Updates – Membership Process, links and page layouts

A while back I sent a message out requesting feedback on change to the membership process. Some great feedback was received, and I hope that you will all be happy with the outcome.

The membership core process is still the same – Register – Login – Fees.

The main changes are:

• A “Would you like to join button” appears on the home page for any non members
• If they aren’t logged in they are invited to login or register
• If they are logged in they are invited to nominate their fee payment and add comments e.g. who they paid and how much.
• Fee payments can be Cash, Bank Transfer or PayPal
• PayPal can be through MyPhotoClub or your own PayPal address.  If you use MyPhotoClub a monthly funds transfer will occur. You only pay PayPal fees.
• A settings page allows each club to set these options
• A membership coordinator is nominated, and they receive email notifications.  The coordinator can then add them to the Members group.
  • This is the main change and allows better control of membership.

For renewals the “Would you to like to join” button becomes “Membership renewal”

A settings page allows for these membership setting to be set:

• Fees
• Month fees are due
• Month to consider as payment for next year e.g. If you pay in November your membership is paid for the following year.
• Membership Coordinator

Lots of visual changes are happening with MyPhotoClub!

The drivers for this change are:

• Moving to buttons instead of links for all actions
• Improved usability on phones and tablets
• Layouts that better guides the user through their activity
• New responsive, searchable tables of information such as the Membership List.
• Less reliance on menus
• Buttons under the Welcome Colin (if your name is Colin) will be the main navigation start point
• A “members area” Button will be the ‘go-to” place for members
• A Club Management button will encompass all options currently under committee and webmaster

This pdf file is a presentation regarding these changes:   Membership Process

Please have a look and then feel free to ask any questions.

When will the changes occur?

I will raise a support ticket for each club in the name of your contact. From there we will progress each site’s transition.  Committee members will see Club Management button appear and functionality slowly appear.

The aim is to retire the Members, Committee and Webmaster menu options at the end of the year.

What about the club pages and content?

There will be a single About the Club page where all of these pages will reside.  Depending on who you are the pages available will change.  This is the last stage of the transition away from menus.  Plenty of discussion and fine tuning will occur to ensure your content is made as easy to access as possible.

Will the menu disappear?

No.  Each club can continue to use the menu as they wish.  MyPhotoClub is steadily growing and menu maintenance for all of the ‘system’ pages is not practical.

By removing the menu the capability for a club to choose a different theme becomes a possibility.

What about Competition sites?

The same changes are being implemented.  A Competition Management button will appear with activities divided up in the timeline of the progression of the competition.

 

What is the MyPhotoClub Challenge?

Stay tuned for info on this…it’s going to be big!

 

 

As always never hesitate to contact me with your queries or suggestions

regards

Colin

by MyPhotoClub Colin, September 12, 2017

Improved Website Security enabled

Recently Google released a version of Chrome that flags any website that does not have a SSL certificate (proof of identity – https at the beginning of the address).  Any page not covered by a SSL certificate that has a login box is now showing the message Not Secure in the address bar.

While technically correct, the likelihood of a breach is extremely remote for a photography club/competition website to be targeted in such a way.  All payments associated with the site are done at PayPal and not at MyPhotoClub.  Many other security safeguards have been in place since inception of the site.

Nevertheless a certificate has been purchased and installed, so that all communication on the site is now encrypted.  Chrome now proudly displays the site as Secure.

There are two issues that arise from this implementation:

1. If you have an alternate domain name like mycameraclub.org, then using this address will result in a “site not secure” error message.  A certificate is being arranged for each of these names.  Use the yourclub.myphotoclub.com.au address instead.
2. While it was never advertised, it is possible to access your site with the address www.yourclub.myphotoclub.com.au.  This address will produce the “site not secure” error message.  Use the yourclub.myphotoclub.com.au address instead.

If most of this is gobbly-gook then that’s OK. – Trust me – the site is safer now but was never unsafe 🙂

Colin

by MyPhotoClub Colin, June 30, 2017

Improved Presentation and Download system

Presenting images onto a screen that are either being judged or to show the results of a completed competition is a core feature.   Initially the approach was to use Internet based images, but this allowed Internet connection problems to get in the way.

The alternative is to download the images in advance and then show them from the local computer.  To display information such as titles, results and group the images, a program called Flexishow has been used. While being quite effective, it was moderately complicated to use and setup.

I have now setup a new system that still downloads the images, but uses your computer’s browser to display the images.  All of the competitions to be presented can be selected so that a single download is required.

After making the selection and downloading your zip file,  you simply unpack the zip, open the presentation.html file and follow the instructions.  The title slides  are constructed using the front page banner from your website.

There is one major caveat :- you must use Google Chrome as your browser.  Start Google Chrome and press Ctrl (Cmd) and ‘O’  and open the file.

The feature is accessible on all club websites from the Competition Management page, and is called New Downloading Images Page.   Thisis located under the Presenting, Projecting and Downloading Images heading.

