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Administration Tasks

This page describes some tasks frequently used by an administrator and others that are less frequently used but convenient to have in one place.

The Setup tool is used to define the basic attributes of the Village.

When you first use this page your Village account and web site have been created. The web site will not be visible to the public and your members until you click on the "Go Live" option. But there are many things you should do before taking the site live. At this point if you need to leave, you can log out and return later. Until the site is live, when you log in again, you will be taken to this screen. We suggest that you review each of the screens to provide the requested information. When you have completed each task shown, you will have a full-featured website and membership database for your Village.

If you would like the ClubExpress to load your existing membership database into the system, or if you have any questions about this process, please call Customer Support toll-free at 1-866-HLP-CLUB (457-2582 - outside the US, +1 847-255-0210).

Menus : You will need, and we have provided, three main menus. One is for the public, one is for members and one is for staff. Some menu items have submenus that also appear on web pages, as shown on the left. Your menus should consider who is viewing the site and what are they trying to do when thy visit the site. For example, members may want to look at events or request services. These should be prominent on your member's menu.

Menus can contain, submenus, references to built in modules, custom pages, external links, or photo albums. Submenus can contain references to built in modules, custom pages, external links, or photo albums. When variations of the same submenu are needed for the public, members, and staff our convention is to use a submenu name with no trailing blanks for the public, one trailing blank for members, and two trailing blanks for staff.

People : The software keeps separate lists of members, and non-members but manages them both from the people manager screen. RunMyVillage charges you based on the number of members unless the number of non-members becomes excessive. See an explanation of rates here.

More information is kept on members than non-members. Use the people manager to add new members, edit the member's information, set the primary member in a household, and manage who is the primary member in the household. It is also used to drop members when their membership expires. The village can collect additional member data for its special needs. Volunteers, donors and event registrants are often non-members and need less data beyond contact information and categorization.

Use the People Manager to add new members. If they are also volunteering, then go to the service providers screen for service information. Use the Service Providers screen to initially add volunteers who are not already in the database. It is not necessary to first add a non-member volunteer using the people manager and then add service details; it can all be done via the service provider screen. The service providers screen collects additional information about the services the provider wishes to offer.

Use the People Manager to add new non-members, edit the non-member's information, and manage duplicates. The people manager screen allows the promotion of non-members to members retaining all their information.

When entering a household membership, there are primary and secondary members. The primary member should be the person who most reliably reads their email and/or is more likely to be responsible for managing service requests, event attendance and membership renewal. The other member(s) of the household should be the secondary members.

People who register for events online or donate money online are entered into the non-member database automatically unless they tell us they are members as the register or donate online. This can create duplicate entries in the non-member database that need to be managed.

Both members and non-members can be placed in categories (called mailing list categories) for targeted emails or rapid location. Typical categories are potential members, interview pending, potential volunteers, and so on. The administrator can manage list categories Categories.

Service Providers: This tool manages lists of service providers. "Service providers" is a general term for either a volunteer or a contractor. Volunteers can be either members or non-members. The tool allows the admins to record which services a person will provide, track the vetting process update contact information, and update availability information. Service Providers

Committee Admin : Villages create committees of members and volunteers to help run the Village. This tool lets you add or edit committees and manage membership in the committees. Committee membership can be used to define participation in forums, such as the sift notes for call managers, and inclusion in certain mailing lists.Committee Manager

Email Administration. This module allows you to send emails to the whole membership or smaller groups of members. For example, you might send messages to all service providers or to all service providers in a given metro area. If Status is 'Draft', the email has not yet been sent. Sent emails cannot be edited but they can be copied. Click the Add Emailing button to create a new email. Click Distribution Lists to add, edit, or delete predefined emailing distribution lists. This capability is feature-rich and we suggest you review the associated help and watch the tutorial videos.

Administrators and Coordinators: The software allows fine-grained control of access to various functions. Villages need to create or adopt a "security policy", which essentially defines which privileges are given to people with a certain set of responsibilities. They should avoid giving blanket permission to too many people. General admin privileges should be limited to the database administrator with general software expertise and NOT to people with operational responsibility for running the Village.

A sample security policy for call managers is described in "Add a Call Manager". In general, people should only have privileges that enable them to do their assigned job. Discourage the view that having a privilege is a prestige item and encourage the view that it is a commitment to do work for the Village.

RunMyVillage privileges may be copied from one member to another, which is why this template provides a "sample call manager" and a "sample treasure" in the people manager with privileges recommended for those positions.

Responsible Staffer Click to select and add an existing staff member as a person responsible for entering service requests or contact logs entries. Click 'Delete' to remove a person (this will not delete the staff member, but merely remove them from the list of responsible persons.

This capability is largely a pain in the neck. It is required when creating a Service Request that a responsible staffer be designated. This will be set automatically to the person creating the entry if they are on the responsible staffer list. This forces the Village to add all people who create service requests to the responsible staffer list to avoid the annoyance of being forced to do so before saving the request. Most Villages rarely actually use this capability beyond being forced to do so on service requests. You cannot filter service requests by responsible staffer. The only use for this capability is to indicate who created a service request, and even then it is unreliable since someone might have changed the entry.

Forums Manager Use this tool to add forums, and manage the membership of forums. Click the "Search" button to search for forums. You can also organize forums into categories for management purposes. Click "Add Forum" to create a new forum. You will see the properties screen which allows you to define general forum properties. Click 'Special Members to set options on members that apply to all forums. Click "Edit" to modify these properties for an existing forum. Click 'Members' to view and set options on members of the specific forum. The other links in the Maintain column perform their expected functions.

Forums: This screen allows you to view the contents of any forum.

Custom Pages: From this screen, you will create and manage custom pages on your web site. Each page may contain text, images and links to other pages and external sites, and the formatting can be as simple or as elaborate as you need. Click "Add Custom Page" to create a new page. Click the "Configure" link to change the configuration of an existing page, including its visibility and name on the menus. Click "Edit Content" to update the page itself. Click "Coordinators" to define who can update this page

Interests: Interests are used both to manage membership in group activities and to know the interests of your members. Interests are grouped into categories. To manage interests you must first find (or add) its category. Interests Category Administration
Next you need to select the interests icon (second icon) in the maintain column to edit or add a new interest.

This allows you, as an administrator, to describe the interest, add the interest to members' profiles, or send and email to the members who have selected this interest.

To view a list of interest categories and the interests within each category click on Interests.Click on the down arrow next to the category to see the interests in that category. Members can view (and add new) their interests from their member profile. As an administrator you can also view a member's profile from the people manager.

To understand more about how interests are used to allow members to join open activity groups read Managing Group Activities.

Document Manager: Documents are organized into folders which can be updated from this screen. Click on the plus sign to the left of a folder's name to see its sub-folders. Click on a folder name for folder maintenance options. Select "Add sub-folder" to add a new folder. Select "Edit" to change an existing folder and description. Click "Delete" to remove a folder (note that this is only available if the folder has no sub-folders and no documents). Click "Display Sequence" to change the order in which document folders appear. Click "Documents" to view and update the individual documents within that folder.

To view the documents library click Library.