[ Content ] [ Search ] [ Print All ]
Depending on if you have the free option or the professional option, this section will look different. The free option contains two sections: Membership Approval and Add / Edit Admin Team Role. The professional option includes the sections Membership Fees, Trial Periods, and Payment Gateways.
Before you make your iGrOOp live (by announcing it), be sure to complete this section.
Membership Approval
You can select if you will be approving your members or not. If you do choose to approve your members, you (or all the administrators and the director or membership/membership committee if specified) will get an e-mail notice when a prospective member is awaiting your approval. The link in the e-mail will take you to the Pending Members admin area where you can see the member details and choose to approve or decline membership.
Membership approval is an important part of any on-line community to improve the quality of the membership. It may be tempting to have your members be auto approved, but consider the benefits of approving each member.
The new member e-mail will be sent to all members upon your approval. The default e-mail has all the vital information needed by a new member and should be fine, but this area allows you to customize your message. The "from e-mail address" can be changed to any valid e-mail address.
Membership Fees
With a professional iGrOOp, you can set your membership fees or keep them at $0 (free to join).
For an introduction to the way membership fees and payments work, see the section on membership fees in the Getting Started Manual.
Full access yearly fee is the amount (in USD) you can choose to charge your full access customers for one year of membership. This membership begins on the day you approve the membership and ends one year from that date. Any "free" trial period used will be in addition to the one year. For example, if you offer a 1 month free trial and you approve your member on Jan 1, 2008, the membership will expire Feb 1, 2009. Members who pay yearly must renew their membership on a yearly basis.
Full access monthly fee is the amount (in USD) you can choose to charge your full access customers each month of membership. This membership begins on the day you approve the membership and does not end until either party cancels the membership.
The terms of both memberships are the same -- one year. However, monthly payments can be more marketable for higher priced memberships. You can also choose not to hold your members to a full year commitment if paying monthly. This choice (refunds, commitment terms) is YOURS.
Full access new member fee (one time) is an optional amount (in USD) that you can choose to charge your full access members upon registration. If you are using a free trial, they will not be charged this fee until after their free trial period expires.
Use limited access memberships as well must be specified if you choose to use this level. Why? Because the limited access amounts can be set to $0, thus providing a free limited access option.
You cannot choose just to use limited access and not full access. You need to use full access if you are also using limited access.
Limited access yearly fee is the amount (in USD) you can choose to charge your limited access customers for one year of membership. This membership begins on the day you approve the membership and ends one year from that date. Any "free" trial period used will be in addition to the one year. For example, if you offer a 1 month free trial and you approve your member on Jan 1, 2008, the membership will expire Feb 1, 2009. Members who pay yearly must renew their membership on a yearly basis.
Limited access monthly fee is the amount (in USD) you can choose to charge your limited access customers each month of membership. This membership begins on the day you approve the membership and does not end until either party cancels the membership.
Limited access new member fee (one time) is an optional amount (in USD) that you can choose to charge your limited access members upon registration. If you are using a free trial, they will not be charged this fee until after their free trial period expires.
The promotion code is a code that you choose. With this code, users can enter the code as a form of payment when registering. The promotion code will give any member who uses it the free one year full access option.
If you have a free iGrOOp, or if you set all dollar amounts to zero, the payment part of the registration form will be skipped and users will be registered as full access users with a one year membership.
Trial Periods
You can give your prospective members a trial period from 1 day to 6 months. This would mean that the member still needs to enter payment information, they just will not be charged until after the trail period has ended. If the member cancels before the end of the trial period, you as the admin must cancel the subscription in PayPal or Authorizenet.
Free Trial Periods vs. RISK Free Trial Periods. iGrOOps offers admins two options when it comes to offering members trial periods. The difference only affects members who choose to pay YEARLY. If you offer a 1 month "free" trial period, this means yearly members who sign up on Jan 1, 2008, for example, will have free membership from Jan 1 - Jan 31, 2008, then start paying Feb 1, 2008 and have service until Feb 1, 2009. If you offer a 1 month "risk free" trial period, this means yearly members who sign up on Jan 1, 2008, for example, will just start paying Feb 1, 2008 and have service until Jan 1, 2009.
There is NO difference between a "free" and a "risk free" trial period when using monthly memberships. This is because monthly members do not have a membership expiration date -- they pay each month until they cancel or are canceled.
Payment Gateways
iGrOOps does not collect money for you -- we simply provide the membership and payment forms that connect with your on-line processor (assuming AuthorizeNet or PayPal). If you are collecting membership payments, you need either a) a business PayPal account, b) an AuthorizeNet account or c) a way to collect money from your members outside the iGrOOps forms.
Collecting Payment Yourself. If you check the box, "Do not collect payment with application. Upon approving the application I will contact the member for payment myself." The member will not be prompted for payment. Here are some examples where you may choose to use this option:
Using PayPal. If you have a PayPal account (and you probably do) you can do a quick upgrade for no charge to their premier or business account, then you start accepting credit cards as a form of payment. Simply enter your PayPal address and you are ready to go!
PayPal has in-depth documentation on using their system to accept payments. iGrOOps has done all the technical work for you. You just need to read up on how to see payments within PayPal.
Using AuthorizeNet. AuthorizeNet is a more costly solution to credit card processing (since PayPal is free), but it provides a better interface for the customer and more control for the merchant. You may find that you can get better processing rates as using AuthorizeNet as well.
AuthorizeNet's system has a subscription, or ARB (automated recurring billing) option for $10 per month. This is needed if you wish to offer monthly memberships and payment through AuthorizeNet in your iGrOOp. Otherwise, stick with yearly payments or use PayPal instead.
To use AuthorizeNet, you need to enter your AuthorizeNet API Login ID and your AuthorizeNet Transaction Key, both of which can be obtained through your AuthorizeNet merchant interface. Consult the AuthorizeNet documents with details on how to do this.
New to collecting fees on the Internet? No sweat! We suggest starting with PayPal since it is free and easy. When you start to build up some revenue, look into getting a real merchant account and using AuthorizeNet.
Add / Edit Admin Team Role
Here is where you setup roles for your admin team. For a complete description of the roles and what they are all about, please see http://www.igroops.com/igroops/ids/docs/adminman/adminteam .
Adding, editing and removing members from the admin team is as simple as selecting the admin team member, the role, and the percentage share you wish to give them for the role. To edit a role, click the pencil icon by the name of the person in the role and make your changes.
As of now, the percentage share is for your records. Soon iGrOOps will incorporate statistics that show the admin's shares based on those percentages.
