Dear HarmonySite administrator,
A few small but useful additions to your HarmonySite to announce today.
But first, the latest on our new APP...
The app has been a huge success so far. Many dozens of groups have had this enabled for their HarmonySite, and it's all going very smoothly - much more smoothly than we anticipated, to be honest. We had a couple of small teething problems (bugs), but they've been resolved now. We've even added a couple of small new features since the app was released, such as the ability to LOOP (repeat) the playback of learning tracks.
As mentioned in our last email, we have many more features coming to the app, such as the ability for members to register their availability for upcoming events. They'll be released over the coming months.
Got yours yet? As mentioned in our last email, there's no "Try before you buy", but you get 30 days to pay your app invoice, so if you decide you don't want it, you can let us know before those 30 days are up, and we'll remove it from your site and delete your invoice.
The Next Big Thing
Now that the dust has settled on our latest big project (the app), we're ready for the next big one: Moving to a new server.
The current server is getting a bit old and frail. It's definitely time for an upgrade. That's the next item on our (infinite) to-do list. We'll be commissioning the new server in the next couple of weeks, and then formulating a plan to migrate all the HarmonySites over to it. The impact on your HarmonySite will be minimal. It will take place probably during a Friday evening or Saturday morning, and your HarmonySite will be offline for a few hours. Afterwards, your site will be up and running as if nothing had happened (except it may run slightly faster).
We HAVE done this before, many times, so we don't anticipate any major issues.
You'll get plenty of warning about this beforehand, don't worry.
Now, for those latest improvements...
Getting former members removed from riser stacks
We get MANY questions that essentially say "How to I get former members off my riser stack?" The answer has always been, "You can't. They deliberately remain there so that, at any point in the future, so you can always refer back to ANY historical riser stack and see where all the people were standing back then. If you want a riser stack that doesn't involve former members, you would need to create a NEW riser stack."
That's still true, but we have a cool new workaround that will give you the best of both worlds: Now, on the page that lists all your riser stacks, there's a new icon to the right of each stack that DUPLICATES the stack and REMOVES any former members...
So after you click that icon, there'll be TWO stacks - the old one, and a new stack that's identical but with no former members.
Removing Personal/Contact details from member records when they leave
If privacy is an issue, especially the confidentiality of your members' personal/contact details, then you may wish to no longer retain such details for your members after they've left your group. This is particularly important in Europe, with their strict GDPR regulations, which state that groups must NOT retain personal details after members have left.
We now have the ability for you to do just that, as part of the "Terminate Membership" process (which is a VERY comprehensive process for you to run when a member leaves your group)...
You can click on the link called "these personal/contact details" to see which details will be removed - basically ALL details, except for their name and email address.
Note that this new section will not be available if your group is part of a larger association with which all your member details are shared, such as several SAI regions, all of Harmony Inc, BHA, BHNZ, etc.
Footer Mini-Slideshow - new admin page
Many of you may not be aware, but the footer area of your Home page has its own "mini" slideshow...
The 3 photos that appear here are chosen at random from the photos that have been uploaded to your various photo galleries - but only if you have manually selected them to show there. If you have not selected any photos, the slideshow is not shown. (To select a photo to show there, visit the photo gallery and click the "Update" link on that one photo, then tick the box called "Also show in page footer/slideshow".)
Going through all photo galleries, locating photos to show there, and manually updating each one is VERY time-consuming, so we have now created a new admin page to do that for you. Now, when you're logged in as an admin, a link will appear immediately under that mini slideshow, called "Control which photos appear here". Click that link, and then it's pretty self-explanatory.
Note that if you have a LOT of photos in your galleries, that new page may take a LONG time to load.
Membership Invoices - intelligent expiry dates
Here's a common problem: In your site's "fee schedules" system, you have set people's expiry dates to be the LAST day of the month. And then you invoice your members for some fixed number of months, such as 1, 3 or 6 (this doesn't apply to 12-month fee schedules). Then you send the invoices, and they pay them. Their expiry date is automatically extended by THAT number of months. The problem is that the NEW expiry date will often no longer by the last day of the month.
Here's an example: Fred's expiry date is October 31st, and he is invoiced for one month. The system would then attempt to make his NEW expiry date November 31st - which doesn't exist (November has only 30 days). So the system would do the only thing it knew how - make the new expiry date December 1st, which is NOT the last day of the month. Things would get even worse if February was involved.
The system is now smarter: Now when you mark someone as paid for another month, their expiry date will correctly be changed to the LAST day of the target month. In the example above, their expiry date will be changed to November 30th (not December 1st). Similarly, if their expiry date was November 30th, and they pay an invoice for ANOTHER month, it will be correctly changed to December 31st (not December 30th).
That's all for today. Enjoy!
In harmony,
Mark Virtue
HarmonySite
Australia
+61 2 8005 4277 (Australian number)
In North America, call: 1-415-651-7009 (San Francisco number)
Skype name: mvirtue
