed Memberships
If you choose "Fixed" from the Expiration Type dropdown, the options look like this:
You can choose what day the Membership expires - either on a specific month/day/year, or on a specific day (i.e. January 1) of the current year.
If you choose the second radio button and make all memberships expire on December 31 - then no matter what day of the year someone registers, their membership will expire on December 31.
Check the "For option 2, grace period" check box if you want to allow Members who register close to the expiration date to have their membership count for the following year. For instance, set that box to 30 and members who register in December will not expire until the following year end. This is effective for end of year Membership drives where you may want to encourage people to register early and get registration for the following year.
Renewal Options
Renewal Options Checkboxes Explained
You'll want to decide if this Membership Type can also be used when someone renews (or maybe they are only eligible to use this type on renewal).
Some organizations use different Membership pricing or renewal rules for first time Members. If this is the case, we would recommend creating a First Time Membership and unchecking the "Allow Renewal" box. You would then create a Membership Type for ongoing members and check the "Renewal Only" box.
If you require approval on the renewal check the third check box - In this case the member will apply and renew, pay online, you'll receive a notice and you'll have to approve the new membership.
Renewal Price
If you Allow Renewals at this Membership Type, you'll set a Renewal Price. It can be the same price you set for the first time signup, but you do need to define that here. You may want to give renewals a discounted price.
Renewal Period Start is the number of days before the Membership expires that they can renew their membership. So for instance, if a member knows they will be renewing their subscription at the end of the year they can renew early to get it out of the way.
Renewal Period End is how long in days after the membership has technically expired that they renew and still get this pricing before they have to then pay for a brand new membership. If the member expires and doesn't renew until after the Renewal Period End, they will have to create a brand new Membership and fill out all of their information again instead of just renewing with the same info. If you don't want Members to ever have to "start over" you can set this number to something high like 10,000 days.
Other Options
Expiration Grace Period
Grace Period is the time after the Member expires that their Member record is still active on the website. So if this is set to 30 days, then even 30 days after they expire they can register for Member Event Pricing, etc.
If you have this set to zero, expired members lose access immediately.
Require Approval
If this box is checked, when a member submits an applications and pays for the membership they go into a Pending Queue until an Admin approves their application. The email address on All Admin Notices and the Memberships Module Admin Notices will receive an email if an application is submitted.
Often our superusers require approval initially while they get used to the site worfklow and then turn it off once they are comfortable.
Admin Only
If this box is checked then only admins can see this Memebrship Type. This means that regular users can't apply for Membership using this type - but an admin can place someone in this group.
You may use this option if you have a Membership Type for Lifetime members or past board members that only Admins will be adding people in and out of.
Position is the order the Membership Types will be listed. The smaller the number, the higher the position (think light numbers float to the top and heavy numbers sink to the bottom).
Make sure Status Detail is Active if you are ready to use this type. Change it to "Draft" if you are in the process of configuring your types and want to Save your work as a draft before publishing.