This topic provides detailed information on how Aptify recommends that these Membership Renewal Best Practices be implemented in Aptify 5.5.1. The best practice recommendations are implemented in five scheduled tasks, none of which are enabled by default. At a minimum, you need to activate these processes and modify the templates and timing as determined by your organization's requirements. 

Best Practice #1: Automate Creation of Membership Renewal Quotations

Aptify's Scheduled Tasks technology lets you automate recurring tasks so users do not need to execute them manually. The first best practice recommendation is to leverage Aptify Scheduled Tasks to automatically generate membership renewal quotations.

The recommended workflow includes the following elements:

• Create Membership Renewal Quotations Scheduled Task: The default setting for this task is to run daily at 4 am to create a membership renewal quotation for any membership that expires in the next 90 days (assuming that the membership does not already have an open renewal quotation and that it is not configured for auto-renewal). Running the process daily is the recommended approach for organizations that have a rolling membership model where a membership could expire every day. For organizations that use a calendar year model where all memberships expire on the same day, you can choose to have this task run less frequently (even just once a year, 90 days before all of the subscriptions are set to expire). When this task executes, it runs the Generate Renewal Quotations for Memberships Expiring in 90 Days process flow.

• Generate Renewal Quotations for Memberships Expiring in 90 Days Process Flow: This single step process flows uses the Renew Subscriptions process component to generate quotation orders for the membership subscriptions that appear in the Membership Subscriptions Expiring within 90 Days list view. The generated quotation orders have a Due Date of 90 days from the date the process flow runs.

• Membership Subscriptions Expiring within 90 Days List View: This filtered list view displays the membership subscriptions that need to have renewal quotations generated. You can find this view in the sa user's Membership Renewal Workflow shared folder for the Subscriptions service. The subscriptions returned by this view meet the following criteria:
  • Is an Active subscription
  • Is a subscription for a Membership product
  • Has an End Date between today and 90 days from today
  • Has the Auto Renew option disabled
  • Does not already have an open renewal quotation tied to it, which is defined as a Regular or Quotation order in Taken status with a Due Date greater than the current date

Best Practice #2: Send Period Renewal Notices

Aptify's second best practice recommendation for membership renewals is to send periodic renewal notices to members who have not renewed yet on this schedule:

• First Notice: 90 days before expiration (corresponds to the date when a renewal quotation is created by the Automate Creation of Membership Renewal Quotations workflow)
• Second Notice: 60 days before expiration
• Third Notice: 30 days before expiration
• Fourth Notice: Date of expiration
• Fifth Notice: 30 days past due
• Sixth Notice: 60 days past due
• Final Notice: 90 days past due (plus a follow-up phone call from a staff member)

However, once a member has renewed at any time during the renewal cycle, no further notices should be sent to that person.

Aptify includes a workflow that automatically sends out these notices on a predefined schedule using the following elements:

• Send Membership Renewal Notices Scheduled Task: The default setting for this task is to run daily at 6 am to send out renewal notices to the appropriate members. For best results, it should run on the same day as the Create Membership Renewal Quotations scheduled task but after that task has completed. This way the appropriate 90-day renewal notices are sent out on schedule. For organizations that use a calendar year model where all memberships expire on the same day, you can choose to have this task run less frequently (such as once per renewal notice). When this task executes, it runs the Send Membership Renewal Reminder Emails process flow.

• Send Membership Renewal Reminder Emails Process Flow: This multi-step process flow iterates through active Membership Email Schedules records to load a specified source view of renewal quotations. The process flow then sends the appropriate renewal notice, as identified by the Membership Email Schedules record's Message Template, to the Ship To person on those quotation orders.

• Membership Email Schedules Service: This service identifies the source view and message template to use for a particular renewal notice. An administrator can also mark Membership Email Schedules as inactive to disable a particular notice. In the example below for the fourth notice that is sent on the membership expiration date, the Quotations for Memberships Expiring Today view identifies the recipients of the renewal notice that is based on the Membership Expires Today Renewal Notice template.

• Membership Email Schedule Views: The sa user has a Membership Renewal Workflow shared folder for the Orders service. Included in this folder are seven views that identify the recipients of a particular renewal notice. These views identify recipients based on the following criteria:
  • Order's Type is Quotation
  • Order's Status is Taken
  • Order's Due Date is today or later
  • The subscription to be renewed by the order has the Auto-Renew option disabled
  • The subscription to be renewed by the order is for a Membership product
  • The subscription to be renewed by the order expires in a particular time interval (such as in 60 days or expired 30 days ago)

• Member Email Schedule Message Templates: Aptify includes a set of starter message templates that you can use as the basis for your own renewal notices. Within each template, areas enclosed by double angle brackets identify information that will be automatically populated by Aptify for each particular membership renewal message (such as <<ShipToFirstName>>, in the example below). Items enclosed by square brackets are placeholders to be replaced by you with static text (for example, you would replace the [Association's establishment year] placeholder with the year your association was founded).

