Andwa Consulting's Online Event Calendar User Guide

Web Site Features and "Quirks"

1. Password Reset: If a member's password is the same as their username, the website will ask them to choose a new password when the log in. This is automatic. It is handy to use when resetting a user's password. You can set their password to their username, and then when they next log in, the website will ask them to choose a new password.
    

2. Qualified Members: Some information on the web site is made available only to members who have attended 2+ events with the organization. This information mainly includes contact information for other members. This safeguard is in place to prevent members of the public who join up with the organization - but never attend - from gaining access to member contact information. This is especially important to organizations which are free to join.
   "Grandfather": If your organization has been in existence since before adopting the Andwa web site, you may wish to "grandfather" your existing members in so that they automatically gain access to the features reserved for "Qualified Members". Your webmaster can set the "Grandfather Date" option to the date that you created your Andwa web site to ensure that members in your database prior to that date gain access to all the member features.
    

3. Waivers Recorded on Web Site: There are two "levels" at which a waiver can be recorded. There can be one and only one person in the organization who is designated as the person in charge of waivers (see the WaiversName and WaiversU web site options). When any other volunteer records a waiver on the web site, it fills in that volunteer's username in the "Waiver Recd By" and "Recd Date" fields. At this point, the web site knows that the person has filled out a waiver and given it to a volunteer, but it is NOT yet officially recorded as filed safely in the organization's waiver repository. When the waiver contact receives the waiver, they will record on the web site that they've received it, at which point the "File Date" is populated and you know that your organization has received the waiver from the volunteer who originally received/recorded it. If it is your waiver contact who first records the waiver, then the "File Date" is populated and the other two fields are left blank.
    

4. Event Notifications: For some events, notifications are sent out to subscribing members when the event is first posted to the calendar. These notifications cannot all be sent at once due to server limitations so they are sent out in batches of 100 every fifteen minutes. The notifications are sent out to the NEWEST members first in order to give them a fair chance at getting on popular events.
    

5. Agents: The web site allows members to define "Agents" - another member to sign them up for events on their behalf. When the agent registers for an event, they can select this member as their "guest" but the web site records the event on that person's member account (rather than registering them as an anonymous guest).
    

6. Wait List Deletes: When a person puts their name on the waiting list for an event, they can check whether they want to be removed from the waiting list "NEVER", "2 Days Before" or "7 Days Before". The default is "2 Days Before". If a member asks you how/why they were removed from a waiting list and therefore lost their space in the queue, it is likely because they missed this checkbox and left it at "2 Days Before" when what they really wanted was "NEVER".
    

7. Why doesn't the web site just add people from the waiting list automatically?
   There are a few reasons:

   1. The web site can't tell if you have enough drivers or not, and if you don't, you may choose to take people who are willing to drive before you take others.
       

   2. The web site can't tell if you want to add more than the maximum, which is possible.
       

   3. The web site can't tell if you want to skip over someone on the list for any reason (for example, they do not have the appropriate skills, they have no-shows on their account).
       

8. Bounced Member E-Mail Addresses: If your site is hosted on Headway Systems, note that they monitor bounced e-mails and our web site clears out e-mail subscriptions to general club e-mails and event notifications for addresses which bounce. If a member has their subscriptions cleared due to a bounced e-mail, they will be directed to enter a valid e-mail address, and notified that their e-mail subscriptions were cleared the next time they log in.
    

9. Photo Server: Our system does not include a photo server - photos must be stored on a separate server, and your photo album "linked" to your event through our web site interface. We recommend Fotki as a great paid service, although there are lots of free services available as well.
    

10. Member E-Mail Blasts - One at a Time Please: The web site includes two pages - "E-Mail All Members" and "Send Newsletter" which can be used to send e-mail blasts out to your members. Note that the messages are not sent out immediately - they are stored and then sent by a scheduler. This is necessary to ensure that all messages go out (web pages time out after a certain length of time). It also means, though, that you cannot set up a new message using either page until you're absolutely sure that all of the messages from the previous blast have gone out. This isn't often an issue (all blasts should complete within a few hours), but it is something to keep in mind if you're wanting to send multiple messages in a short period of time.