Social Good Software

Creating amazing guest experiences through innovative software solutions for the social good community

Rick Hernandez

Automated welcome email query

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We use queries in Altru to gather information from the database so we can create memberships, send emails, and so on. An automated welcome email for first-time membership purchases is a query that is useful to your organization. It will save you time to send emails to new members, deliberate their digital membership card, and send a welcome message for first-time membership purchases.

You do not have to wait until the back-end batching processes are complete. You can assure your members that their membership is well accepted with an automated welcome email. In this tutorial, we will go over creating this automation query so your new members can receive these benefits immediately, and there’s one less thing you need to do every day.

Sample Automated welcome email query

automated-welcome-email-query
automated-welcome-email-query

Summary:

This query helps you send emails that welcome new members and create membership cards automatically, providing greater ease of access in using Email Designer. Please contact us through our support channel if you have questions or clarifications about the query or other topics. We are always happy to help!

How members’ names work on the digital membership card

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In this article you will be able to learn how members’ names work on a digital membership card. It will also guide you on how to enable this function which is important especially if there are more than one members in a membership.

How members’ names work on a digital membership card:

1: Log in to your Social Good Software account. 

2: Proceed to Apps then click on Development

3: Go to Membership Card Designer.

4: You can now modify your existing Digital Membership Card. Scroll down to the bottom and find the Members Names in which if enabled will put together the names of members on the membership. 

5: You can also drag the Members Name up to make it appear in the first row. If Members Names were enabled together with other two (2) options, you will not be able to enable other functions. It is because the Members Names takes up the full row of the membership card.

Note: Level Name and Amount was enabled together with the Members Names for illustration only. Feel free to change it to your preference.

Note: if the Members Names was enabled and there are more than two members in a membership the first two members will be shown in the membership card but the additional members will not be displayed.  

6: Click Save Design if you’re done with the editing.

7: Click on the drop down menu. Select Web Back to go to the back side of the Digital Membership Card.

8: You can enable the same three (3) functions that was enabled in the front side of the Membership Card plus the Barcode. With this, you will not be able to enable additional options. It is because of the same reason that Members Names take up the full row like in the front side.

You must not forget to click on Save Design once you’re done with the editing. If you have more questions please reach out to us through our support channel.

Emails you need to set up for Digital Membership cards

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Introduction

There are many transactional emails for Digital Membership Cards that we can configure with Email Designer. Because of that, we create this documentation for you to fully understand the functions and importance of these emails.

Knowing how these emails work and when to use it will help you better understand what emails you need to set up with your Digital Membership Cards and which one applies for your Membership Portal.

Different emails for Digital Membership Cards :

Launch Email

Useful in announcing your new Digital Membership Cards to the entire membership base of all active members of your organization. 

  • It is an automated email that you send out to the entire membership base of active members. You can use this launch email to inform members about the new Digital Membership Cards that the organization is officially launching or about the Membership Portal.
  • It is a one-time email announcement that you can send out to your active members. Receivers of this email are between 2,000 to 50,000 constituents depending on how many members your organization has.
  • Launch email will not be of use anymore after sending it to all active members. But there is an exemption which is when the organization resends it to their Board Members in the following year. You can turn on this email for that particular one-time communication.

Automated Welcome Email

Use to welcome all your new members who purchase online, advance, and daily sales. You need to have a sales order to be able to send this email.

  • An email that runs continuously in which once triggered will automatically send out to welcome those individuals who signed up and become new members as well as those who renewed their membership.
  • It is an automated welcome email that requires a sales order. If someone purchases through online, advance and daily sales, he/she will get a welcome email informing that he/she  purchased this particular membership.

Back Office Gift Email

Welcome email for the recipients or givers of the members who purchase through the back office. Useful for automatically sending out gift emails with gift messages.

  • It is an automated welcome email that you can send to the recipient and gift-givers of the members. Members who purchase through the back office that contain gift messages that can customize are the receiver of this email.

Automated Gift Email

Welcome email for recipients or givers of the members who purchase online, advance, and daily sales. Useful for automatically sending out gift emails and gift messages.

  • An automated welcome email sent to recipients and gift-givers for purchasing online, daily, or in advanced sales. It contains a gift message that can customize depending on how the organization wants to set it.

Back Office Email

An email that welcomes all your new members who purchase via mail-in or you enter manually. A sales order is not necessary to send this email.

  • A welcome email that automatically triggers to welcome new members who purchase through mail-in, entered manually, or through the batch. Sales order is not necessary for this kind of email to receive.

Reminder Email

Send out reminders for your members 120, 60, 30, 15, 7 days before the membership’s expiration date.

  • An automated email that you can send out to remind members to renew their membership. You can set it up once to send out on certain days before the expiration date.
  • You can also customize the specific day you want to send the reminder email.

Lapsed Membership Email

Send out follow-up for your members 7, 15, 30, 60, 90, 120 days after their expiration date.

  • A follow-up email that you can set up once and send out at a specific time after the expiration date of membership to those members who haven’t renewed.

Manual Tagging Email

Useful for those that want to receive the email again regardless of the method of how they purchased their membership. To be able to trigger the email, you have to do manual tagging with note type.

  • A welcome email that you can trigger by tagging a membership. Use this email when a member requests to resend the welcome email due to some reasons like they lost the original message, lost access to their email or just wants to email them again the welcome email.
  • Manual Tagging is useful whenever there are requests to receive their welcome email again regardless of the method they use to purchase their membership. It also required notes for this email to be triggered. 

Auto Renew Email

Send auto-reminders for payments on credit cards being used for auto-renewing memberships. This can go out relative to the expiration date.

