Members can be grouped together for reporting and communication purposes in what are known as Member Groups. It is also possible to apply different rules for the earning and redeeming of reward points for each of your Member Groups, so members tend to be grouped if they have something in common. This tutorial discusses the creation and editing of Member Groups. In a subsequent tutorial we will explore how to add members to groups, and another tutorial shows how groupings are utilised in the Portal's communication features.

 

Part One: Creating a New Group

 

In this tutorial we will be working in the Loyalty Navigation Menu, so if the Navigation Menu is not on Loyalty, select Menus, Customer, Services and Loyalty to open the Loyalty Menu. First we want to open the Groups Maintenance screen that can be accessed by selecting Edit Groups from the General Maintenance section of the Loyalty Menu.

 

 

The Edit Groups link opens the Loyalty Group Report screen. This screen lists the Member Groups currently in the Portal and has a link that allows you to Create New Loyalty Group.

 

 

Click on the link to create a new group and a popup menu appears. Select Create New Loyalty Group from this popup menu and you will be taken to the Loyalty Group Maintenance screen.

 

 

The Loyalty Group Maintenance screen has the following fields that need to be entered in order to create the group:

 

 

A Group ID is automatically assigned to the group by the Portal when it is saved. The New button can be used to create a new group from this screen and the Delete button can be used to delete the currently selected group from the Portal. Pressing the Save button updates the Portal with the changed details of the group and Reset can be used to revert the changes. Use the Members button to view the members that belong to the group.

 

 

An example of a Member Group might be for a local football club, where members in this group pool ten percent of all their points in order to have an end of season function. The points are given to the Club Treasurer's account and those points are redeemed to help pay for the function. To further encourage members, the Company might even offer a bonus of 2 points for every transaction. The setup of such a group might look like this:

 

 

 

Part Two: Editing an Existing Member Group

 

Open the Loyalty Group Maintenance screen again by clicking on the Edit Groups link in the General Maintenance section of the Loyalty Navigation Menu. This time though, select an existing Member Group and click on its name. A popup menu appears with two selection options:

 

 

 

Select the Edit Loyalty Group option from the popup menu to open the Loyalty Group Maintenance screen for the selected group. You can change the settings for any of the fields and press the Save button to update the Portal. If you make a mistake, press the Reset button to revert unsaved changes to the last time the settings were saved.

 

 

 

Part Three: Viewing the Members that Belong to a Group

 

In the Loyalty Group Report screen, accessed by clicking on the Edit Groups link in the General Maintenance section of the Loyalty Menu, you can select the name of a Member Group to open the popup menu. Select the Display Members for Loyalty Group from the available options to open the Loyalty Group Member Report screen. Alternatively, from the Loyalty Group Maintenance screen, press the Members button to open the report for the selected group.

 

 

This report displays details regarding the members in the group. Their name, card number, home phone number, mobile number, occupation and email address are displayed, as well as whether the member has opted to receive SMS messages and emails from the Portal. By clicking on the member name you can open the Member Maintenance screen to edit their details and clicking their email address in the report opens a new message in your default email program (for example, Microsoft Outlook) to send them an email.

 

In this tutorial, we have discussed how to use Member Groups to link similar members together for reporting and communication purposes. How you group your members depends upon the needs of the Company.