Will CB/CBSubs fit with this not-for-profit Member based association?

We are a not-for-profit member based association and we are construction an all new Joomla 2.5 site to replace an aging Joomla 1.0 site. We are looking at Joomlapolis Community Builder and CBSubs to replace registration on the site and a range of other applications and manual processes.

Currently we have AEC Subscription Manager in Joomla 1.0 with a daily download to an MS Access database (a single table of a multi table database). All membership signups and renewals are done via the website (mostly member driven with some administrator activity via the back end for lazy or older members). Other member information is maintained only in the Access database. The Access database is used for generating member lists, Mail Chimp email addresses, “snail mail” address lists, recording event attendance, member renewals, education attainments etc. Members are located in 10 Chapters geographically seperated, there are different membership categories, including “registered visitors” and in total the data base holds fairly sparse details on 14,000 current and former members/visitors/sponsors. The Access database, in effect, drives a simple contact process. This Access database is amateur designed; while it uses multiple tables the central table is manually maintained to represent some information in the joined tables, this was done so that the central table “lines up” with the member details in the Joomla site (e.g. while membership history is contained in a subsidiary table, the current member expiry date is held in the central table; while educational details and events are held in a subsidiary table the central table records an "Is Member Qualified: Yes/No" ).

In the new Joomla 2.5 website we wish to completely replace the current ”mess”. Community Builder and CB Subs is a candidate, this follows an excellent demonstration of Community Builder/CB Subs at a Joomla Day recently. (CBSubs is the prime need but the Community Builder component is something to be explored, it could fit the association well.)

Questions: Can Community Builder/CB Subs handle the following (either directly or with further extensions and/or add-ins):

Membership recording (against each individual member/visitor/sponsor)

• Membership recording (against each individual member/visitor/sponsor)
• Name, Address, email, Chapter, Member type,
• Membership history (type, from-to dates, many lines per member)
• Payment history (many lines per member).
• Education history (course attended, certificate awarded by date etc)
• Event Attendance history (conferences, workshops, date and location)
• Can we introduce additional fields and Tags at will?
• Is there any “specified relationships” between Tabs and/or fields (similar to joins)?
• Is there any provision for field vetting?

CB Subs populating Joomla ACL

• Can specific fields in CB Subs populate or control ACL status?
• Can transaction type fields in secondary CBSubs Tabs control/influence a member’s ACL status?

Member Privacy

• Can some fields and/or tabs be hidden from all except the member and administrator (e.g DOB)?
• Can a member optionally make all member information private to the member/administrator?
• Can the member information default to private unless opened by the member?

Administrator only updating of some information

• Can some information on a tab, input by an administrator, be made “read only” to a member (e.g. educational qualifications)?

Administrator privacy (some tabs and/or fields)

• Can it be set for some fields/tabs to contain information that is both maintained by, and is private to, the administrator?

Uploads/Downloads

• Is all member information available for upload in (say) CSV format?
• Is all member information available for download in (say) CSV format?

Newsletters

• Can newsletters be generated to members?
• Can Newsletters be generated to a sub-set of members based on selection criteria?

Flexible Reporting into CSV files etc

• Is there any provision for flexible reporting into CSV files etc.

Flexible reporting (print formatted)

• Is there any provision for flexible reporting into print/PDF format.

Formal Print Reports

• Is there any provision for formal printed reports from the Member database?.

I know it is a long list but I would like to ensure that CBSubs (and add-ins) can meet all, or nearly all, these requirements somehow.

Regards,

Robert

RobGG wrote: We are a not-for-profit member based association and we are construction an all new Joomla 2.5 site to replace an aging Joomla 1.0 site. We are looking at Joomlapolis Community Builder and CBSubs to replace registration on the site and a range of other applications and manual processes.

Great! Welcome to our forums!
Will try to address as much as possible (it's a lot!)

Currently we have AEC Subscription Manager in Joomla 1.0 with a daily download to an MS Access database (a single table of a multi table database). All membership signups and renewals are done via the website (mostly member driven with some administrator activity via the back end for lazy or older members). Other member information is maintained only in the Access database. The Access database is used for generating member lists, Mail Chimp email addresses, “snail mail” address lists, recording event attendance, member renewals, education attainments etc. Members are located in 10 Chapters geographically seperated, there are different membership categories, including “registered visitors” and in total the data base holds fairly sparse details on 14,000 current and former members/visitors/sponsors. The Access database, in effect, drives a simple contact process. This Access database is amateur designed; while it uses multiple tables the central table is manually maintained to represent some information in the joined tables, this was done so that the central table “lines up” with the member details in the Joomla site (e.g. while membership history is contained in a subsidiary table, the current member expiry date is held in the central table; while educational details and events are held in a subsidiary table the central table records an "Is Member Qualified: Yes/No" ).

Ok. I understand that the access helps you feed reporting and mailings and perhaps other processes.

