What You'll Find in This Sprint's Release Notes:
A Note on Printing Transactions from the Novi Admin
Important Improvements and Updates to Membership Status (A must read!)
Find Existing User Accounts for Duplicate Email Addresses
New Password Reset Details Message
New Password Creation and Reset Features
Required Custom Fields Updates
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1. A Note on Printing Transactions from the Novi Admin
We've made a small change to the background process relating to printing transactions from the backend/admin of Novi, in order to prevent timeouts on large bulk printing and making the process more efficient in communicating with QuickBooks Online.
This won't affect your usual printing processes, but if your browser has a pop-up blocker on, it may now prevent your downloaded transactions from opening.
Please make sure that if you have any issues printing from the admin side or if it looks like nothing is happening, you mark your website as safe with your pop-up blocker.
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2. Membership Status Updates
Big Improvements to Membership Statuses for Customer Records!
One of our biggest and most exciting updates yet are updates to the Membership Status types for your database records. We are now accounting for Inheriting members, Pending records, and Non-Members in many places throughout the site, including the member list, attendee list, reports, and more.
The full list of member statuses is now:
Current
Expired
Grace Period
Prospect
Inheriting (NEW!)
Pending (NEW!)
Non-Member (NEW!)
We highly recommend checking out what each status now represents and where you'll see it, by reading about the new membership status updates in our deep dive here.
You might be wondering what the big deal is about these changes are... and the answer is, a lot! Definitely check out the article linked above, but a few highlights you should know about are:
This major component of your database will now be more clear and intuitive for every record's unique membership status, determined by your member type settings. You'll see these in various places throughout the site.
Records inheriting membership from a dues-paying member in their family tree are now labeled as Inheriting. If they are missing this dues payer, they will be a Non-Member.
Non-Members are now searchable and filterable on your groups list and can more easily be pulled in your reports and groups.
Pending is now a status that will apply to records awaiting approval in Recent Signups or are missing a member that their member type is dependent on (this is different from inheriting members - please review article linked above for more info).
Dependent memberships as a whole are much more tightly knit, especially ones that go multiple levels deep (Member Type 1 is dependent on Member Type 2 that's also dependent on Member Type 3) or have a circular relationship (Member Type 1 is dependent on Member Type 2, but also vice versa).
Expiring members expiration dates and status updates were previously updated based on Novi's server time, but now they're based on your site's time zone, making this a subtle yet important change.
Creating Custom Reports Based On Membership Status
The beauty of these updates is the ease of finding the information you're looking for, and that is certainly true for reporting! If you're a data lover like we are and often pull custom reports...listen up.
You may recall that pulling current or expired members, or even prospects, was previously all based around using the membership expiration date condition.
We heard your feedback that having to calculate those dates wasn't always intuitive, and also excluded important parts of your database - such as non-members, those pending membership in Recent Signups, those in Grace Period and those who are Inheriting member benefits from another member.
Now, simply use the Membership Status condition to select who should be a part of your report and you're all set. It can also be selected as a column, so that you can see the values in your report results.
View Member Status on Member List and Attendee List
Giving you even more visibility and transparency for your data, we've also made a few additions to where these member statuses appear. You will now have a member status column option on your:
Member List
and your...
Attendee List
This way, you're able to easily see who is a current member, and who is in another membership state.
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3. Find Existing User Accounts for Duplicate Email Addresses
Have you ever tried to create a user account on the backend and received an error message that the email address is already in use? If so, you probably wondered which record was linked to that email address. Now you don't have to search for that information!
This new feature will not only list the name of the user who already has a user account with that email address, but will also provide a hyperlink so you can navigate directly to their profile. This will allow you to quickly troubleshoot the conflict.
In the screenshot below, you can see the message highlighted in yellow. Clicking on the name (in this case: Hamilton Smith) will take you to that record.
Novi Tip: If you want to open the second profile in a new tab, hold the CTRL or Command key on your keyboard while clicking on the link.
For more information about user accounts, check out the Create a User Account from the Admin article.
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4. New Password Reset Details Message
Have you ever sent a password reset email to a member and wondered if it was actually sent?
Now, this exciting new feature displays a message on the backend that staff can see when a password reset email has been sent for a user account! This applies for admin user account creation, admin password resets and frontend user-requested password resets.
There are two types of messages that will now display:
1. When a password reset is automatically sent when creating a new user account (Admin clicking the Create User button)
"Account successfully created and reset password email sent."
2. When a password reset for an existing user account is sent (Admin clicking the Send Password Reset button or user-requested password reset)
"Reset password email sent."
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5. New Password Creation and Reset Features
When a new user is creating an account, or an existing user is requesting a password reset, it's no secret that oftentimes they're rushing through and trying to complete the process and access the benefits of a member account as soon as possible.
We all know what happens when that occurs...password misspellings, extra spacing in passwords, etc. And then of course the password they typed in wasn't actually what they thought it was and they'd receive an error.
We heard these questions your members were asking, and added some great updates to the frontend of your website that will help them verify their password before they even get to that point! Learn more here and here.
Password Confirmation
When creating a new account or resetting a password, users will be required to enter their password twice. This way, if they mistype the password once, they'll be alerted when the other entry does not match.
Password Requirements
As a user creates or resets their password, the requirements will also display (in red font) beneath the field so they know if their password needs to be altered. A message will only display if the text that is typed into the field does not meet a requirement.
Note: Only one message will display at a time. Once that requirement is met, if another is not, a second message will appear.
Example 1 - Password must contain at least one letter.
Example 2 - The Password must be at least 6 characters long.
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6. Required Custom Fields Updates
We had a request from several associations that wanted the ability to decide if required custom fields are required for the members and/or admins. This would function similarly to how Novi's "Member Fields" section is currently set-up. It will be particularly useful for helping event registrations go smoother for admins registering attendees on the backend.
You've always had the option to make a custom field required, but now you have the option to decide whether it should be required on the front-end (for your members to fill out), the admin (for you to fill out), or both.
To make that change, the "required" checkbox has moved within the Custom Field modal. It's now listed under the "Internal Use Only" Checkbox and broken out as "Require on Frontend" and "Require on Backend."
Note: If you select "Internal Use Only" the option for require on Frontend will be removed as it is no longer valid.
You will also be able to see which fields are required or not from the Custom Fields listing page.
