Managing affiliate clubs

Our website has a built-in Contant Manager called Connections. The Connections application is visible from the Main Dashboard on the admin menu (left panel), usually close to the bottom.

Contact Manager has its own “Dashboard”, but I do not find it useful for us.

The Contact Manager stores, amongst other data, the information for affiliated clubs.

The generic documentation on how to use Connections can be found on the vendor’s website. We will however explain how to add affiliated clubs in more details below, as it needs to comply to a specific configuration.

Adding a new club

Also see: https://connections-pro.com/documentation/adding-an-entry/

From the Connections menu either select the New Entry option, or, from the Manage screen (where all the contacts are visible), select the “Add New” button.

First, for a club set the entry type to Organisation on the Publish menu on the right. This will allow the organisation name to be specified.

Next, set the category to Affiliated Club. This is important to do, as it flags this specific entry for that purpose. In addition, also set Road, MTB, Track or BMX based on the disciplines supported by the club.

Ensure that the club logo is loaded under Image (and not Logo).

Ask the club for a blurb to put in the Biography section, as it is visible by the public. The Notes section is for internal use and will not be exposed to the public.

Add telephone numbers, email address, web site link and social media links (i.e. https://www.facebook.com/WPCycling/, which includes the profile part), as needed.

Visibility

The visibility of items, such as phone numbers and email address, can be set.

  • Public :: Choose this if you want the entry to be visible to your site visitors whether or not they are logged in.
  • Private :: Choose this option if you want the entry to be visible to your site visitors only if they are logged in.
  • Unlisted :: Choose this option if you want the entry to only be visible to the Administrators, Authors and Editor roles.

From: https://connections-pro.com/documentation/adding-an-entry/#Set_the_Visibility

Do not set personal email addresses or phone numbers as Public. Rather use Private or Unlisted (for us, administrators, to see).

Editing an entry

Changing an entry works in the same way. Select the Edit option, which appears when hovering over the club name, from the Connections -> Manage menu option.