Dear HarmonySite administrator,

I hope everyone is staying safe, healthy and calm during these strange and troubling times.

Here at HarmonySite, our business is largely unaffected by the disruptions challenging most of our society.  And we're very grateful for that.  We are still "business as usual" for our support, and also for developing new features.

This email contains a list of the most recent improvements to HarmonySite.  No major changes, just several small improvements...

1.  You can now sell digital/downloadable items via your Merchandise system

Up until now, the "Merchandise" system was capable of selling only "physical" products/items, such as DVDs and T-shirts.  A few of you have used the merchandise system to sell digital/downloadable items, such as PDFs, MP3 music files, etc - but every time a sale was made, you needed to manually email the purchaser a link to the downloadable item.

Now HarmonySite will do that for you.

When setting up the merchandise item, there is now a new field called "Link to downloadable item", in a new section called "For Downloadable Merchandise" at the bottom of the add/update merchandise item screen.  Enter the URL (web address) of the digital item (or the webpage containing a link to the digital item), and that link will be added to the email that is automatically sent to the purchaser when their order is paid.

2.  Bulk-entering availabilities/attendances no longer requires a "Save"

Now, when entering availabilities or attendances for several members at once (on the "Attendance" page), each time you select an availability or attendance option for a member, that option is automatically and instantly saved.  There's now no need to click the "Save" button at the bottom of the page (in fact, the "Save" button has been removed).

Why did we do this?  Well, it turns out that if two people were simultaneously entering availabilities/attendances for a given event, each person's changes could overwrite the other's, even if they were working on the availabilities/attendances of different sets of members.

3.  We've made it easy to create an "ad hoc" invoice for any member

On each member's profile page, near the invoices summary, there's a new link called "Create one ad hoc invoice for this member".

4.  Member Audits can now be aimed at specific subsets of members

You may recall that the "Member Audits" system is a way of collecting details about members that the regular HarmonySite member database doesn't have a spot for, such as "dietary requirements", or "skills".  The Member Audits system can also be used to do member surveys.

With this latest change, it's now possible to adjust a group of audits to be visible/applicable to a particular subset of members.  You do that by specifying a "member grouping" for the audit group, as follows...

1.                   Visit the "Member Audits" page

2.                   When adding or updating any "audit group" (a collection of member audits (questions)), select a member grouping from the new drop-down list called "OPTIONAL: Restrict to just members of this member grouping".  If you do so, then all the audits/questions in that audit group will only apply to members of that particular member grouping.  Members who are NOT in that member grouping will not see those questions in their member profile, nor be prompted to complete them.

Notes:

•                     A "member grouping" is not the same thing as an "audit group"

•                     Even if a member is NOT in the member grouping designated in an audit group, they will still be able to visit the "Member Audits" page and view the answers from other members - unless you adjust the visibility settings of each member audit.  In other words, this is not a "privacy" setting.

5.  It is now possible to nominate a "gender" when creating a member grouping

As you may recall, a member grouping is a set of criteria for selecting members from the member database (such as "all active members", "all former tenors", etc).  Added to the set of criteria now is "Gender", meaning that you can now stipulate that only people of a certain gender will be in the member grouping.  So if you're a mixed-gender group (like a typical community choir), you can now create separate member groupings for "Men" and "Women" (or any other gender options that your organisation has).

6.  Help page revamped

Click on the little "help" icon (question mark) in the top-right corner of your HarmonySite, and you'll see that we've revamped that page visually, added some new contact/support options, and added a handy "quick reference" at the top of the page of all ways you can get in touch with us.

Stay safe,

Mark Virtue

HarmonySite

Australia

+61 2 8005 4277 (Australian number)

In North America, call:  1-415-651-7009 (San Francisco number)

Skype name:  mvirtue

mark@harmonysite.com

www.harmonysite.com