Introduction
The Membership Form allows you to collect applications from would-be program participants and screen them for eligibility. This article will explain how to check if it is enabled for your program, how to modify your membership form, and how to preview the form.
Enabling the Membership Form
The membership form is set up independently for each program (enterprise customers take note!). The admin for each program can choose whether or not to collect applications and has control over which fields display on their form.
How to enable the membership form or check to see if it's enabled:
If your site has multiple programs, navigate to the program in question. If you have a flat single-track program, disregard this step.
Go to Manage > Program Settings.
Under "Membership," select "Apply to Join" with "Administrator Approval Required" as shown in the image below. Repeat for both mentor and mentee roles. Specify at the bottom of the page whether or not people can join with both roles. Save your changes.
If you wish to verify the form is now enabled, log out of your account. This will direct you to your program-level Overview page as if you are a prospective member. You will now see a "Join Now" button at the top right.
Editing the Membership Form
The Membership Form comprises a subset of your profile fields, so you'll actually go to the Profile Form builder to configure your Membership Form fields. You will set up all the fields you need in this one central place and designate them as profile-only, membership-only, or both.
If set up correctly, the fields captured during the application process will be transferred to the user's profile upon acceptance into the program. You may choose to hide many fields from other users - but you'll need to store all data in the profile that you might ever need at any point for matching or reporting.
Your editing permissions vary depending if you are at the global level or at the track level. Deeper changes must be made by a global admin, at the global level. From the track level, you can only browse the global list and add or remove those fields from your track. Below, we explore these two options.
How to add and edit fields for the membership form
Go to the global level using your "My Programs" drop-down. If you use the Standard edition of Chronus and/or only have one track, skip to step 2.
Select "Manage" and scroll to the bottom.
Under "User Form Fields", click "Customize Profile" (image A below). If you run a single-track program, select from within the "User Form Fields" section on the manage page.
A. Global and Single Track view.
Open a section to view the fields within it.
Find a field you wish to modify and click on it to edit. Alternatively, add a new field by selecting "Add new field" at the top right of the section.
Type in your desired field name, which is the question text seen by the user. You can also modify the field type (multiple choice, etc.) and description (optional). IMPORTANT: If operating at the global level, your changes may affect multiple tracks. Check which tracks are already using the field before you modify it, and work with the admin of that track to avoid disrupting the user experience.
Make sure the box is checked for either mentee, mentor, or both. This controls who will be asked to complete this field.
Click "Advanced" for either the mentor role or the mentee role, depending who you are exposing the field to.
Check the box that says "Membership Form" as shown in the image below.
Verify the other settings. The two most important settings to consider for the purpose of the Membership form are:
- Profile: It is best to carry almost all data over to the profile after accepting a user into the program, so to be safe make sure you have checked the "Profile" box.
- Mandatory: If a field is on the membership form, it's best to mark it mandatory. That'll ensure everyone is ready to match as soon as you accept them into the program, with no further action needed on their part.Repeat steps 8-10 for the other role if this field will be exposed to both roles.
Save your changes.
Repeat steps 4-12 for all fields you wish to capture as part of the application process.
Now, do a sweep to ensure there are no mandatory fields excluded from the membership form. Look for fields in which "Profile" is checked, "Mandatory" is checked, and "Membership Form" is UNchecked. Change those to either be optional, or add them to the Membership Form if they need to remain mandatory. You want to ensure that ALL mandatory fields are present on the membership form. Any fields present on the profile but not the membership form are asked only after you accept that user into the program. You don't want incomplete mandatory fields slowing down the matching process.
How to Preview the Membership Form
From the builder, it can be difficult to sense the look-and-feel of the membership form compared to the profile form. We offer a membership form preview to help. You may wish to toggle to the preview periodically throughout the editing process to check your work.
From the profile builder, scroll to the top. Look for the Preview button at the top right and click where shown in the image below.
Select the track you wish to preview and a role. If you have a single-track program, you will not see the toggle to choose a track.
Once you select a role, the form will expand. In the image below, the admin has selected to preview the mentee form within a program called "Career Development".
FAQs
Can I add or change the help text shown during the application process? Yes! You can change text in two places:
A. The role descriptions. Change these from Program Settings > Membership, at the track level.
B. You can add custom instructions from the Customize Profile (track level) tool. These instructions will display during the next step of the process, after the user verifies their email address.
What is the end user workflow to apply to join? The workflow is described here.
I am trying to edit profile or membership request fields and the system won't let me. What's going on? You are probably at the track level. Move to the global level and try again.
Is there a way to automatically deny eligibility if a user does not meet certain criteria? Yes! First, ask your Chronus contact to enable membership eligibility rules. Once this is complete, you can set up your own set of rules from Manage > Program Settings > Membership.
What happens if a user is logged into one track and wishes to apply to another? This is possible. The user's membership will be merged into their same account.