Tendenci Blog

Congrats to our Schipul Fan Mania winners!

We've got our lucky Fan Mania winners announced on our Schipul Facebook Fanpage!  Didn't get a chance to fan us on Facebook yet?  No worries - be sure to visit us at www.facebook.com/schipul to check out our other exciting Facebook promotions, giveaways and events!

As always, thanks for being part of the Schipul and Tendenci family - we are huge fans of YOU!

Our winners (as determined by the Random Integer Generator):

Schipul Fan Mania month - last chance win cool stuff!

The Schipul team (creators of your Tendenci software) loves our clients - you help us grow, teach us new things and keep us on our toes.  We want to thank you for being part of our tribe and are holding a Schipul Fan Mania contest to do just that.

All you've got to do is login to Facebook and join our Schipul fan page (www.facebook.com/schipul) and you'll be eligible to win one of the following rocking prizes:

1. Dell Inspiron Mini 10 Laptop –Hate carting around a huge laptop just to log in to twitter now and then? We’ve got the laptop for you!  You pick the color, and we’ll ship it out to your place! With this little gal, you’ll always be able to update on the go.
2. $100 Amazon gift card – Schipulites are book fiends, and we want to get you hooked too!
3. $100 iTunes gift card – Can’t get enough music? Need another new app? Let us support your habit!

So what are you waiting for!?  We're drawing 3 random winners from our Schipul Facebook fanpage on Tuesday, June 30th at 2pm CST.  Fan us today!!

SchipulCon 2009 coming October 15 - 16th!!

If you're an esteemed reader of our Tendenci newsletter, you already had a sneak peek at our Big News this week! 

This year's Tendenci software and Schipul Web Marketing conference (now lovingly called SchipulCon) will be at the Houston Zoo on October 15 - 16th!!

Topics will range from some very exciting new Tendenci 5.0 feature showcasing by our Programming team to Social Media training to Web marketing strategies to online Community building classes.  Know of a non profit or wannabe Web guru?  Invite them to attend!!  All are welcome :)

Tickets will go on sale later this month, in the meantime please do submit your SchipulCon training ideas and suggestions on our SchipuCon 2009 Forum.  Can't wait to see you there!!

Want to see more ongoing Tendenci updates from the team?  Connect with us on Twitter:  www.twitter.com/tendenci!

Tendenci Powered Culintro Site Quickly Attracts 1,500 Members

Culintro, the Culinary Trade Organization for restaurant professionals, is off to a fast start.  Just a few months after launching the organization with a Web site powered by Tendenci, Culintro has registered its 1,500th member. That's pretty amazing. Clearly, there was a need in the restaurant industry for the types of services that Culinto is delivering. Their Web site enables members to post jobs, review job listings and post resumes -- a critically important service in this difficult economy and one that every organization should be providing. They also have events and promotions -- mostly in the New York City area for now, but likely to expand as the organization continues to mature. Congratulations to Culintro on their successful launch!

Ten Things I Love About Tendenci Updates!

This week has been a big programming week! We've got a bunch of super cool updates coming for you guys to look forward to that will make your Tendenci powered site even more functional and fun to use.... for both your users and you.

1. Tendenci sites have gone mobile! They can now have the power to detect mobile browsers and redirect; this will make browsing on the go easy as pie for your user. Check out Reliant Park's mobile site for a great example. 
2. Want to choose how your albums are sorted in Tendenci? You now have the ability to sort your photo albums in whatever order you want!
3. We love Numbered Lists and we've incorporated that into our Comments. Counting comments are a thing of the past because now they are numbered! This makes it easier to manage your comments than ever before.
4. You'll be able to get stats from Google Analytics with ease. Sign up for the SEM Newsletter to get more information on this update later this week!
5. Wonky User Group Names will soon be a thing of the past. As we move forward we will be substituting the User Group Name with the prettier User Group Label used in Custom Contact Forms. 
6. Tendenci now works with Constant Contact! It's pretty basic for now but we'll be making it more robust in the future. Check out our blog post from last week for more information!
7. It will be even easier to use the Photo Module to tell your story! When these updates are complete you'll be able to pull the photos from your Tendenci Photo Module to a cool button anywhere on your site you'd like.
8. The Resume Module and the User Module are no longer tied together. This means you can make the Resumes Module inactive if you aren't using it and it won't affect your Users in the least bit. Contact Support for help!

