When a member leaves your group, you naturally want to remove them from the list of active members in the database. You may believe that "deleting" the member is the best choice here, but we don't recommend that. Instead, we recommend that you "terminate their membership", which leaves them in the system but marks them as inactive/former and removes their ability to log into the website, amongst other things. Deleting a member entirely is more drastic - all historical record of the member's existence are removed from your site, including their attendance records, membership invoices, records of purchases or downloads of copyrighted files, etc. This could interfere with the accuracy of those historical records.
There are exceptions to this, of course. If the member was added by accident or is a "test" member, etc, then it's perfectly safe and reasonable to delete them.
Terminating or deleting a member is done from the member's profile page, via buttons at the top of the page:
To terminate a membership, click on the Terminate Membership button. It is safe to do this at any time, even if you are simply wondering what the button does. This is because the termination doesn't happen immediately that you click the button. Instead, you are taken to a page that shows you what the system would do if you were to continue with the termination...
Each action listed has an associated tickbox, and all actions are ticked by default. If you don't believe that one of those actions should be taken during the termination process, then simply untick the box before you click the Terminate Membership button at the bottom of that page.
If you decide that you really do want to permanently delete a member from your system, then click the Delete member button at the top of the page. You'll be taken to another page that outlines the reasons why we don't recommend that you delete members...
On that page, you can confirm that you really do want to delete the member or opt to simply terminate their membership instead.
Notes:
- Unfortunately, the Delete Member button is not available on the websites of chapters/clubs that are part of a parent body that also uses Making Music Platform. Such parent bodies include BHA, BHNZ, SABA, various SAI regions, etc. The reason is that the parent body also needs access to the details of the member you want to delete, so no one chapter/club is allowed to remove a member. Having said that, if the member was created in error, or is a test member, you can contact us at platform@makingmusic.org.uk, and we'll delete it for you.
- The Delete Member button is only visible to users with "Webmaster" access. Someone with "Data Administration Access" will not see the button.