Version 5.5.1 includes the following sample templates:

• • 90/60/30 Day Membership Renewal Notice
  • Membership Expired Today Renewal Notice
  • 30/60 Days Past Due Renewal Notice

  • 90 Days Past Due Renewal Notice
    
    

    Note

    In some cases, the same starter template is used for multiple notices and is tied to more than one Membership Email Schedules record. However, you may choose to create a different template for each renewal notice if required. 

Best Practice #3: Promote Auto-Renewals

Aptify's third best practice recommendation is to encourage members to sign up for auto-renewal. This eliminates the need to send out multiple reminders and makes it easier for members to stay active with their membership.

The Auto-Renewal best practice recommendation includes:

• 60-day advance notice to a staff member for standing orders that will not fulfill without user intervention
• 30-day advance notice to members for standing orders that should fulfill without error
• Process to automatically generate renewal orders using Aptify Standing Order functionality
• Thank you notice sent out to members who were auto-renewed today

This workflow uses several elements:

• Standing Orders That Will Not Fulfill in 60 Days List View: This filtered view displays the standing orders for membership subscriptions that are scheduled to auto-renew in 60 days but will not based on the payment information defined on the Standing Orders record. You can find this view in the sa user's Membership Renewal Workflow shared folder for the Standing Orders service. Aptify recommends that you use the Aptify View Scheduling feature to distribute a daily report to staff members so these standing orders are reviewed and modified as necessary before the renewal date. The standing orders returned by this view meet the following criteria:
  • Is Active
  • Is scheduled to renew in 60 days
  • Does not have an appropriate payment method specified, for example, the credit card has expired or will expire before the renewal date
  • Is tied to a subscription for a membership product
  • Is tied to a subscription that has the Auto Renew option enabled

• Send Membership Auto Renewal 30-Day Notice Scheduled Task: The first step in the AutoRenewal workflow is to send out a notice 30 days prior to renewal to members. This gives the members an opportunity to opt-out of the auto-renewal process if desired. By default, this scheduled task is configured to run daily. Running the process daily is the recommended approach for organizations that have a rolling membership model. For organizations that use a calendar year model where all memberships expire on the same day, you can choose to have this task run just once a year, 30 days before the membership expiration date. When this task executes, it runs the Send Email with Message Template process flow.

• Send Email with Message Template Process Flow (30 Day Notice): This instance of the process flow sends out a pending auto-renewal notice (see the Membership Auto Renewal 30 Day Notice message template for a sample notice) to members whose membership subscription will auto renew in 30 days, as identified by the Standing Orders Scheduled in 30 Days list view.

• Standing Orders Scheduled in 30 Days List View: This filtered list view displays the membership subscriptions that will be auto-renewed in 30 days. You can find this view in the sa user's Membership Renewal Workflow shared folder for the Standing Orders service. The standing orders returned by this view meet the following criteria:
  • Is Active
  • Has an expiration date 30 days or more in the future
  • Has a payment method that can be successfully applied to a new order, such as a Purchase Order or a credit card with a valid expiration date
  • Is scheduled to renew in 30 days
  • Is tied to a subscription for a membership product
  • Is tied to a subscription that has the Auto Renew option enabled

• Fulfill Membership Auto Renewals Scheduled Task: This scheduled task is configured to run daily at 6 am to fulfill standing orders for memberships that are scheduled to automatically renew that day. This scheduled task runs the Fulfill Membership Auto Renewals process flow.

• Fulfill Membership Auto Renewals Process Flow: This process flow runs the Standing Order Fulfillment component for the standing orders identified in the Today's Standing Orders Renewals source view.

