Membership is the basis of an association, so one of the main goals is to provide a user-friendly signup process. However, each association is different, so Novi gives admins the ability to dial in their online membership applications and many of the related processes to suit their needs.

This article will outline the steps to follow on the backend of your site, so you can fully automate your association's new member signup.

Before your members can signup for membership, you'll want to ensure that your settings are set to meet your needs as an association. 

Novi has a standard base set of fields that can be shown and/or required on company and individual records. You can turn off or require any of these according to the information you want to collect.

In addition to the standard Novi member fields, you most likely have additional data to collect. This can be done by creating custom fields. If any of your dues rules are based on member-specific information, such as unit count, you'll need to create a custom field for this as well.

We know it's more important than ever these days to have a simple, streamlined and efficient member signup process on your website, so Novi has the concept of "Key Information" fields. Instead of asking users to fill out every single field of information you'd like to collect from them during signup, you can now determine which fields they need to fill out during the initial process and which can be filled out via their Member Compass at a later time.

Now that you've determined which fields should be completed when a new member joins, you'll need to create and/or review your Member Types and corresponding Dues Rules. Each member type that is set to allow frontend registration will be displayed on the Membership Information page of your website.

Now that you have the basics down, dive a little deeper into more settings that affect your membership.

Your registration page is arguably one of the most important pages on your website. Whether someone is coming to the page to join, or simply to learn more information about your member types, showcasing the information they're looking for in a simple and professional way is key.

Once you have your settings above dialed-in (if you allow frontend registration), the sections below highlight what your members will experience.

When a user selects a member type on your website, they will be taken to a membership application where they will see the fields you set up as Key Info. After completing the required information, their dues will be calculated based on the dues rules for that member type.

If an individual is signing up for an account under an existing company membership, or gaining access for the first time to their existing individual membership, they will create a user account to get logged in to the website.

If a prospect or non-member already has a user account login on your website, they will also land on their Member Compass after logging in. From here, they can sign up for membership, and they may have the option to switch their member type*.

*There is a setting in your Association Settings that allows the renewing member to change member types upon renewal, or of course, stay in the same member type they are currently in. If you would like to review/edit this setting, navigate to Association Settings > Membership tab > Member Compass section > "Allow members to change member type upon renewal" checkbox (to turn the setting on, check this box).