  • This email is for everybody who is auto-renewing their membership.
  • Auto-renew email is sent out informing members who use credit cards for payment about their membership renewal which will automatically charge to their cards. 
  • This email can go out before or after the credit card gets charged. It is up to you when you want to send the auto-renewal email but we recommend sending this email out 2 weeks before the credit card gets charged to catch any changes on the card.

Below is a matrix that you can use as a guide. It will let you know what activities each of these emails covered.

Emails for Digital Membership Card

Summary

You now have an idea what are the different emails for Digital Membership Card that you can configure with Email Designer. This will make it easier for you to identify which email is applicable for a certain activity and which one is sent out for a specific transaction.

If you have more questions please reach out to us through our support channel.

How to download stats for barcode scanners

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Scanning tickets and memberships using the SGS Barcode Scanner will make your work easier and faster. It is an app that you can download to any mobile phone and tablet . You can also download backups of your stats from the scanner for record purposes or to check the result and analyze. This article will guide you on how to download stats for barcode scanners which also applies to any scanner you have set up.

Guide on How to download stats for barcode scanners:

1: Go to your Social Good Software account

2: Proceed to Barcode Scanner then click the scanner that you want to download its stat.

3: Click on STATS located at the left side of the window. 

S4: On the bottom part lies two options on how you want the data to be downloaded. You can download it as a CSV file or in Excel/Spreadsheet format.

Sample of Stat downloaded in CSV format:

Sample of Stat downloaded in Spreadsheet format:

Step 4: You can also choose a date and then the app will provide you all the data from the date you selected down the first day you use the Barcode Scanner. Click either CSV or Spreadsheet to download the data based on the selected format. If you need data from a particular date, we recommend just deleting the data you don’t need.

Note: The downloading option will download everything that was stored in it from the latest date you use the scanner or the date you selected to the first day you started using the Barcode scanner.

FAQ Digital membership cards

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FAQDownload

To ensure that the implementation process will go smoother with your organization, we compiled a series of frequently asked questions (FAQ) we have received from our clients about Digital Membership Cards to guide you.

Learn more about setting up your Digital  Membership Card with these Frequently Ask Questions (FAQ):

FAQ for digital membership cards:

Why do we need to set the transaction date as “on or after yesterday?” 

  • If the transaction date is set as “on or after yesterday”, it will accommodate queries that are purchased late at night, such as those at 11:30 PM. Altru time might differ from your organization, so we need to account for everyone possible.

What do I do with the query if the constituent email is blank?

  • The query accounts for constituents with a primary email and those whose email is blank. If you have any issues with grabbing the correct constituents, make sure you put the two email records in the “include” box in parentheses. Using “or” instead of “and” will ensure that any one of those records will pop up rather than nothing (since records generally have one or the other, not both).

Why is the Membership Level displayed twice?

  • Use one of the “Membership Levels” for displaying the level visually in the email, and the second is to enforce the membership level upon clicking on the link. If a constituent has multiple memberships connected to the name, this query will force the displayed membership to be this particular level you are writing the query for. 
  • (Ex. Tom has two active memberships under his name; if the query is for Tier 1 and NOT Tier 2, Tom will click on the link and see his Tier 1 benefits.)

I cannot find a note type that says “Digital Membership Card – Individual Membership.” How can I add this note type?

  • In Altru, go to Administration > Code Tables > Ticketing (found on “Category” drop menu) > Sales Order Note Type > Add
  • After clicking on Add, name the new note “Digital Membership Card – Individual Membership” for use in your query. You cannot set the note type field as this without creating the note type as shown.

What were the names and descriptions of the query shown in the video?

  • Video Query Name: Automated Email – Digital Membership Card – Individual Membership
  • Video Query Description: Please do not remove this query; it is used to send real-time emails for SGS to welcome new members using digital membership cards.

Where can a membership originate from?

  • Online sales orders – Webforms through Altru via the web
  • Daily sales orders
  • Advance sales orders
  • Auto recurring charge on credit card
  • Manual sending of emails for constituent information update
  • Back office manual entry
  • Back office batch entry

What do you need to do when a membership originates?

  • Verify the entered name, email, and level if it is correct.

What emails does the sales order method send?

  • Online sales orders
    • Acknowledgment email – Via Altru
    • Digital membership card email – Via Social Good Software
  • Daily sales orders
    • Digital membership card email – Via Social Good Software
  • Auto recurring charge on credit card
    • Your credit card is about to get charged – Via Social Good Software
    • Your credit card has been charged – Via Social Good Software
  • Advance sales orders
    • Digital membership card email – Via Social Good Software
  • Back office manual entry
    • Digital membership card email – Via Social Good Software
  • Back office batch entry
    • Digital membership card email – Via Social Good Software

Do I need to email the primary and secondary members separately?

  • No, we recommend you combine the emails into one

I’ve updated the information on a constituent record and I want to let them know, how do I do it?

  • You can manually tag them and this will trigger a new email to go out.

What happens when we merge records?

  • If the System Record ID changes, the link previously received will no longer work but will trigger a new email.

Is there a way to display the total number of members?

  • With the membership card designer, you can display a number like 10, 15, or 25.

Is there a way to display the number of child members?

  • You can display the number of children – Fields you can display

If a child has the same email address as his/her parent, will that parent receive multiple emails?

  • We typically just email the primary member not each member

If there’s an update made to a membership (member name, expiration date, etc.), do the digital membership cards automatically update?

  • Yes, it will send it out to ios and android automatically

Can we incorporate decals for reciprocal members via the membership card designer?

  • No, we need to do it at the design level for the image.