In this edition of Release Notes:
🧭 Member Management Updates
🛍️ Ecommerce Updates
💵 Accounting Updates
🔍 Report Updates
🗓️ Event Updates
🤝 Integration Updates
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🧭 Member Management Updates
Display Effective Member Type in Directories
In the past, only those with Designated Member Types had banners in Novi directories, distinguishing the membership holder from those receiving benefits. But what if, for example, you want to show the member type for both a company and the inheriting individuals at that company?
Now you can proudly display the member type for all your members (including inheriting) with Show Effective Member Types.
Turn on the Show Effective Member Type toggle in a directory's settings to display banners for all.
Establish an Application Process for New Members
Organizations with rigorous member requirements can now require an application for specific member types, allowing admins to prohibit potential members from being billed for dues or receiving benefits until a membership is created by the organization.
NOTE: The applicant feature should be reserved for organizations with strict join policies that require thorough vetting for membership. For most member types, where the majority of members in a member type are successfully approved, the application process is not recommended for use.
This feature allows organizations to request information via the application, but pauses at checkout and does not grant member benefits, allowing association admins to determine if the applicant is eligible for membership. Applicants will see the following messaging in their Member Compass while the application is pending.
Once approved, the new member will be billed for membership dues and will begin receiving membership benefits.
The application process can be set up in the member type settings.
🛍️ Ecommerce Updates
Disable Suggested Amount on Donations
Nervous about deterring supporters by entering a suggested donation amount? When setting up donation products in Novi Ecommerce, the Suggested Donation field is no longer required!
If you leave the field blank, now users won't see a Suggested Donation amount or related verbiage on the main product page, in their cart, or anywhere else on the frontend. Instead, donors will have to enter their preferred amount after adding the product to their carts.
You also won't see a suggested amount when processing a new order from the backend.
NOTE: If you have a Minimum Donation amount set, you must also set an equal or greater Suggested Donation amount.
💵 Accounting Updates
Track a Member's Tax Exempt Status & Reason
Each record in QuickBooks Online has a setting that indicates if a member is tax-exempt, and if they are, the reason for exemption. This information is now visible on all Novi Member Records too, helping your team properly handle tax on applicable transactions!
We are pulling this information from QuickBooks, as they roll out their new tax center. If you do not charge tax, and don't have tax rate set up in QuickBooks, this update will not affect your processes.
Along with the member’s sales term and billing notes, tax exempt information now shows (and can be edited!) from a Member Record's Details tab. (Note: this section on your site may slightly differ depending on if you are on QuickBooks' new or original version of the tax center.)
🔍 Report Updates
Easily Create Reports of Exclusively People or Company Records
If you're solely seeking information about people or companies, try employing our two newest custom report conditions: "Is a Person" and "Is a Company."
Adding "Is a Person" = Yes to your report conditions will limit your results to people-based records. The same goes for "Is a Company."
🗓️ Event Updates
Manage When ‘Add to Calendar’ Button Shows for Events
Always want to make sure users can add your events to their calendar? You can now set when the 'Add to Calendar' button appears on your events.
This is a site wide preference you can manage in Association Settings > Events. By default, the 'Add to Calendar' button will only be visible to logged-in registered attendees — the same as it was previously. However, you can now restrict the visibility further by never showing the button, or instead expand visibility to all website visitors!
These settings are reflected on the Event details page, the registration confirmation page, and the confirmation email.
🤝 Integration Updates
MailChimp Sync Improvements
In our December edition of release notes, we discussed the importance of 'under the hood' work. On top of creating the features highlighted here in our release notes, our devs are always seeking new ways to speed up Novi's processing.
Most recently, our team refined Novi's native integration with MailChimp with faster group syncs in mind. This upgrade is currently in beta testing and will be rolled out in the coming weeks.
If MailChimp is your preferred email marketing platform, Novi will start managing your group syncs in a microservice when this is rolled out. Essentially, this means each group sync runs independently, preventing an overload of information on the same service (and any slow sync times that result).
If this all sounds too technical for your taste, no worries. Long story short, you'll be enjoying speedier syncs between Novi Groups and MailChimp!