Renewing passes using the rolling membership functionality
Organizations (such as museums) that offer yearly memberships have the ability to renew memberships based on when the current memberships expire. With these so-called “rolling memberships,” a guest can renew her membership at any time – before or after her current membership expires. Options have been added to set the valid dates of renewed memberships based on the expiration of the current memberships even when that expiration is still in the future.
Example:
An annual membership product is valid for 365 days. A guest has a current annual membership pass that is good from 4/15/2012 through 4/14/2013. The guest wants to renew her membership for another year during her next visit on 1/21/2013. When the operator sells her another annual membership pass, Salesware enables the operator to ensure that the new pass is good from 4/15/2013 to 4/14/2014 (not 1/21/2013-1/20/2014), but if the guest wants to renew her annual membership pass and the current date is 6/15/2013, the operator can issue a renewed pass that is valid from 6/15/2013-6/14/2014 (not 4/15/2013-4/14/2014). Another key piece in the rolling membership capability is to allow renewals to be at the end of the month even if the current date is not the last day of the month. Many organizations prefer to have their memberships expire at the end of the twelfth month of the membership, not necessarily 365 days from the start date of the pass. To continue to use the previous example, the pass that was renewed for 4/15/2013-4/14/2014 can optionally be renewed for 4/15/2013-4/30/2014 if “end of the month” rules are in place.
To support the rolling membership functionality, SysManager provides the following validation options:
• SysManager > Activities > DCIs > New/Edit > General tab > Round time span to end-of-month check box, which is available if a non-zero Days Time Span is entered.
• SysManager > Activities > DCIs > New/Edit > Action tab > Validation Template > Extend expiration date (days) and Round to end-of-month check boxes.
To set up the one-year membership card:
1. Create an item (for example, One-Year Membership).
2. In SysManager > Activities > DCIs > New/Edit > General tab, set Time Span to 365 days and check the box for Round time span to end-of-month if necessary.
3. In SysManager > Activities > DCIs > New/Edit > Action tab, set Item Type: to Create Pass.
4. Press the Action Specifics button, and then in Starting Values tab add any points or uses as necessary.
To set up the one-year renewal product:
1. Create an item (for example, One-Year Renewal).
2. In SysManager > Activities > DCIs > New/Edit > Action tab, set Item Type: to Regular Item.
3. Also in the SysManager > Activities > DCIs > New/Edit > Action tab, select the Force validation radio button, and then press the Template button.
4. In the Template > Validation tab, enter 365 for the Extend expiration date (days) and check the Round to end-of-month check box. Go to the Item/Pass Relationships tab and assign the One-Year Membership item for validation.
How the renewal works:
• Supposing that a guest has a One-Year Membership valid from 04/20/2013 through 04/19/2014 and would like to extend it for one more year – i.e., the valid end date is 04/19/2015.
• The operator at the salespoint sells the One-Year Renewal item and validates it with the pass number on the guest’s current One-Year Membership. The validation message displays, saying that the new expiration date is 04/30/2015.
Note: The date is rounded to end-of-month (instead of 4/19/2015).
• If it is decided not to round the expiration date to end-of-month, the One-Year Renewal product is configured so that the Template > Validation tab > Round to end-of-month check box is unchecked.