In the new Joomla 2.5 website we wish to completely replace the current ”mess”. Community Builder and CB Subs is a candidate, this follows an excellent demonstration of Community Builder/CB Subs at a Joomla Day recently. (CBSubs is the prime need but the Community Builder component is something to be explored, it could fit the association well.)

Nice to hear!

Questions: Can Community Builder/CB Subs handle the following (either directly or with further extensions and/or add-ins):

Membership recording (against each individual member/visitor/sponsor)

1. Membership recording (against each individual member/visitor/sponsor)
2. Name, Address, email, Chapter, Member type,
3. Membership history (type, from-to dates, many lines per member)
4. Payment history (many lines per member).
5. Education history (course attended, certificate awarded by date etc)
6. Event Attendance history (conferences, workshops, date and location)
7. Can we introduce additional fields and Tags at will?
8. Is there any “specified relationships” between Tabs and/or fields (similar to joins)?
9. Is there any provision for field vetting?

#1 Not sure exactly what you mean or want.
CBSubs records all subscriptions in its subscription table.
It does not really track past subscriptions visually on a subscriber by subscriber basis.
Each CB user profile has a subscriptions tab that contains the latest information about the users subscription. E.g., It will show the active subscription or the last inactive one for a user.

#2 This can be handled in CB with the creation of additional field.

#3 See answer #1. But you can also filter subscription by user so you can get a list of all subscription records for a specific user. This might not be in the exact format you want, but it gives you access to the information you want.

#4 You can also filter the payments by username in a similar way as you filter subscriptions.

#5 You can create CB fields to handle this depending on what you want to do with the content. CB also has an editor field type (for free style html) and there is also a file field type for users to upload for example a bio pdf file (this is part of ADV/PRO/DEV membership).

#6 CB does not have events handling built in. There are many Joomla event extensions that integrate with CB.

#7 You can add as many CB fields as you wish. No tags exist in CB.

#8 Users can connect to each other (built-in CB feature). Also there is a CB Conditional plugin that you can use to configure CB Tabs and CB fields. See our tutorials on this use case.

#9 Sorry not sure what you mean by vetting. If you mean validation, then yes CB fields can be validated using regular expressions (or creating an auto-action specific to your need - see tutorials for auto-action use cases).

CB Subs populating Joomla ACL

1. Can specific fields in CB Subs populate or control ACL status?
2. Can transaction type fields in secondary CBSubs Tabs control/influence a member’s ACL status?

#1 CBSubs does not have fields. A CBSubs plan can add/remove subscribers to/from additional Joomla ACL groups. There are also auto-actions you can create to add/remove users to/from a Joomla ACL group (see use case tutorials on this site).

#2 Not sure what you mean but see previous answer.

Member Privacy

• Can some fields and/or tabs be hidden from all except the member and administrator (e.g DOB)?
• Can a member optionally make all member information private to the member/administrator?
• Can the member information default to private unless opened by the member?

#1 Yes there are many ways to do this (CBSubs, Conditional plugin, privacy plugin).

#2 The privacy plugin does not have this feature released yet (but its been implemented and will be released soon). So basically this means that things work the other way around - things are by default public instead or private.

Administrator only updating of some information

• Can some information on a tab, input by an administrator, be made “read only” to a member (e.g. educational qualifications)?

Number of ways - CB Conditional plugin is one way (see tutorials).

Administrator privacy (some tabs and/or fields)

• Can it be set for some fields/tabs to contain information that is both maintained by, and is private to, the administrator?

Would have to answer no to this one without better understanding.

Uploads/Downloads

• Is all member information available for upload in (say) CSV format?
• Is all member information available for download in (say) CSV format?

Nothing built-in to export. There are some Joomla extensions that you can use to create reports and export from database.

CB Juice can be used to upload new user data to CB/Joomla from a text file.

CBSubs has a built-in import to initialize subscriptions from a text file (but users need to be in the Joomla/CB tables first).

Newsletters

• Can newsletters be generated to members?
• Can Newsletters be generated to a sub-set of members based on selection criteria?

CB does not have a built-in newsletter functionality.
But CB does have a mass mailing in its CB User Manager backend.

There are many third party Joomla newsletter (AcyMailing works nicely with CB and CBSubs).

Flexible Reporting into CSV files etc

• Is there any provision for flexible reporting into CSV files etc.

Nope - but see previous answer on Joomla extensions for reporting from database.

Flexible reporting (print formatted)

• Is there any provision for flexible reporting into print/PDF format.

Same answer as before.

Formal Print Reports

• Is there any provision for formal printed reports from the Member database?.

Same answer.

I know it is a long list but I would like to ensure that CBSubs (and add-ins) can meet all, or nearly all, these requirements somehow.

Regards,

Robert

reading your list i feel you might want to take a look at some CRM environment, like civiCRM.

It is probably a much more complex solution but seems to address many of your requests.

(wow - spent a full hour on this single reply!)