We’ve introduced an enhancement to events in MemberHub. Events can now have a map associated with them. When someone clicks on the event link inside a MemberHub calendar if an address has been provided, there will be a link to a Google map. Clicking that link will open a new tab with a large Google map for someone to easily view and get directions. This link will also get included in event notification and reminder emails. 

To generate a map, simply provide an address (or really anything that has a known location to Google) in the new Address of Event field. Once you tab out of that field a map will automatically be generated and placed in the right-hand sidebar.

Okay…enjoy!

We used to allow any user in MemberHub to edit their family members…but long story short, it became unwieldy. So we gave control over setting up families strictly to admins. However, we’ve had many customers (mainly churches) that have wanted to give the responsibility back to their members to configure their families and help setup the member directory. So, we’ve added it back.

The feature is much smarter now and should hopefully cut down on some of the setup challenges that admins were left with once their members started editing their family members in their portal.

Watch the video below and you can also check out the Knowledge Base article at http://help.memberhub.com/kb/users-guide/setting-up-your-family

MemberHub YouTube Channel

By the way, we’re starting a YouTube channel for all sorts of videos at http://youtube.com/MemberHubVideos. Yeah, it’s pretty lame right now with one video, but we’ll be adding more!

What do you think?

We have made an enhancement to the combined calendar feature in MemberHub. When you’re logged into MemberHub there is a Calendar link at the top. This Calendar has always served as just a read-only view of events from all the hub calendars that you’re a member of. For example, if you are in the Facility Team Hub and Worship Team Hub at your church, you’ll see events from both of those group calendars. You can adjust which color the events show up in, but this “combined calendar” has been read-only; until now.

Administrators can now add events right to the new “Main Calendar” and these events will be visible to everyone in the portal regardless of which calendar they’re on. You can think of this as your organization-wide calendar. This is a perfect place to put events that are pertinent to the entire organization, not just a specific hub/group.

By default, only Administrators will be able to add events to the Main Calendar. However, by accessing the Features page inside the organization wide settings tab, administrators can choose to allow everyone in the portal to add events to the Main Calendar. Of course administrators will always be able to edit and delete ALL events. Members who add events to the Main Calendar will only be able to edit events that they’ve added themselves.

Lastly, all users have new options on their profiles where they can adjust their Main Calendar notification preferences. Simply click on the Profile link at the top when you’re logged in.

We realize that the calendar, with its automatic event reminders and iCal feeds is one of most popular and time-saving features in the system so we plan on continuing to improve its usefulness.

Please share your feedback in the comments below or at http://help.memberhub.com.

If you think your organization could benefit from online group calendars with MemberHub, you can try it free at http://memberhub.com/signup.

The MemberHub team has taken steps towards minimizing the MemberHub branding in customer portals by giving Administrators new custom branding options. Administrators can now:

We’ve made a long overdue enhancement to our Custom Fields feature. Administrators can create custom data fields on profile records in their organization and now…they can have their members fill out that information themselves when they update their profile.

Anytime a person joins your MemberHub portal for the fist time, they are prompted to complete their profile. Up to this point, it’s been the basic correspondence information like address and phone numbers. But now administrators can gather whatever information they desire by prompting people to fill out this data for them. You can create Date fields, Checkboxes, Dropdown, Numeric, Multiline and Text boxes to gather additional information. Of course members can always access their Profile and update that information anytime they want.

This custom fields data can now also be configured such that they are viewable on the Profile records in the member directory. So now, whether viewing a fellow member’s profile in the directory or in a hub, the organization’s custom fields data (that has been configured to be viewable to everyone) will be viewable below all the basic profile information.

Cool, How Do I Set This Up?

There are now three checkboxes on the custom field add/edit screen. If administrators choose for the field to be viewable to the member then they can now go on to decide if that custom field can be editable by the member (on the member’s profile) and even further decide to make the custom field viewable to everyone in the organization through viewing member profiles in the member directory.