Looking forward to your feedback.

The link below will allow you to download a demonstration copy. Within it are six February print competitions that Prepared for Judging (titles only)  and six January with Judging Completed (titles, results and awards) (Finalised),

Download Presentation zip file from Demonstration site (100mB)

Colin

 

by MyPhotoClub Colin, June 20, 2017

Overall comments for a competition

A new feature has been added that enables a judge to enter an overall  comment about the competition they have judged.  This option is available to judges accessing the competition through their Remote Judges Home Page.  Each competition has a green Comment on competition button, which opens a simple form to enter the comments.

For members, when they view the competition gallery the comments will be displayed above the competition title. If there are no comments then nothing is visible.

by MyPhotoClub Colin, June 13, 2017

Improved process for Finalising and or Publishing competitions

An improved process for completing competitions has been established.  This system uses a layout similar to the Remote Judging Selection Page.  This will be implemented over the coming days.

A three step wizard then takes you through the process:

1. Choose Finalise or Publish
2. Select the type of competition – Print or Digital
3. Select the competitions to action

Accessing this new process is done using a single link on the Competition Management page called ‘Finalise and/or Publish Competitions’ .
This will replace the two Finalise and Publish options currently in place.

Follow this link to see screen shots of the process.

 

As always, your feedback and comments are appreciated.

regards

Colin

by MyPhotoClub Colin, May 10, 2017

Club specific information on Remote Judging page

As detailed in my last post, an improved remote judging process has been introduced.

One of the main aspects of this new system is the Remote Judges Home Page.  On this page the judge is given access to the competitions to be judged.  As with many pages on your website this page has the small MyPhotoClub logo in the top right, signifying that it may be updated at anytime and should not be edited by the club.

To place club specific information on the page a ‘text-block’ is provided. This is a bit like a page within a page.  Several pages in the website have such a text-block.  To edit the text block go to the WebMaster page and there is a link to Go to the Text Block area at the bottom of the page. The text blocks are named the same as the page they reside on. Simply edit them like a page or post.

regards

Colin

 

by MyPhotoClub Colin, April 21, 2017

Improved Remote Judging process

Having a competition judged remotely (online) is a very important feature of the MyPhotoClub solution. The process of having a judge register, then follow a link to become a judge and then go back to the email each time to access a competition was pretty clunky so an improved process has been establishd.

The main points of the new system are:

• The judge does not need to register – you either select their existing account or create one for them.
• The judge is sent a generated email which contains a link to a  Remote Judges Home page. The link automatically logs them on. You receive a copy of this message.
• This page contains links to all the comps you’ve selected for them to judge.
• Once the comp is finalised/published the link disappears from their home page.
• There are now next / previous buttons on the comments page to simplify moving from image to image.

Accessing this new process is done using the same link on the Competition Management page called Competitions judged remotely.

If you wish to test this go to Demonstration site > Competition Management> Competitions judged remotely. Use aricakim@noemail.com as the judge, or create one with an address ending in @noemail.com

Below are screen shots of the email and home page.

regards

Colin

 

 

 

by MyPhotoClub Colin, April 20, 2017

New commenting system

A new system for displaying and commenting on images has been introduced.  To access the galleries go  to View Image Galleries under the For Members menu.

The new system uses the same commenting system used on posts and allows for comments to be edited. A notification is sent to the owner of the image when a comment is made.

All previous comments have been carried into the new system.

For Remotely judged EDI / Digital competitions, entrants will receive a message containing the judges comments when the results of the competition are published.

Click on the two images in this post to see what the new pages look like.

by MyPhotoClub Colin, September 8, 2016

Improvements to grading process

For clubs that have a grade structure, a number of changes have been implemented to improve the grading workflow.

Recap: When a new member joins they are placed in the NotGraded group.  The new member welcome message points out that they need to load images into the grading form so for the club nominated grader(s) to assess. Under the Committee > Grading menu item,  the Grader(s) can see the images loaded by the new member and set their grade.

The improvements put in place are:

• The member’s Grading page now has a list of the graders for the club. The member just needs to click on their email address and send them a message that they wish to be graded.
• Under the Committee menu there is now a single Grading page. This page has three options:
  1. Grading for new members
  2. Change the grading of a member
  3. Add or remove committee members to/from the Grader group. This group is displayed on the member

Please have a look at your club website and confirm that the correct graders are in place and adjust as needed.  Also go to the members’ grading page and consider editing the text on the page to reflect your club’s grading process.

regards

Colin

by MyPhotoClub Colin, May 22, 2016

MyPhoto Clubs & Comps menu item

On your website you will see a new item on the far right of the menu.   MyPhoto Clubs & Comps takes you to a page that lists all the websites that are on the MyPhotoClub network.

The aim of this page is to inform your members of the competitions available and re-inforce that their username and password works across any of these websites.

This page also has recent posts from all the active clubs and competitions, and points out how to register to receive these posts by email.

 

 

by MyPhotoClub Colin, May 16, 2016