MembersFirst COVID-19 Resource Center
We have put together this guide to help you understand key tools and topics which will help your organization get the most out of your MembersFirst utilities during this important time. While standard emails, push notifications and everyday functionality will be critical during this period, the goal here is to help you understand additional tools at your fingertips.
Communication Tools
Operational Tools
- Cancel and Reschedule Events
- Hide or deactivate content on your site
- Create forms for online take-out ordering and upload your menus
- Grant employees Mobile APP access
- Create a dedicated health & safety portal
- MF Tee Times - Change your time interval to accommodate social distancing on the golf course
- Dining - Adjust meal periods, head counts, and establish new outdoor venues
Helpful Articles
Communication Tools
Message pop-ups
Message pop-ups are a great way to grab your members' attention. Upon entering the private side of your website, members will be presented with a pop up message. Here you can outline important information which has to be viewed by your members prior to fully entering the site.
Click here to learn how to create User Message pop-ups.
Announcements
Create highly visible callouts letting both your membership and/or the general public know important information is available across your club. For the members, there is a dedicated area on the member home page that outlines important announcements and information. For the public, a toolbar will appear at the bottom of your site, which can lead to customizable information. The public end users will be presented with this information every four hours after they have initially cleared the announcement. Therefore you can constantly change and update your announcements knowing your public end users will be updated.
Click here to learn how to create announcements.
Message Boards
Giving your members the ability to ask questions and providing them with the proper information is important to make sure everyone is on the same page. You can have various topics going at one time to further educate members of the quickly changing situations at the club.
Click here to learn more about managing a message board.
To add message boards to your site, please contact your dedicated Client Services Manager.
Email Archive & Email Groups
The Email Archive feature gives your members the ability to look up and view any emails sent from your MembersFirst website. This means that if a member can't find an email in their inbox, they will be able to find it on your club website in the Email Archive. You can take control of what emails are placed into the archive with a simple click of a button. Additionally, you can organize the archive by making use of Mail Groups. For example, adding your COVID19 related emails to a COVID19 email group will make it easier for your members to find any email related to the pandemic from your club. This feature will help your members easily get caught up with all the club's news, even when they miss an email which, let's be honest, is not uncommon.
Click here to learn how to use the Email Archive and click here to learn how to use Message Groups when sending emails.If you do not have the archive on your site, please contact your Client Services Manager to get started.
Distribution Groups
Different information may be getting shared across different sectors at the club. Your message to the board, full membership, and employees may ultimately have the same message but could be presented in many different ways. Create these saved recipient lists to make your communications that much faster to reach the targeted audience and use them over and over again.
Click here to learn how to create Distribution Groups.
Operational Information
Canceling and Rescheduling Your Events
Based upon your club's plan, cancellation or postponement of events and suspension of services may be in the works. Remember to view the learning center to assist with making your necessary adjustments, however below are some ways we recommend you handle these events:
- Remember to review if signups already exist. If so, communicate the cancellation or postponement through the proper channels. Don't forget to utilize the push notification feature of your Mobile APP
- Don't delete the event; simply deactivate it. This will allow you to know who originally signed up as well as use the content again when things return to normal.
- If you already know the new date of the event, you can can create a new event and send it to the previous registrants to re-register. We do not recommend changing the date on the original event, as some members may not be available on the new date and time. Once members are notified, you can deactivate the old event.
Hide or deactivate content on your site
Many organizations are choosing to deactivate content and/or hide utilities. Over the years we have given you several tools to make this straightforward process. The quickest and easiest way to suspend content is by using the on-page editor and site nav lite.
Other key areas you may want to review to ensure up to date content is being displayed:
- Club Calendar - Have you cancelled or postponed your events with registrations? Have you moved or deactivated your non sign-up events?
- Dining - Have the hours of operation changed; do you want a new venue for take out; do you need to close the dining venue?
- Tee Times - Have you reviewed and adjusted the tournaments for the short term? Click here to learn more about blocks on the Tee Sheet.
- Bookings - Have you moved or cancelled any appointments in the near future? Be sure to create blockouts to prevent new reservations during any period of Club closure or modified hours.
