Differences between old and new membership systems

Differences between old and new membership systems

[Updated 26 March, 2023]

Pricing

I set the cost of an Individual membership in 2014 at £10.00 for a year. We all know that many prices have risen since then, especially over the last couple of years. I have increased charges on average by 10%. So an individual 1 year membership will now cost £11.00. The annual charge for a seat in a group account was £2.00; this will now increase to £2.20. All other prices have been increased in a similar fashion.

For new registrations, these prices take effect immediately; for existing members, the price increases at your next renewal/change of plan.

What’s different

Here’s a list of things I haven’t transferred from the old to the new membership system:

  • Free memberships: You don’t need to register to access out-of-copyright files, but if you did have a free membership before and want to have one again, login and choose REGISTRATION>REGISTRATION FOR INDIVIDUALS
  • Expired memberships: Those who have them should still be able to login, and then choose a new membership to purchase
  • Previous payments: Choose YOUR ACCOUNT>ACCOUNT and click on the Payments tab. There will be just one payment shown, which is the new value of your current membership. This was required for me to make the transfers. Amount and date may differ from your last payment, but can be safely ignored. You have already had receipts from my payment gateways and from my site for previous payments. All future payments will be shown on this page
  • Expiry reminder emails, and possibly Password Reset requests, will look a little different, but still convey the same information as before

Please check that the details I have transferred look in order: Name, email address, membership plan, expiry date.

Holders of a Corporate Account (used to be called Group Accounts) should take a look at your Sub Accounts to see that all is OK. Choose YOUR ACCOUNT>ACCOUNT from the top menu and click on the Subscriptions tab, and then on the Sub Accounts link on the right. I haven’t brought over those people who never accepted their invitation, that is, they had the role “Invited”.

Also, the new system doesn’t have an “Admin” role, so those people now have a standard Sub Account together with your other members.

In Sub Accounts, there are two extra columns showing number of logins, and last login date. Historic data from the old membership system have not been brought over, so the data provided here is for 6 March 2023 and after

If you sent out a URL Link from the old membership system, for new members to join, then that link will no longer work. You need to send a new Signup URL. It’s on the same Sub Accounts page.

What hasn’t changed:

Searching for titles; playing/downloading those files.

What has changed, or looks different: Individual Plans

  1. Details about your membership, and about your profile, are now on one page: Choose YOUR ACCOUNT>ACCOUNT from the top menu;
  2. There are 4 tabs: Home  Subscriptions  Payments  Logout
    • Home: This shows the three bits of personal information I hold for you
    • Subscriptions: This lists the membership you have bought, with its expiry date, and date created. In the final column are links to “Renew” your existing membership, and one to “Change Plan” to a different membership. Clicking “Change Plan” will show a pop-up window. You will get options to move from/to a 1 Year, a 6 Months, a 4 Months or a Free plan. The value of any unused portion of your existing plan will be deducted from the cost of the new plan (this is called proration). There is no rebate if you choose to move to the Free plan
    • Payments: The first payment is the price of the membership. I needed this in order to transfer you over from the old to the new system. Any future payments will be listed below that
    • Logout: does exactly that
  3. There is no longer the slightly cumbersome system of asking for email verification. The system checks to see that the format is correct, but will not check for typing mistakes, so take care when entering your email address

What has changed, or looks different: Group (Corporate) Plans

  1. You were able to choose exactly how many seats (minimum 15) on the old system, but this has now changed. The new system offers Group (Corporate) Accounts starting at 15 seats (sub accounts), then for 20 seats, 25, 30, and so on. Above 50 seats (sub accounts) you are offered 60, 70, 80, and so on up to 120. As the owner (parent) you get your seat for free, and you are extra to the seat count. All these plans are offered for the same lengths: 4 months, 6 months and 1 year
  2. If your current group size fell between the bands now being offered, I have put you into the next bigger size. For example if you had 26 seats on the old system, I have given you the Group: 30 seat plan
  3. When deciding on how many seats you may require, you don’t count yourself; you get access anyway. For example, a Group: 15 Seats plan will give access to you plus 15 other people
  4. Group 2 Seats are a special case. You get your seat, with one additional seat
  5. Details about your membership, and about your profile, are now on one page: Choose YOUR ACCOUNT>ACCOUNT from the top menu;
  6. A bit lower down the page, there are 4 tabs: Home  Subscriptions  Payments  Logout
    • Home: This shows the three bits of personal information I hold for you
    • Subscriptions: This lists the membership you have bought, with its expiry date, and date created. In the final column are links to “Renew” your existing membership, one to “Change Plan” to a different membership, and a “Sub Accounts” link. Clicking “Change Plan” will show a pop-up window. You will get options to change to a plan which offers more/fewer seats, and longer/shorter lengths of membership. The value of any unused portion of your existing plan will be deducted from the cost of the new plan (this is called proration)
    • If you need to change to a different length of plan, you should do this as close to the expiry date of your current plan as possible. You choose REGISTRATION>REGISTRATION  FOR ??? CORPORATE PLANS
    • Payments: The first payment is the price of the membership. I needed this in order to transfer you over from the old to the new system. Any future payments will be listed below that
    • Logout: does exactly that
  7. The new Corporate Accounts won’t have a “Group” name; it goes under the name of the Parent. So if you are contacting me, quoting the old system’s Group Name is no help. You can still use your choir name if you have created a choir page on the site.
  8. There is no “Admin” role
  9. IMPORTANT: If you sent out the URL link for inviting new members from the old membership system, that will no longer work. You need to resend the new link available on your Subscriptions>Sub Account page
  10. In Sub Accounts, there are two extra columns showing number of logins, and last login date. Historic data from the old membership system have not been brought over, so the data provided here is for 6 March 2023 and after
  11. There is no longer the slightly cumbersome system of asking for email verification. The system checks to see that the format is correct, but will not check for typing mistakes, so take care when entering your email address
  12. There is no longer the system of newly-invited members being asked to click various links to get them accepted. Once you add a new member (sub account), they will appear as a full member of your group (corporate) account. There’s an option to send new members an email for them to set a password

There is a new Group (Corporate) Accounts Handbook. The link to this is on the right-hand side of all my pages.