Every organization has a set of business rules that govern who can acquire a membership, how new member applications are processed and how membership renewals are handled. Kavi Members has tools that help the organization encode these rules for automated processing.

An organization may choose to offer memberships to companies only, to individuals only, or may offer both company and individual memberships. These processes are configured separately, so the rules that apply to the individual membership process may not apply to the company membership process.

Company representative signup is distinct from the company membership process, and has its own set of configuration options.

Steps in the membership application process

Within the membership workflow that governs the membership application process are two configurable steps, moderation and billing. Both steps are optional. You can configure whether a membership application is subject to each of these steps or passes through it automatically. You can also configure the order in which these steps are imposed.

Moderation

A moderation step passes control of the application to human moderators. It allows the organization to hold a membership application in a pending state until a moderator certifies that all the requirements for that membership have been met. Organizations may use membership moderation for any number of reasons. The organization may want to review all applications for completeness and accuracy before approval, or may require applicants to provide signed copies of legal documents, etc. Administrators can update the application in the moderation queue and add an activity note to record the reason the application was accepted or declined, then pass control back to Kavi Members workflow by approving or denying the application.

Billing

If Kavi® Billing is installed, membership applicants can be presented with an online invoice for membership fees, and if Kavi® Commerce is also installed, may pay for their membership online with a credit card. Once a membership invoice is paid, the membership application will automatically advance to the next state in the membership workflow and the applicant will receive an online receipt.

Figure 7.1. Example membership approval process

Communicating about a membership application's status

Once a membership applicant completes an application form, the applicant is sent to a Web page that shows the status of the membership application (i.e., whether the application is pending moderation or current). The Membership Status page can be bookmarked or added to an applicant's favorites to make it easy to return to the page later to view the status of their membership application.

When an administrator adds a new member, they can send a scheduled email template with a link or copy the 'Public Membership Status Page' link on the 'Done' step and paste it into an email. The recipient can use this link to access the Membership Status page.

Figure 7.2. Membership Status page

When a user is approved as a member company representative, they are granted access to the Members Area and tools, and possibly to other areas of the Web site as well. Kavi Members provides several options to control the company representative signup process and help ensure that access is only granted to users who are authorized to represent member companies, including automated enforcement of accepted domains and an offline step that passes control to human moderators who approve or deny the application. Some organizations choose to automatically approve all company representative applications, but this is uncommon.

The usual way to check whether a user belongs to the company under which the account would be granted is to force the would-be representative to sign up under an email address provided by the company. This is called enforcing accepted domains. If you aren't familiar with this subject, see the chapter on Accepted Domains in Kavi Members Concepts.

Since accepted domains enforcement isn't a foolproof mechanism (it only proves the user belonged to the member company at the time of signup), the signup process can be configured to include a moderation step. When applications reach this step they are placed in a moderation queue to await moderator approval. Applications can only pass this step if an Organization Admin approves the application through the Moderate Company Representative Applications tool. This gives the organization the opportunity to review the application and check with the member company to be sure the company wants this user to represent them before the application is approved. Rejected applications are deleted.

Figure 7.3. Company representative signup process