[Chapter-delegates] New donation page on isoc.org

[Lincoln McNey]

(Apologies for any duplicates)

Hello everyone:

In response to many requests, we have deployed a simpler, fully  
integrated donations page that requires no AMS account - just the  
provision of credit card information and enough personal information  
to process the donation.  A potential donor can now donate to ISOC  
from anywhere on http://www.isoc.org, simply by clicking the Donate  
Now button visible from nearly every page.  There is no longer any  
need to log into the portal to do this.

The Donate Now button and page are developed in PHP, and are therefore  
open-source.  As such, this page represents the first step away from  
the "provisional" CMS we rolled out last year, and is the first real  
web-services-based integration between isoc.org and the Aptify AMS  
membership system.  Until this page, all other integrations existed  
only within the SiteFinity CMS portal rolled out in late 2009.

Email address is required for donation, as it is the unique key  
through which we will match the donation to an existing record in  
AMS.  If the email address does not yet exist in AMS, then a new  
record is created and the donation logged against it.  If the email  
address already exists, then the donation is logged against that  
matching record.  in both cases the donation is fully integrated and  
logged within AMS, without the need for user login.

There is a higher potential for duplicates with this method, but all  
agreed the benefit of easier donations outweighs the manual task of  
merging records.  With potential-duplicate queries we can spot any  
recent dupes that enter the system, and handle them accordingly.

Why deploy a new donations page?  Since the initial launch of AMS, we  
have received feedback from our donor base and longtime members that  
donating to ISOC via the current AMS portal required too many steps.   
In 2009, the chief concerns were security and avoidance of more  
duplicates in the system.  Therefore up until today, a potential donor  
either needed to log into the portal (if they were already a member),  
or create an account (if it was their first visit).  In either case,  
the general feeling was that the "barrier" to donations was too high  
for many individuals.

We will be rolling out a very similar page for IETF donations, branded  
separately from ISOC, but still logging the donations in AMS with the  
potential to be tracked separately.

Additionally, we will soon be updating our current Donors page  
directly out of AMS as the final task for this mini-project.  Like the  
Donate Now page, this will be driven via web services, and will be the  
first of many pages to be updated real-time out of AMS.

As usual, write to ams-project at isoc.org with any questions or comments.

Thanks --

Lincoln McNey


Lincoln McNey
Sr. Manager, Systems Solutions
The Internet Society
+41.7986.33390
mcney at isoc.org