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Steps for Enabling Auto Drop

Updated
The Goal: Work through every section of the Auto Drop Setup guide — membership types, expiration dates, the pre-flight report, drop settings, email templates and contact email addresses — so that Auto Drop can be enabled for your association.

Before You Begin:

  • You need staff access with permission to manage membership settings, membership types and reports.
  • Decide which membership types you want to expire automatically, and confirm their expiration dates are accurate before you start.
  • Be ready to confirm that your membership contacts have valid email addresses, since Auto Drop relies on a series of automated status emails.
  • Decide whether those types should have a Grace Period — the number of days after expiration a member has to renew before the membership ends. The setup guide suggests at least 14 days.
  • IMPORTANT: Enabling Auto Drop is hard to undo. The setup guide warns that if you enable the feature and then need help undoing automatic expirations, GrowthZone may charge a fee for that cleanup work. Contact GrowthZone Support with any questions before you enable it.

Step-by-Step Instructions

To help you prepare to enable Auto Drop, an Auto Drop Setup guide is available to you.

  1. Go to Memberships, click Settings and select Auto Drop Setup. The page opens as Membership Settings.
    Membership Settings page with the Auto Drop Setup row boxed in red
  2. Read and follow the suggestions under each of the seven sections, described below.
  3. Tick the check box next to a section title as you complete it. Every section box must be ticked before the Enable Auto Drops button at the top of the page becomes available.

Membership Types to Review

This section lists your membership types with their current End Type and Grace Period Days, so you can see at a glance which types are already set to expire automatically.

  1. Click the name of a membership type you want to expire automatically.
    Auto Drop Setup page showing the Membership Types to Review grid with its Membership Type, End Type and Grace Period Days columns, and one membership type name boxed in red
  2. Select Automatically Expires from the End Type list.
  3. (Optional) Enter a Grace Period. The system uses the grace period days to work out when the contact is dropped — a grace period of 14, for example, gives a member two weeks after expiration to renew before the membership ends. If you do not allow a grace period, set this to zero.
  4. Click Done.
  5. Repeat for every other membership type you want to configure for auto drop.

See Set the Auto Drop End Type for a Membership Type for more on this setting, and Disable Auto Drop for turning it back off for a type.

Update Expiration Dates

This step helps prevent accidentally dropping members whose membership data is incorrect or out of date.

  1. Click the Edit Expiration Dates button in this section, then click Edit Expiration Dates again in the top right of the screen that opens.
    Update Expiration Dates section of the Auto Drop Setup page with the EDIT EXPIRATION DATES button boxed in red
  2. Sort the Current Expiration Date column to find any expiration dates earlier than today.
  3. Correct a date by clicking the membership name, or drop the membership if it is no longer active.

You can reach the same screen from Memberships > All Memberships using the arrow beside the Add button and choosing Edit Expiration Dates. See Update Membership Expiration Date in Bulk for further information.

Memberships That Will Be Auto Dropped

This report is a last check on the list of members who will be dropped once you enable Auto Drop. If you are just getting started with auto drop, best practice is to review it to confirm the accuracy of those memberships the system is scheduled to drop.

  1. Click Run Report in this section and run the report using the default settings.
    Memberships That Will Be Auto Dropped section of the Auto Drop Setup page with the RUN REPORT button boxed in red
  2. Use Edit Expiration Dates from the previous step to correct any memberships that should not be dropped.

See Memberships Will Be Auto-Dropped Report for running the same report from the Reports rail and for its filtering options.

Drop Settings

This section controls what happens to the contacts attached to a membership when it is dropped. It holds three settings.

  1. Select the Info Hub access level that individuals on an automatically expired membership should be set to. The setup guide suggests an access level with no Info Hub access, or a guest-level one.
    Drop Settings section with the Info Hub access level list boxed in red, above the Remove All Directory Listings and Remove From All Lists check boxes
  2. Tick Remove All Directory Listings if you want all directory listings removed from the contacts in the membership when it expires automatically.
  3. Tick Remove From All Lists if you want the contacts removed from every list that is not publicly joinable when the membership expires automatically.

IMPORTANT: If you later reactivate a membership, the Info Hub access level is not automatically reverted to the previous level. You will need to adjust the access level manually. See Assign Member Access Level.

Review and Edit Email Templates

With Auto Drop enabled, three automated emails are sent to your members during the renewal and expiration process. Review each one and adjust it to fit your association's brand and style.

  • Membership Expires Soon If Invoice Not Paid: sent three days before the membership expiration date.
  • Membership Entering Grace Period If Invoice Not Paid: sent one day after the expiration date, and only when a grace period has been defined for the membership type.
  • Membership Has Expired Email Template: sent one day after the expiration date, or after the grace period end date if one applies.
  1. Click a template name in this section to view its contents.
  2. To change a template, click Edit Templates in Automated Messaging.
    Review and Edit Email Templates section listing the three automated emails, with the EDIT TEMPLATES IN AUTOMATED MESSAGING button boxed in red

See Create and Manage Email Templates for editing your templates, and Automated Messaging for updating the messages that are sent.

NOTE: Staff who have subscribed to the Renewal Emails Sent notification receive an email whenever any of the three emails above is sent to a member.

Make Sure Membership Contacts Have Email Addresses

Auto Drop sends a series of emails notifying members of their status, so valid email addresses matter.

  1. Click Run Report in this section and run the report using the default criteria.
    Make Sure Membership Contacts Have Email Addresses section with the RUN REPORT button boxed in red
  2. Check that every membership has an email address in the Notification Email column, so that memberships expiring soon receive their reminder emails before they are dropped.

Final Checks and Enabling Auto Drop

The Final checks section asks you to confirm that you have completed all of the steps above, and that any memberships that will expire automatically should do so on the membership's expiration date or at the end of a defined grace period.

  1. Tick the check box beside every section title, finishing with Final checks.
  2. Click the Enable Auto Drops button at the top of the page. Until every box is ticked the button stays unavailable.
    Top of the Auto Drop Setup page with the ENABLE AUTO DROPS button boxed in red

When a Membership Is Dropped

Once Auto Drop is on, a nightly process drops memberships the day after the latest of these dates:

  • Membership Expiration Date
  • Grace Expiration Date
  • Invoice Due Date: used when an unpaid membership invoice is associated with the membership. IMPORTANT: only invoices generated by the automated setting Use Automated Billing, or generated manually from Upcoming Billing, are reviewed for this date.

See Auto Drop Memberships Process - How it Works for the full nightly process.

Common Pitfalls

  • Enabling Auto Drop before reviewing the report: always run the Memberships That Will Be Auto Dropped report and confirm expiration dates first — otherwise the nightly process may drop members you intended to keep, and send them automated emails you did not want sent.
  • Missing email addresses: Auto Drop relies on a series of notification emails. Run the email address report and confirm every membership contact has a valid Notification Email, or those members will be dropped without warning.
  • Expecting reactivation to restore Info Hub access: the drop access level is applied on the way out but not reversed on the way back in. Reset it by hand when you reactivate a membership.
  • Looking for a per-member exemption: Auto Drop Setup has no exclusion list, and End Type is set per membership type. To keep one member from being dropped while others on the same type are, move that membership to a type whose End Type is Manually Ended.

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