Lastly, administrators, dont’ forget that you can always export your member data to spreadsheet. Any custom data that you store on the profile records will be exported too. The link to export you database is the bottom of the People table in the Admin Console

Enjoy!

Inside the Files section of your online group hubs, there is a flexible new sorting option. You can now re-order files and sort them alphabetically or chronologically and also choose from an ascending or descending option.

New File Sorting Options

These new sorting options along with the powerful tagging feature inside your hubs helps address your growing desire for more powerful file sharing capabilities.

Enjoy and drop us line below if you have a second!

256-bit encryption secure! What am I talking about? I’m talking about HTTPS of course. The SSL encrypted version of HTTP. Again, you ask, what am I talking about? Well, just know this…MemberHub is now just as secure as the website you use to login to access your bank data.

I’ll spare you any more of the exciting technical details and just say this:

• Every web-page that is loaded inside MemberHub now uses a very high-level of data encryption
• It will be virtually impossible for someone to hijack your personal MemberHub account or access your organization’s data
• This is pretty much the highest standard of security an online software application can provide at this point
• MemberHub is committed to keeping your data as secure as possible
• We are NOT charging any extra for this added benefit (like several online software companies do)

So, MemberHub is very private and very secure. That is all…any questions?

We’ve made some enhancements to the organization wide member directory feature. The Directory now has a Map which displays people on the left and a Google map on the right. The map has pinpoints for each person who has an address in their profile record. You can access the Map through the blue button in the upper-right when you’re in the Directory. Also whenever you’re viewing a person or family profile in the Directory, there is a Map Address link directly under the Mailing Address.

Here are some common uses of the map:

• Get directions to someone’s house
• See what members live near you or another location
• Get a visual representation of where others in organization live

When you’re in the Map, you can browse people on the left and click on a name to bring up an information window just above their pin on the map. You can choose to zoom into their address and the map will zoom in closer to that specific person’s address and pop up the information bubble.

From inside the information bubble you can click the Get Directions link. This link will automatically map a route from your address to that person’s address. It will use Google Maps and launch the routed directions into a new tab where you can immediately print it out.

When you’re browsing the member Directory and click into someone’s profile, if their address is listed there will be a link just below it that says “Map Address”. This link will take you to the map and automatically pop up the information window for that person’s address where you can then zoom in or get directions.

Check out the new Map feature and please let us know what you think!

If you don’t currently have a MemberHub subscription you can signup for a 30 day FREE trial.

Are people in your organization still calling the office to get someone’s contact information? How much are you paying that person to answer phone calls and look up information?  How much time do your members spend calling in? Do your members know how to reach other? Do you give members access to some sort of online, searchable directory. Is it up-to-date? Can your members edit their information? Can they print it?

If any of these questions raised doubts in your mind, you might be interested in our newest feature, an online member directory.

Organizations can now offer their members quick and easy access to their membership database. Once an administrator turns this feature on, there is a link in the top navigation for Directory. The directory is searchable on first name, last name and display name. The listing can also be filtered by the first letter of the last name.

If you’ve grouped your members into families, the directory will automatically show the family views. A family picture can be uploaded and the display will list the family by Head of Household and Spouse and list children (along with age) underneath. Users can then click on the family to see detailed information about each member as well as access each member’s profile.

Setting up families in MemberHub is easy and it helps to create a richer experience with the directory for family-oriented organizations like churches.

MemberHub has always been family-oriented. The original design required that members setup their online family. When families were setup correctly, hub administrators had the option of grouping members in a hub by family. For a while this served fine as an online family directory. However, there was some challenges with the original design that didn’t quite lend itself to an intuitive setup process. So we ripped it all out. But now families are back.

We’ve given the responsisbily to administrators to group people into families. The approach is more intuitive and we’ve dropped the “invite” process that was once required to add a person to your family.

Watch the video above to learn how administrators can build families in their organization. And read the support article for more details on Setting up Families.

Next, we will release a full-page Online Directory for your entire organization. It will be searchable and printable and of course, grouped by family, should you setup families in your organization.