Create forms for online take-out ordering and upload your menus
If your organization has a food and beverage operation and are moving to a takeout operation, you can take advantage of our custom forms for takeout ordering. While not specifically designed to operate in this manner, it will help reduce some phone calls and streamline the process. Two basic templates exist on every site, one with form calculations and the other without. They can be found in the Marketing Request Forms module (under Sample Take-Out Forms) and are ready to be copied to new forms. These short, simple forms are meant to be the basis of a more robust take-out order form that you can create with the help of these instructions. Please be sure to copy the fields from this sample form rather than overwrite or make edits to it. That way, you'll have this example for future menus.
Don't forget to upload your menus to your site and/or create a section for today's specials. With both these tools you can quickly offer a hybrid online ordering platform for your members to utilize.
In addition to our forms, if you are a MembersFirst customer who utilizes our Mobile APP along with Jonas CHO statements, we can assist expediting the implementation of the Jonas Online Ordering Platform within our APP. A general guideline is if you have CHO statements, after signing up for this service, it should take as fast as 2 weeks to implement based upon current demands. If you do not have CHO statements, the lead time could be as quick as 60 days for this platform.
Click here to learn how to create online take-out ordering forms.
Grant employees Mobile APP access
Create a new membership type for your employees within your directory. You can then add the employees as members but give them your new employee type classification. You may want to restrict access to certain information via the security tab within each employee profile and hide the employee profile from the member directory. Invite employees to download the app and communicate their username and password. Then create a Distribution Group for just your employee classifications and start sending employee specific push notifications.
Create a dedicated health & safety portal
Easily create a dedicated page housing all of your important information and other helpful tips using a library document and easy-to-remember site alias or mapping, such as NeptuneCove.com/COVID19
You can use Content Hyperlinker to link back to any important announcements you may have posted as well as other documents containing emails or letters from the General Manager, President, or Board.
We recommend posting any changes to operating hours in a clearly visible location and provide members with the guidance and information they need to stay safe, such as links to local, county, or state agencies, the CDC, and the WHO.
MF Tee Times - Change your time interval to accommodate social distancing
Easily change your standard time interval on your MF Tee Sheet to accommodate the CDC recommendation to avoid close contact. Increase your time interval to put more distance between yourself and other people.
To increase your time interval use a block. Set your Play Interval 1 & 2 to the desired minutes. Most clubs that have already made this change are increasing the time interval to 15 minutes. Whatever you set your the block's start/end time to will have the new time interval. This will not effect any historical data.
Click here to view a tutorial that currently resides in the Tee Times section of the Learning Center.
Dining - Adjust meal periods, head counts, and establish new outdoor venues
As clubs begin to re-open and welcome back members, we want to help prepare you as the way your dining rooms operate have undoubtedly changed. As we learned with the re-opening of tee times, the temporary norm will require changes to your website’s configuration. Below you will find some helpful tools and advice for properly planning the re-opening of your dining facilities. And as we saw with golf, your members are itching to get back and ready to enjoy the club!
Adjust Your Hours per Meal Period and For Member Display
While it would be amazing to swiftly and seamlessly reopen all dining rooms when the time comes, we know that is probably not a reality. Along with rehiring staff, communicating new cleaning guidelines, and everything else it takes to reopen table service, it's very likely you may open with limited hours and meal periods. These tools will help you adjust accordingly to ensure your dining venue is offering the new days and times of service. To preserve your current settings, we recommend that you copy an existing meal period and deactivate the original meal period for later use.
Limit Headcounts per Meal Period
As things open, more than likely social distancing will remain in place. This will affect how many tables can be offered, and therefore limit the number of covers you can provide during your meal periods.
Creating New Dining Venues
If capacity to dining rooms is restricted, it may be possible to “introduce” new and unique dining venues to accommodate all your members. If you explore offering table service in new locations, we recommend you create new dining venues to assist with logistics and operations.
If you have questions about these strategies, please feel free to reach out to your dedicated Client Services Manager or call our general support line.
Stay Safe from your friends at MembersFirst!