[Chapter-delegates] Problems with new membership system

Fri Mar 8 01:06:41 PST 2019

Dear Lincoln,

Thank you for your reply.  Please see inline:

On Fri, Mar 8, 2019 at 5:16 PM Lincoln McNey <mcney at isoc.org> wrote:

> HI Siva —
>
> Please see my answers below - some of these were answered by Joyce in an
> earlier post (particularly around the number of chapter members), but some
> others I’ll provide more detail on.
>
> Thanks —
>
> Lincoln
>
> Lincoln McNey
> Director, Global IT
> The Internet Society
> mcney at isoc.org
>
>
> 1. AMS shows the total number of India Chennai Chapter members as 371,
>> down from about 700.
>>
>
> This has been already been addressed by both Joyce and Malisa in this
> channel
>
> 2. We have a long pending issue over our choice to retain the list of
>> applicants AFTER the pending applications are processed to admit applicants
>> from the pertinent geographic region. (We wanted to retain the names for
>> our records / reference / future decision )
>>
>
> We are still in the process of migrating Applicants from the former system
> - we’ve had to schedule this in with other priority items post-launch.  We
> apologise for any delays.  This remains the only outstanding item left from
> the migration.
>
> 3. Processing applicants is far more difficult, as the table does not
>> provide a summary overview of the applicant city, email address etc. but
>> instead the columns are Name, Account, Subscription, period from and period
>> to (irrelevant and unnecessary columns) giving no information to make a
>> quick glance judgement for bulk action. If a Chapter looks at pending
>> members once a month, and if there is an accumulation of 100 applicants, it
>> would take 5-6 hours of work just to click on each name to find the
>> necessary details such as the applicant city. This is not functional.
>>
>
> *City* information is provided when you look at your Active Members
> list.  It’s not in the “table format” of the former system, but it’s a
> different system and many things have changed.  However, the City data is
> there, provided the member has given it.  Please try configuring your view
> as shown below.  Note you can choose to display only Pending members this
> way - it just depends on what “Subscription status” filter you choose:
>
>
> The City for your Pending members will also be shown in the results list.
>
> 4.  Data can not be sorted as per the needs of the Chapter.
>>
>
> Let us know what sorting options you’d prefer to see, along with a few
> simple use cases.  We are actively logging this kind of feedback for future
> releases.
>

4. *The number of applicants in the "pending" list was 1500+, now it shows
19 applicants.  What is even more strange is this:  9 out of the 19 pending
applicants are applicants who applied after February 4, 2019.  For the
period 2010 - Jan 2019, 10 out 1500 names are migrated to the new portal,
how Staff decided to select these 10 names out of 1500 is not known.*
-----  HOW did this happen?

