Inductions

The gap between somebody joining and somebody bowling is where clubs lose people. They come down once, stand about, and are never seen again — and the committee finds out in November when the renewal is not paid.

Members → Inductions lists everybody who has joined and not yet been shown the ropes, worst first. Three dates are kept on each member’s profile: when somebody made contact, when they are booked in, and when it actually happened.

Common questions

Can somebody other than an administrator look after inductions?

Yes — set it under Who looks after inductions on the Inductions screen. Whoever it comes to then gets the list on their own phone in the members’ app, and can set a date or mark somebody inducted from it, without being given the run of the admin. The job usually goes to whoever is good with new people, which is rarely the member who keeps the accounts.

It is not one person — two of us share it.

Choose These members and pick as many as you like. They all get the card on their phone and all see the same list, so whoever gets to somebody first can mark it done and the other stops chasing.

Can it follow the office rather than the person?

Yes, and this is the answer worth choosing. Pick Whoever holds a committee role and the job follows whoever has that role on their member record — so when it moves at the AGM, this moves with it. Naming a person means somebody has to remember to come back to this screen when they stand down, and nobody ever does: the first anybody notices is a new member who was never rung.

What about a group?

Pick Everybody in a member group and choose one of your groups. A group is a rule rather than a list, so a coaching or welcome group stays right on its own as people come and go — the same way the mailing groups do.

What does the induction officer see in the app?

A card saying how many members are waiting, and a list behind it: name, telephone, email, what they joined as, when they joined and where their induction has got to. The telephone number dials. Two buttons do the things that actually happen — Rang them today and Inducted today — and a date box for when somebody is coming down, which saves as it is chosen. Nobody hunts for a Save button standing in a clubhouse.

The card is not on my phone.

It only appears for the people inductions are set to, and only while somebody is actually waiting. A card reading “0 to induct” for eleven months of the year is a card people stop seeing. If it is set to a committee role or a group, check you are actually in it — the line under the setting says how many people it currently comes to, which is the quickest way to spot a role nobody holds.

Why three dates rather than a tick?

Because three things happen, at different times, and they want different things doing about them. “Nobody has rung them” needs somebody to ring. “Booked in for Saturday” needs nothing at all. A single tick cannot tell you which you are looking at.

What does “Date has passed” mean?

They were booked in for a day that has been and gone with nothing recorded since. That is the state worth catching: nothing changed to make it show up anywhere, so without this list they are simply forgotten.

We are turning this on years in. Will it list everybody?

No — only members who joined recently enough to be worth chasing, a year by default. A list of two hundred people who joined in 1998 is a list nobody reads.