• Today's Standing Orders Renewals List View: This view identifies standing orders that are scheduled to be fulfilled today. You can find this view in the sa user's Membership Renewal Workflow shared folder for the Standing Orders service. The standing orders returned by this view meet the following criteria:
  • Is Active
  • Has an expiration date of today or in the future
  • Has a payment method that can be successfully applied to a new order, such as a Purchase Order or a credit card with a valid expiration date
  • Is scheduled to renew today (but has not renewed yet)
  • Is tied to a subscription for a membership product
  • Is tied to a subscription that has the Auto Renew option enabled

• Send Auto Renewal Thank You Note Scheduled Task: This scheduled task runs daily to send a follow-up thank you note to members whose membership was automatically renewed today. By default, the task is configured to run daily at 8 am. It should be run after the Fulfill Membership Auto Renewals scheduled task is complete and after the generated orders have been shipped. If your system is not set up to automatically ship orders that do not require fulfillment, then a user should manually review and ship the generated renewal orders before this schedule task runs. In this case, you may want to schedule this notice to go out later in the day after a staff member has had a chance to process them. This scheduled task runs the Send Email with Message Template process flow.
• Send Email with Message Template Process Flow (Thank You Notice): This instance of the process flow sends out a Thank You notice (see the Auto Renewal Thank You Note message template for a sample message) to members whose membership subscription was automatically renewed that day, as identified by the Today's Standing Orders Renewed list view.

• Today's Standing Orders Renewed List View: This view identifies standing orders that were fulfilled today. You can find this view in the sa user's Membership Renewal Workflow shared folder for the Standing Orders service. The standing orders returned by this view meet the following criteria:
  • Fulfilled today
  • Is tied to a shipped order
  • Is tied to a subscription for a membership product
  • Is tied to a subscription that has the Auto Renew option enabled

Best Practice #4: Expire Memberships for Non-Payment

Aptify's fourth membership best practice recommendation is to terminate the membership benefits for members who fail to pay their dues within a fixed number of days after the renewal date. In 5.5.1, the Membership Renewal Workflow expires members if they have not renewed within 120 days of the renewal date.
The termination process does the following:

• Expires the membership subscription.
• Updates the membership type for the expired member (to a value such as Non-Member or Former Member, depending on your organization's membership structure). This occurs at the Person and/or Company level.
• Cancels any open membership renewal quotation orders.

The workflow uses the following elements:

• Expire Members for Non-Payments Scheduled Task: This scheduled task runs periodically to expire membership subscriptions. This will set the subscription and membership of persons/companies to expired due to non-payments, and corresponding quotation orders will be set to Cancelled. By default, it is configured to run monthly on the first of the month at 6 am. It runs the Expire Members For Non Payments process flow.
• Expire Members For Non Payments Process Flow: This process flow executes four Entity Bulk Operations against a set of pre-defined list views to expire unpaid memberships.

1. 1. Update Subscription Status to Expired: This step loads the Membership Subscriptions to Expire view (in sa's shared Membership Renewal Workflow folder for the Subscriptions service), which displays any memberships that are marked as Active but have an end date 120 days or longer in the past. It then executes the Expire Subscription entity bulk operation to change these subscriptions to expired.
   2. Update Persons to Expire Membership: This step loads the Individual Memberships to Expire view (in sa's shared Membership Renewal Workflow folder for the Persons service), which displays persons with a member type other than Non-Member (ID 1 in the sample dataset) who have an expired Individual Membership Subscription and whose Dues Paid Thru date is 120 days or more in the past. It then executes the Expire Individual Membership entity bulk operation to change the Person's member type, set the Status to Expired, and the Termination Date to today. Note that you will need to modify the Entity Bulk Operation rule values to specify the appropriate Member Type ID and Status ID that you want to use to identify non-members and/or expired members.

   3. Update Companies to Expire Membership: This step loads the Company Memberships to Expire view (in sa's shared Membership Renewal Workflow folder for the Companies service), which displays companies with a member type other than Non-Member (ID 1 in the sample dataset) who have an expired company Membership subscription and whose Dues Paid Thru date is 120 days or more in the past. It then executes the Expire Company Membership entity bulk operation to change the Company's member type, set the Status to Expired, and the Termination Date to today.
      
      

      Note

      You will need to modify the Entity Bulk Operation rule values to specify the appropriate Member Type ID and Status ID that you want to use to identify non-members and/or expired members.

      
      
      

   4. Update Orders to Cancel Status: This step loads the Memberships Quotations to Cancel view (in sa's shared Membership Renewal Workflow folder for the Orders service), which displays open quotation orders for memberships that are 120 days or more past due. It then executes the Cancel Expired Quotation Orders entity bulk operation to change the Status of these quotation orders to Cancelled.

• Memberships Expired Today List View: This view display memberships that were marked as Expired today by the automated process described above. Aptify recommends that you use the Aptify View Scheduling feature to distribute a monthly report after member expiration process runs to identify which memberships were expired that day.