>
>> 5.  There is no list of memberships coming up for renewal.
>>
>
> In your dashboard there is a section called *Extend Members.*  Just click
> that to see who needs renewing.  Ultimately that is filtering chapter
> subscriptions on the Expired status.
>
>
> Thanks —
>
> Lincoln
>
>
>
> On 8 Mar 2019, at 06:30, sivasubramanian muthusamy <6.internet at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Dear Joyce
>
> Is there any resolution on this? Please see below the message I posted on
> Feb 13.  I need to send communication to our members, to a more complete
> list.
>
> Thank you!
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 7:10 AM sivasubramanian muthusamy <
> 6.internet at gmail.com wrote:
>
>>
>> 1. AMS shows the total number of India Chennai Chapter members as 371,
>> down from about 700.
>>
>> 2. We have a long pending issue over our choice to retain the list of
>> applicants AFTER the pending applications are processed to admit applicants
>> from the pertinent geographic region. (We wanted to retain the names for
>> our records / reference / future decision ) *The number of applicants in
>> the "pending" list was 1500+, now it shows 19 applicants.  What is even
>> more strange is this:  9 out of the 19 pending applicants are applicants
>> who applied after February 4, 2019.  For the period 2010 - Jan 2019, 10 out
>> 1500 names are migrated to the new portal, how Staff decided to select
>> these 10 names out of 1500 is not known.*
>>
>> 3. Processing applicants is far more difficult, as the table does not
>> provide a summary overview of the applicant city, email address etc. but
>> instead the columns are Name, Account, Subscription, period from and period
>> to (irrelevant and unnecessary columns) giving no information to make a
>> quick glance judgement for bulk action. If a Chapter looks at pending
>> members once a month, and if there is an accumulation of 100 applicants, it
>> would take 5-6 hours of work just to click on each name to find the
>> necessary details such as the applicant city. This is not functional.
>>
>> 4.  Data can not be sorted as per the needs of the Chapter.
>>
>> 5.  There is no list of memberships coming up for renewal.
>>
>> Sivasubramanian M
>>
>>
>>
>> Sivasubramanian M <https://www.facebook.com/sivasubramanian.muthusamy>
>> twitter.com/shivaindia
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 13, 2019 at 1:50 AM Nashilongo Gervasius <
>> engervasius at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear All
>>>
>>> Biggest challenge for now ( while still getting the feel of the new
>>> system)
>>>
>>> Looking for the notice/messaging forum  for the members for discussions
>>> and interaction.
>>>
>>> Otherwise wholeheartedly agreeing with concern of previous colleagues.
>>>
>>> Nashilongo
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>> *From:* Chapter-delegates <chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org>
>>> on behalf of Dewole Ajao <dewole at isoc.ng>
>>> *Sent:* Tuesday, February 12, 2019 8:37 PM
>>> *To:* Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond; Chapter Delegates; amshelp at isoc.org
>>> *Subject:* Re: [Chapter-delegates] Problems with new membership system
>>>
>>>
>>> Hi Olivier and All,
>>>
>>> On our own side, apart from the disappeared members (that we assume did
>>> not opt-in), I've observed the following from the AMS side:
>>>
>>> You can no longer send email to (applicant) members with pending
>>> applications. This was a useful feature as we used to email them to say
>>> welcome and tell them a little more about the Chapter and how they could
>>> participate (even before accepting their applications). Sadly, the new
>>> system won't let you work around it by approving first and trying to mail
>>> the most recently approved (because the only ordering options are first
>>> name and last name). On both the member listing and email communications
>>> pages, one should be able to filter by status, date joined, etc.
>>>
>>> I also see that there are several subscription status options -
>>> including
>>> "Active"
>>> "Terminated"
>>> "Terminated, Active" <- dunno what this magical status is...
>>>
>>> Painful enough that you cannot opt to view more than 100 members at a
>>> time, one does not get any meaningful pagination - If you are giving me 20
>>> pages of 100 results, I should at least have the option of going to page N
>>> rather than click next, next, next several times for a slow loading page.
>>>
>>> Userbility problems aside, I think we should get an explanation about
>>> what has happened to member data, what we have left, etc so we can stop
>>> speculating.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Dewole.
>>> Nigeria Chapter President
>>> On 2/12/2019 6:09 PM, Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond wrote:
>>>
>>> Hello all,
>>>
>>> I'd be interested in your comments, as I have realised (from the
>>> feedback received on today's Chapter Advisory Council Steering Committee)
>>> that the UK Chapter is not the only Chapter with Membership software
>>> problems. Throughout the week, I have been grappling with various problems
>>> brought forward by the new Internet Society membership system.
>>>
>>> Leaving small problems to the side, there are two main problems that the
>>> Internet Society UK England Chapter is facing:
>>>
>>> 1. The inability to download a list of all our members in Excel format.
>>> When we started using the ISOC AMS system, we transferred all of our
>>> member's details to the AMS. We even registered with the Data Protection
>>> Registrar, in case the details were going to be leaving the UK. Whilst the
>>> Internet Society runs the AMS system, we believe that we are the data
>>> controller. Now we cannot retrieve the data of our own members and the
>>> question comes as to "who owns members"? I remember this debate poisoned
>>> discussions in early 2000 when the Internet Society was about to collapse
>>> for lack of funds and at the end of the day, the matter was dug into the
>>> ground and full access to the membership records given to the Chapters
>>> about their own members. Now the new system makes things a lot harder for
>>> the Chapter to view and download records of its own members. This simply
>>> cannot be the case.
>>>
>>> 2. Emailing members using the system: here there are two main problems:
>>> first, it is now impossible to email a subset of our members, it's either
>>> all of them, or 1 of them, but there is no ability to select a subset of
>>> members, for example living in town X, and email them. Functionality loss -
>>> which I had already pointed out during the demonstration calls a few months
>>> ago, but it appears that someone has deliberately decided to ignore this
>>> important feature. That's a technical thing that should be fixed easily.
>>>
>>> The second problem, possibly more of a problem because I do not think
>>> that it is technical, but is a "feature" that was added, is that we now
>>> appear not to be able to email all of our members. With the decision of
>>> ISOC to go through the toughest regimes of GDPR acceptance by asking for
>>> explicit acceptance of GDPR terms, we went from 3400 to 1490 members.
>>> Whilst this is a pill that's difficult to swallow, I understand the purpose
>>> and conservative direction that ISOC took for this - the culture of "safety
>>> first" prevailing these days. That said, we now have another challenge, in
>>> that out of these 1490 members, we appear to only be able to email 1098 of
>>> them - because it appears that 400 of our "members" have "decided not to
>>> receive emails".
>>> First, I think that the email opt out button is very badly marked, as it
>>> cuts you off all communication and signs you off all of the mailing lists
>>> that you might have subscribed to. In my test, I have managed to sign
>>> myself off email mailing lists without being able to find a way to put
>>> myself back on them - for example the Internet Policy..... But worse still,
>>> I have found that my own colleagues in the leadership team have opted out
>>> of emails - perhaps unwittingly.
>>>
>>> What good is a Chapter member that opts out of emails?
>>>
>>> How in the world will I get in touch with members that have opted out of
>>> emails? Are these people completely cut-off from the Internet Society? Are
>>> they receiving *any* communication at all from the Internet Society, or is
>>> it only the Chapter that is blocked from being able to email them? Do they
>>> know they have opted out?
>>> To me, these 400 people that the Chapter cannot email are as good as
>>> dead wood - why not remove them from Internet Society membership as well?
>>>
>>> I'd be interested in your comments if you are faced with similar
>>> problems.
>>> Kindest regards,
>>>
>>> Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond
>>> (personal views)
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> As an Internet Society Chapter Officer you are automatically subscribed
>>> to this list, which is regularly synchronized with the Internet Society Chapter Portal (AMS):https://admin.internetsociety.org/622619/User/Login
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> As an Internet Society Chapter Officer you are automatically subscribed
>>> to this list, which is regularly synchronized with the Internet Society
>>> Chapter Portal (AMS):
>>> https://admin.internetsociety.org/622619/User/Login
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
> As an Internet Society Chapter Officer you are automatically subscribed
> to this list, which is regularly synchronized with the Internet Society
> Chapter Portal (AMS):
> https://admin.internetsociety.org/622619/User/Login
>
>
>
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