Read about awesome updates 9 and 10 in this blog post about Calendar Events!!

These updates aren't live yet but will be by the end of the week so get excited! You'll be able to search our helpfiles for more information and as always, you can contact Schipul Support for help.

New Calendar Event Updates give you even MORE Control!

Our programmers have been hard at work and this week we have two really awesome Calendar Events updates rolling out that will make registering for your events and then sharing your events with friends even easier! You're going to love them.

Want your users to be able to tell their friends on Facebook about your events? We've integrated Facebook Connect with Tendenci so now they can!

What does this mean to you? Now, from your Tendenci driven website, your users will be able to register for one of your events and tell all of their friends on Facebook about it in one step! This means more fun for your users and more free publicity for your event. It's a win-win!

Check out this helpfile for more details on how Facebook Connect works.

Calendar events now have custom registration forms!

We're putting you in the driver's seat with this update! You'll get to decide exactly which information you wish to collect from your visitors when they register for your event and how you want to present your registration form to them.

 Some super cool features include:

1. You'll be able to collect as much information from your visitors as you’d like using whichever input variety you prefer. This means you can use everything from text-boxes to check-boxes (plus more!) to get the information you need.
2. You can make your registration forms prettier than ever before. You'll be able to section your forms with different lines and text headers to communicate with your visitors exactly what you want.
3. You can easily update the order you collect information from registrants by dragging and dropping elements wherever you desire.
4. Don't want to make everyone fill out every little thing? Make some fields required and others not, it’s completely up to you

Ever want to register friends for an event and not have all of their details? No problem! Now with our custom registration forms, you can allow your users to register anonymous so that they can register for all of their friends (and perhaps get a discount rate) without filing in everything immediately.

This last change gives your users even more freedom to bring friends to their events. Even if they don't know exactly who they want to bring, they can still get registered!

Constant Contact now integrates with Tendenci!

Does your organization use Constant Contact to send out emails and newsletters to your members, sponsors or clients?

We've just completed the finishing touches on integrating your Tendenci and Constant Contact users.  This means that when a visitor comes to your Web site and fills out a contact form, your Constant Contact mailing lists can be updated too!

Here's to seriously streamlining your email marketing campaigns and growing your Community as never before!  Keep an eye out for further upcoming Constant Contact integration with Tendenci and give us a call to quote you on your site's integration today at (281) 497.6567, ext. 700.

Tendenci Site Focuses on Fundraising

In these recessionary times, funds can be difficult to come by for non-profit organizations. One of the latest Tendenci Web sites to launch is theFund, San Antonio's United Arts Fund. As you might expect based on its name, the primary focus of the organization is to raise money for the arts and cultural organizations in and around San Antonio. With a lot of people and businesses wondering where their next dollar will be coming from, fundraising is front and center with most non-profits and the Web can be fertile ground -- if approached right. As you'll see if you click through theFund's site, we've tried to make the requests for donations visible throughout the site and we've made it as simple as possible for people to give. In terms of content, the organization has done a great job of visibly showcasing the breadth of programs they support so a visitor can quickly grasp where their money will go. It is a great example of Web-based fundraising for non-profits to model.

New Option "Require Approval" Added in Membership Type

This morning we rolled out a new update for your Tendenci memberships module. As a site administrator, you now have the control of whether a membership application is automatically activated or needs to be approved. 

 

To change this option, just edit your membership types. If the "Require Approval" is checked, every application of this membership type signed up by a user, whether it's free or non-free membership, will be set to pending and requires approval by an administrator. On the other hand, if this check box is not checked, memberships will be approved automatically unless they are not free and not yet paid.



For more information on how this works, please visit the help file Membership Type "Require Approval" Effect.