Membership
What It Is
A membership is the association’s continuing record that an owner belongs to a particular program. The owner can be a person or an organization, according to the program’s configuration. A renewal adds another period to that relationship rather than requiring staff to establish the owner again. A lapse and later return can therefore remain part of one holding, with periods showing when coverage exists.
Staff can establish a holding directly for a complimentary or historical membership. Migration producers can load one from an earlier system. A purchase first reserves the holding and its period, then fulfilment commits the purchase. The membership number gives staff a recognizable reference, while the record also carries its owner, program, origin, entry date and member choices. Identity-bound programs add the unit that distinguishes the holding.
What It Is Not
The owner remains a CRM person or organization. Membership does not replace that identity or become its contact record. A term describes a period held; a program, type and package describe the configured offer. Committee appointments and Commerce orders refer to membership for their own work, while their owning applications retain responsibility for those records.
How It Is Used
Coordinators establish direct memberships and review their periods and business logs. They suspend or restore a principal holding when membership standing needs an explicit intervention. Officers obtain access through the units associated with the member, and the member’s own read uses the contact linked to their account.
Reviewing a holding requires attention to dates and origin. A future period does not mean coverage has started, and a dependent membership is managed through its source. Creating a duplicate principal holding is refused; subsequent periods belong on the existing record. Staff routes also offer no ordinary later change of owner, although an import upsert can replace membership values.
Its Facets
Owner and program. The CRM reference identifies who holds membership. The program supplies the policies that distinguish this offer, including numbering and permitted owner categories.
Origin. Principal holdings stand on their own. Package grants and organizational flow-down or assigned seats create dependent holdings whose periods follow a source. This distinction affects direct editing and billing.
Membership number. Numbering follows the program’s chosen source. Staff creation assigns a number immediately; a purchase-created holding receives its number at fulfilment.
Join date and continuity. The original entry date and continuous episodes answer different tenure questions. Ordinary period processing preserves the original date, while gaps exceeding the configured allowance separate episodes.
Status and suspension. Standing is calculated for a day from the periods, with suspension taking precedence. The stored status serves operational listing needs and is refreshed by writes and scheduled processing.
Identity unit. Some programs sell membership in a particular chapter or other configured unit. That unit distinguishes holdings within the program rather than merely naming a chapter affiliation.
Member settings. Stored choices concern renewal, dropping, directory participation and auto-renewal. Staff supply them at creation, while import upserts can replace them later.
Lifecycle events. The business log explains actions and detected date boundaries using their effective days. It is separate from field-level revision history and remote business-event delivery.
Custom fields. The declared extension point allows association-specific values in the record model. Supported staff and import entry remains a delivery gap.
How It Relates
Terms supply periods and their types and packages. Unit affiliations supply dated chapter connections used by rosters and officer scope. Applications refer to holdings when decisions concern existing members, and Commerce manages the orders associated with purchases. Record history and selected business events provide distinct forms of accountability and notification.
What It Could Become
The product should settle ownership handling during CRM merges and provide a deliberate staff workflow for later changes to member choices or the entry date. It should also complete the declared custom-field entry contract. Grace-related rights and dependable financial summaries remain areas where stored configuration or an available record does not yet establish a complete operational workflow.