For Memberships Applications that need to be reviewed before they are approved and before any fees are processed, you can use the Membership Application setting. With this setting turned on, you will be able to connect a Survey to a Thank You Letter Membership Form and have that form default to a Pay Later transaction. On the Membership form, you can still collect the details about who the member or members are and which membership level they are applying for without charging the applicant upfront.

 

Here is a general outline for the membership submission process after turning this setting on and completing the full setup.

 

To start, the prospect/applicant would navigate to the online Membership form where they would select which Membership Level/Type they wish to apply as they normally would. Then, they populate the form with their contact information as well as the contact information for any sub-members.

 

Once in the billing section, the prospect can be asked to enter in a credit card. (Just above those credit card fields, there is a message in red notifying them that their card will not be charged at this time but will be saved.) 


Once they submit the Membership Form, a Thank You Message will pop-up on the screen and a copy will also be emailed to them. The messaging on this Thank You Message should tell them there is a second step to the application and request they click a button or text link that will launch the Survey application to provide additional answers about themselves or their Company.


 

After completing the survey part of the Application, another Thank You Message will be displayed, thanking them for their submission and typically letting them know that you will be in touch about their application.

 

On the backend, an email notification will be sent out to your team members letting them know about the submission and notifying whoever is set as the reviewer. The reviewer will be able to update the status on the application, and based on that decision, you can take further action. 


If approved, you can send an invoice to the applicant, requesting payment or if a credit card was included as part of their application, you can use that card to process their payment. Once processed, the Status of their membership will update from “Pending” to “Active”.

 

Setup

 

1. The first step in this process would be to setup your survey application. To do this, go to Workspace>Survey/Forms>Survey/Forms List. Then, under the “+ New” option you will be able to start a new Survey. While on the Survey/Form Settings tab, we recommend turning on the “Enable Internal Review” setting. This will allow you to select who should be notified when a survey application is submitted so that they can review the submission. You can choose from Internal Users or general constituents within your account. As part of this review process, you can also connect an additional survey that the reviewer would need to fill out as they review the application.


 

On this survey, we also recommend that you use the “Name and Email” Question Type if the membership application is for an Individual or use the “Company and Email” Question Type if the applicate is a Company. This will allow for the submitted survey answers to be connected to the same Constituent record as the Pending Membership Transaction. The rest of the questions for your survey can be customized to the information necessary for you to consider their application.

 

2. With the Survey completed, you can head over to the setup of your online Membership form by navigating to Workspace>Membership>Membership Page. From here you can setup a new form or edit an existing one. The setup of a Membership form using the Membership Application is very similar to that of a normal Membership form. However, on the Membership Settings tab you will need to turn on the “Attached Membership Application” toggle to YES which appears under the Financial Information section. Once turned on, you will be able to select the Survey that you created previously for part 2 of the application. You will also notice that the “Capture Credit Card for Pay Later” and the “Allow Purchaser to Pay Later” settings are automatically turned on. These setting ensure there will be no charge at the time of submission and that a credit card will be required for the applicant in case they are approved for their membership application.


You many also consider turning on the “Automatically Create Invoice if Pay Later” setting. This will allow for an invoice to be generated in case you need to send out a formal invoice to the applicant for payment using another payment method.


 

3. Continue through the Membership Setup and Membership Styling as normal, the next step will be the Thank You Message. On this tab, click the blue Edit Message button in the bottom right of your screen and this will open the Email Editor. Here you can customize the content of the message and as previously mentioned, you will want to add in messaging that directs the applicant to launch the survey as a part their application to finalize the membership processes. For launching the survey, you can use a text link or button.

 

  • If it is a text link, you can highlight the desired text and click the Link button within your content box toolbar. Under the “Button Type” dropdown, you will want to select “Membership Application.” Then, under the “Button List” dropdown you will want to select the name of your Survey. This selection will automatically insert a link into the URL field, and you can click “OK.”



  • If you are using a button, select the button and under the Settings tab you will see a “Button Type” dropdown where you will select “Membership Application.” Then, under the “Buttons” dropdown you will select the name of your Survey. This selection will automatically insert a link into the URL field and your button is all set.


 

Once your link has been setup, you can click the green “Save & Close” button at the top right of your screen to exit the editor.

 

After these three steps have been completed, you are ready to publish your Membership Form online and wait for an application to be submitted.

 

After an application is submitted, your reviewer will be notified, and they will be able to review and update the status of the members survey. If you decide to approve, they you can Invoice them for the owned amount or use the credit card on file to process their payment. Since the applicant’s original membership transaction was setup as Pay Later, it will show with a balance and will have a Current Status set to “Pending.” Once their payment has been processed, this Status will update to “Active” and they will gain access to the Membership Directory and Member Only Documents.