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MemberTies
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Myro
International |
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[pc
only] MemberTies,
a club membership software program, proves once
again independent companies can produce first
rate applications. MemberTies is an invaluable
tool in organising and maintaining information
about people within any organisation. |
Myro
International at AbleStable®
(Partner profile page)
Myro
International online
(opens new browser window)
System
Requirements
PC
95/98/2000/NT/ME and XP
Detailed
Description
MemberTies™ is a club membership software program
designed for administrators of small and large organisations.
The software is essentially a powerful database application
that ensures the smooth input, maintenance and automation
of essential information like an organisation's personnel
and member profiles (more of this in a moment).
MemberTies™ also supports custom definable fields,
has been tested and runs on Windows 95/98/2000/NT/ME
and XP, and is available in both a standard and a
professional version. What
MemberTies™ does
The following section describes MemberTies™
in more detail. The following application description
has been carefully scrutinised and edited by us
and is based heavily on information generously provided
by Myrro International, the developers of MemberTies™.
Installation
The installed program requires about 21 Mb of
disk space, and may be easily uninstalled via the
Windows Control Panel.
Protecting Your Data
All data is stored in a password protected relational
database, and full backup and restore options are
included within the program.
Help
Comprehensive online help is provided using the
standard Windows help system. Help includes a table
of contents, a complete searchable index, and step
by step procedures for using all available features.
Contact Information
All essential contact information is available to
organise including: complete name; photograph; company
name; address; email; telephone; website; occupation/job
title; reference; etc. In addition, MemberTies™
Professional allows for unlimited addresses per
membership record, and allows you to assign a date
range within which each address is valid so the
system can automatically keep track of the 'current'
address.
Membership Types
Most clubs are made up of many members, and each
member is assigned a particular 'status' that designates
the type of membership the person holds. MemberTies™
ships with a predefined set of statuses, but also
allows you to add, delete them, or define your own.
So regardless of whether your club has statuses
like 'Family' and 'Single' or more generic terms
like 'Prospect' and 'Regular', MemberTies™
will let you set up exactly what you need.
Dues Payments
MemberTies™ enables you to enter any number
of dues payments for each membership record. MemberTies™
(standard version) lets you enter the amount and
date paid, the membership status purchased, and
additional comments. Once you have set up your dues
information, you can also use the Dues Calculator
to calculate the amount of dues owed for a given
status for a given month.
MemberTies Professional expands the standard version's
dues functionality to give you individual dues 'accounts'
to which you can post both debit and credit entries
using a system of dues Posting Types. The pro version
also provides automated interest posting on past-due
accounts, and mass dues-posting to help with those
'once a year everybody owes us the same amount'
tasks. Additional reports are also included to help
check balances, postings for a given day, and to
print account statements.
Roles & Achievements
If your club recognises members for their achievements,
tracks offices or positions held, or just needs
to know when someone was involved in a particular
type of activity, you can record it using membership
or club 'Items'. Items are used as a generic way
of describing all of the 'things' your members can
be involved in. You can create distinct item categories,
such as 'Member Achievements' or, 'Offices', and
then assign items to those. For example, in the
Offices category, you might create items of 'President'
and 'Vice President . You could then assign the
Offices/President item to the person who held that
position, and add a comment indicating the year
they were in office.
ToDo Lists
Every busy club has things that need to be done.
Sometimes the ToDo is related to a specific member,
and other times it is more generic. Sometimes you
(the user of MemberTies) needs a reminder just for
yourself. The ToDo List feature in MemberTies™
enables you to track ToDo items for any membership
or club record, or for yourself. You can print your
outstanding ToDo list, display future items, and
mark them as done as you complete them.
Other Clubs
If your club is part of a larger parent organisation,
you might want to keep contact information about
other clubs in the organisation Taking this a step
further, MemberTies™ enables you to assign
each membership record to any number of clubs. That
means you can actually keep track of the membership
of several clubs and run reports specific to a particular
club's membership, or for all members combined.
Reporting
No membership system is complete without reports,
a complete set of predefined reports is provided
including: rosters; mailing labels; dues payments;
statistics; birthday lists; contact lists; individual
member and club reports; and more. Many reports
can be customised to show only certain membership
statuses, dates, etc., or can be restricted to limit
membership records to those assigned to a specific
club. Custom reports may also be created for your
organisation that fits your particular needs.
MemberTies™ Professional adds the ability to
create multi-column reports, as well as mailing
labels, rosters, directories, and business/ID cards.
Choose from any available membership or club field,
lay out the report, save the report, and it will
act as if the report shipped with the original program.
Myro International and AbleStable
AbleStable®
Review
As creative professionals used to high-end products
like Dreamweaver and Photoshop we were very impressed
with MemberTies. We hunted high and low for a software
solution that would track membership details in
a flexible and user-friendly manner. When we came
upon MemberTies we have to confess we were a little
hesitant in trying it out as we'd not heard of it
before. We spent a long time reviewing the developers
site before eventually deciding this might fit our
requirements.
From
the moment we installed the software we knew I'd
made the right decision. MemberTies installs in
a very clean manner, more than can be said for most
software products, including the large high-status
software houses. We automatically run a comprehensive
system check after every new software installation
and usually have to fix a few problems, either as
a result of poor registry entries, or shortcut omissions.
MemberTies installed without a single reported problem.
We mention this as it sums up the care and attention
that's been given to all aspects of this programme.
MemberTies
ships with great on-line, pop-up and status bar
help. We later discovered the developer also worked
as a technical writer and it shows. So often the
help sections with software are either sparse, or
poorly written, but the plain language and great
examples used in MemberTies help provide the user
with an invaluable resource in getting up to speed
quickly, and before long we started exploring the
true potential of MemberTies with the help of some
excellent walk-throughs.
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The
screenshot to the left shows a general record.
When
a Membership record is opened, details for
the record are displayed for editing. The
details are seperated into several tabs, each
designed to collect a different type of information.
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The
software itself is very intuitive to use and evidently
developed by someone with a great eye for detail
and a particular understanding of the needs of organising
people profiles. Changing MemberTies to our needs
couldn't have been simpler (the speed of this process
was all down once again to the excellent help section).
We've
no reservations in recommending MemberTies Pro.
You'll be getting a lot more than the price tag
suggests. One final but significant remark: the
support of the product is every bit as good as the
product itself! All in all five out of five stars.
Review by AbleStable®
|
Windows
only software |
Myro
International
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