Self-Registration for Member Accounts

[Truman]

I'm currently working on a comprehensive upgrade to the members area of Ascribe-powered websites. This Ascribe-powered extranet would be a great way for a church to build an online community for members.

I will be adding the feature to let people register for an account on their own.
 
What would you prefer? Do you only want to let people already in the database signup for a login? Or is it okay to receive completely new people into the system via their self-registration.
 
Here's one example from another church:
http://www.northpointleaders.org/apps/profile/profile_choose_status.html
 
Let me know what you think,
Truman

[Bridgecity]

Great idea.  Let them do as much of the work as possible. 

[lindsayl]

I would prefer to only have those who already are in the database. I'm still deciding if I even want them changing their own information.
lindsay

[Truman]

When the new upgrade goes into effect, you will be able to configure the member portal to allow people to sign up for their own accounts or not.

It is more secure to have people sign up for accounts at church in person where you can verify their identity face-to-face, perhaps with some picture ID.

If you let people sign up online there is a potential for a member's financial giving information to fall into the wrong hands. Let's say there is a member named Jim Collins. He has been a member for a while and you have his record in the database with two years worth of giving records. You issue him a member portal login account.

Later another person signs up online for a member account with the name Jim Collins. You have no way of knowing if this is the same person. But later on an administrator notices that there are two Jim Collins's in the database, so he/she merges the two records. Only one login account will remain after the merge. But potentially the second Jim may gain access to the first Jim's financial information. Therefore it is more secure to only allow member account sign-up in person.

Thoughts?

[Bridgecity]

I like having the option either way. 

[lindsayl]

That would not be good. If we can eliminate any potential of confidential info being released I'm all for it. So the in person sounds good. We will most likely only be starting with the church leaders and then allow regular attenders/members begin to login.

[Bridgecity]

On our end, anything that allows us to distribute the work is good.  So, we're on the side of letting the people themselves do as much of their own data entry as possible - perhaps then having some administrative flag so that someone in the office reviews it to make sure it's entered correctly.

As for the confidentiality thing, is there some way to have some kind of unique identifier?  We already have quite a few people in the database, and in our initial roll-out, maybe they could receive an email from ascribe with a unique code or something that they have to use to initialize the process of creating their log-in.  Then for new people, when they sign up, the database could check for identical names and addresses.  If either the name or address is identical, then it would require some kind of additional check to be determined by the church using the system.  If neither the name or address were identical, it would allow the creation of a new record.

That would keep your hypothetical from happening, since Jim Collins would try to register, and would get back some kind of message asking him to call the office or something for further verification, but Bob Barnes, who is not in the database, would be able to establish his own account.

Of course - all account creations should have the same administrative flag I mentioned above, so that it is drawn to the attention of someone in the office to review.

[lindsayl]

How much longer before the release of the new member portal?

[Bridgecity]

Yes...  same question here.  bump, bump.

[Truman]

Hi Marc, I can upgrade BridgeCity to the version of Ascribe. The member portal will need a bit of beta testing. I sent you an email about it. Would you like to upgrade now?
Truman

[Bridgecity]

Sure.  That's exciting.

Also... did you notice my post about email problems this morning?

[Truman]

Okay, I'll upgrade BridgeCity today. Yes, I did see the other post about the email campaign and I duplicated the error. I'm working on it right now.

[Bridgecity]

Thanks very much!  Another quick response.  Thank you.