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Ben Schneider, Development
Affiniscape is proud to announce the Spring 2005 Release of Members24x7. Available Friday, May 27, 2005, the release features a major overhaul of user-interface within the administrative areas as well as several new features added to some of our most highly used modules. The Form Generator has increased functionality enabling the customized display of user entries on a page accessible from the front of your web site. The Calendar of Events now supports the ability for a user to register and pay for multiple events at once, while the Forum module offers detailed reporting on user views, posts and preference settings
Form Generator
The Form Generator enhancements are designed to expand functionality from just collecting and presenting data for the association administrative staff to optionally presenting that data dynamically in a customizable format to users of the web site. New options will help designate whether a form should have a dynamic display page, who has access to view the display page, determine whether entries are automatically included or must be approved first, and what fields from the entry should be displayed, as well as customization of the field layout on the page. We have added the ability to include sort fields and a default sort field for the order of the dynamically displayed data, and the ability to edit form entries from the administrative area.
This expands the capabilities of the Custom Form Generator from a data collecting and reporting module for administrators to a customizable module that can serve similar purposes for posting classifieds, jobs or other bulletin board type entries with as many instances and variations as desired. Administrators will now have the ability to take existing standard modules like the Job Bank Lite and Classifieds and specifically tailor them to their needs.
Multi-Event Registration
The new Multi-Event Registration expands the functionality of the Calendar of Events module by allowing users to add events to their event basket while they continue to browse, and then register and pay for all events at once. The user now has the option to add a single event to their basket from the event detail view, or check multiple events and add them when viewing events in the list view. A user can review their basket, remove undesired items, or continue to complete the registration forms for all events in the user basket and have one single payment applied.
Forum Reporting
Another added feature is the new Forum Reports administrative area. These reports provide a detail of forum user views, posts, and notification preferences over a designated date range. The reports provide a great inside look at user interaction with your forums and allow you to gauge casual and interactive participation within your online discussions. In addition, both the user views and posts reports allow for a drill-down into each user views per discussion and topic, and a quick glance of all posts. User preferences can be easily accessed and viewed per individual.
User Interface
The interface enhancements to Members 24x7 should provide for more informative and intuitive experience in the management and administration of various modules within the system, as well as make quick access to important data more easily obtainable. Nearly every module in our system has received significant attention and refinement with these changes, providing a more consistent and user-friendly administrative experience. Modules receiving the most significant attention include the Forums, Staff, Leadership/Board, Polls/Surveys, Form Generator and Calendar of Events. A complete listing of all modules is listed to the right.
These sweeping changes include more spreadsheet-like overview pages that provide a quick glance of all defined items in a particular module with the added ability to sort and filter records in the view. There have also been a number of pages that have been refined to include better organization and display of setup options with tab-based groupings and fields that are only presented when relevant to selections from other configuration options. Many of the concepts have already been introduced in other modules enhanced in recent releases such as the Sub Pages, Membership Management, Convention, Database Import and Association Defaults. We hope you find the expanded refinements across the entire administrative area will increase your productivity and experience within the Members24x7 system. | 
