Member Society Roster Tutorial
The web software that is used to provide the interface for maintaining the roster uses a number of HTML5 features. You need to be using a recent version of a web browser that supports HTML5. You also must have Javascript enabled.
- Obtain a user account on this website. Note that you must be an officer in your local society. The email address you provide MUST match with last roster your society submitted to the astroleague. You may request an account by visiting URL /user/register. Enter a username, email address, and answer the “Captcha” question. You will receive an email with instructions on how to activate your account after it is approved.
- Login to the account you set up in Step 1. Once logged in you will see a menu item on the right hand side of the page titled “Society Information”. This menu link item does not appear unless you are logged in to your account. Click on the “Society Information” link and you will see the following 6 tabs:
Society Information : This is the page shows the information that is available to the internet about your society.
Edit members: This form is used to enter, edit, update, and delete members.
Upload roster: This form is used to upload a spreadsheet of your membership roster.
Download roster: This form is used to download information from the database and save it as a spreadsheet.
Roster file: This form is used to delete or reload spreadsheet files that have been previously submitted.
Admin Tasks: This form is used to perform miscellaneous administrative tasks such as removing inactive members from the roster and calculating your society dues.
- Upload your society’s roster. Click on the “Upload Roster” tab. Select a spreadsheet file on your local machine — of course the spreadsheet must follow the Astroleague roster guidelines. Click the “Upload club roster” button. The spreadsheet will be processed. The names of the columns are checked. The order of your spreadsheet columns doesn’t matter. You also may have additional columns if you wish. A note at top of the page will indicate whether the spreadsheet was accepted. It will also inform you if any needed columns are missing. Members who were in a previous roster but not in the current roster will be have their membership status flagged as “not renewed”. If they were previously “not renewed” they will be flagged as “inactive” .
- Review your roster. Click on the “Edit members” tab. A table will show 5 of your club members. You may use the scroll bar on the right side of the table to move through your roster information. It is sorted alphabetically by last name. Check a few of your members to see that the information matches your spreadsheet. You may also locate a member by entering their first and last name in the edit form and then pressing the “Tab” key on your keyboard — the roster will be searched and the information for that person entered in the form.
Correct an entry or add a person to your club’s roster. Click on the “Edit members” tab. Locate the name of the person in the table. Click on that table row. The edit form below the table will change color indicating that you may modify the information. Make the change and then click on the “Update” button at the bottom of the edit form. Here is a short cut you may find useful. Change your status back to active and click on the “Update” button. To add a new member, scroll to the end of the table and click on the “Add new” row. Enter the person’s information and then press the ‘Update’ button. Note: If you wish to change your own email address, you need to change it first in the roster and then in your user account. The software uses your email address to match you up with your society. If it does not match you will be denied access.
- Download your roster. Select the “Download roster” tab. The “Data source” should be set to “Database”. Select a download format for the spreadsheet. Then click the “Download” button. The information will be retrieved from the database and then saved in the format you selected. After a few seconds you should see a prompt to set the file name or it may ask if you wish to view it (depending on which browser you are using). Alternatively, if you set the “Data source” to “Previously submitted file” that file will be selected and downloaded — this is the original file that was submitted previously.
- Review previously submitted rosters and remove old entries. Select the “Roster files” tab. You will see a selection box with names of previously submitted files. You may either delete an old file or reload your roster information from that spreadsheet if the online database needs to be replaced for some reason.
- Select the “Admin Tasks” tab. This is used to select miscellaneous administrative tasks. The “Select task” drop down is used to select which task will be performed. “Delete inactive members ” task may be used delete all members who are now “inactive”. Inactive means that they were on a previous roster, but are not on the current roster — ie they have not renewed membership in your club. Click on the “Perform task” button to remove all inactive members. “Calculate society dues” to calculate your clubs annual dues. The system counts active astroleague members for your society from the database. If all your club members are astroleague members as well, both the total and active member numbers will match. Click on “Perform task” button. A pdf document will be created, showing your club’s dues. Print the form and send it in to the Astronomical League secretary.
- Update your society’s information. After you have made changes to your society’s roster you may make changes to other information as well. Note that you may make changes to this information only afteryou have updated the roster as described in previous steps.
Select the “Society Information” tab and then click on link with the name of your society. Click on the “Edit” tab at the top of the form. You may enter a description of your society, address, phone number, email, etc. You may not change fields that shown in “gray” such the club_code, AL region, or your society’s officers. The officer information is obtained from the latest roster that you submitted.