Keywords: import alumni users, registration, alumni site
Overview
This article outlines how someone can register to your Alumni Program, through the Alumni site, from a best practice perspective. This process helps to eliminate duplicate user accounts in your Alumni site.
Registration form on the Alumni Site
We recommend having a registration form on your Alumni Site to allow for alumni to easily register to your Alumni Program. This also allows you to ask for important information upfront, such as the email address they would like to use for login, or to receive alumni-related emails, which is critical to setting up a user account.
Rather than using an InterAction Form, we recommend using a Vx form for registration to your site. A Vx form will not write information back to InterAction. The reasons for this include:
- Decreases the probability that you will have duplicate user accounts in your Alumni site and directory;
- Allows the Alumni Manager to "screen" contacts who would like access to the Alumni site, rather than just clicking on "Approve";
- Allows the Alumni Manager to gather important information upfront that is critical to setting up a user account for a new alumni or for updating an existing user account (e.g. someone who was PreApproved during the launch of the Alumni site, but have yet to claim their account).
As a minimum, we recommend including the following required fields in your Vx Registration Form:
- First Name
- Last Name
- Business Email Address
- Last Name at [Firm Name] (if different)
- Preferred Email Address for access to Alumni Site and where you will receive alumni-related emails
- Start year at [Firm Name]
- Departure Year at [Firm Name]
- Job Title at Departure
- Office at Departure
- Practice Group at Departure
If you are not currently in the project phase for an Alumni Microsite, but currently have a Vuture Alumni Microsite and would like to take advantage of this recommended registration process, please contact your Account Manager.
What happens once someone submits the registration form?
From a registrant's perspective:
Once someone submits the registration form, they will receive a Thank You Page letting them know that the Alumni Manager is currently reviewing their information to verify their previous work history at the firm. They will not have access to the Alumni Site until their registration has been approved by the Alumni Manager. They will receive an email notification upon approval.
From the Alumni Manager's perspective:
Once someone submits the registration form, the Alumni Manager will receive an email notification with a copy of the registration form submission. The Alumni Manager can then go into the back-end of the Alumni Site. Go to "Options" > "Manager User" > "Manager Users" Tab > click on "All", then search for the registrant by their first name, last name, or email. This helps to verify if the registrant already has a user account in the Alumni site, which could have been created as part of the Launch of the Alumni site.
If the registrant has an existing user account, but prefers a different email address, follow the instructions below to update it. If the registrant has an existing user account with the correct preferred email address, make sure to mark them with the "Approval Status" of "Approve" to send them a welcome email. From the welcome email, the registrant can create a password and update any contact information for the Profile Directory.
If the registrant does not have an existing user account, the Alumni Manager can create a new user account by following the instructions below.
How can the Alumni Administrator update an existing user account with the preferred email address?
Please follow these instructions for how to update an existing user account with the preferred folder-specific email address.
How can the Alumni Administrator create a new user account for a new alumnus?
If the registrant does not have an existing user account, the Alumni Manager can forward the email notification they received with the registration form submission to the IA Team at the firm, asking them to:
- create a contact record in IA (if there is not one already),
- add the contact to the Alumni Folder in IA with the preferred email address as the 'folder-specific email address',
- change the Additional Field "Status" to "PreApproved" and,
- change the Additional Field "Web Portal Profile Participant” to "True".
Once the new contact has been added to the Alumni Folder, the Alumni Manager could manually import the contacts by following these instructions, or wait for the nightly sync to happen where Vuture will import any new contacts in the IA Alumni Folder to the Alumni Site.
Once the registrants are added to the Alumni Site, they will be added to the "Manage Users" Tab as "PreApproved". The Alumni Manager can then change the "Approval Status" to "Approve" for these contacts to send them a welcome email. From the welcome email, the registrant can create a password and update any contact information for the Profile Directory. For more information on approving contacts, please click here.
