Now Live: An Improved Member Management Interface

[Phil McCluskey]

Note: This change is now live. It won't affect anything your members see, but you might want to let your admins know about this change so they will know where to find all of the member-specific information whenever they need it.

I wanted to let you know about some upcoming improvements to your Ning Network's dashboard, the back-end area of your network where you and your admins do all of your moderating. We're making some user interface changes that will simplify the way you perform member management.

First, we're merging the Members > Management and Members > Moderation sections into a single interface. The Members > Moderation section has always been the place where you've approved pending members and looked up members whenever you needed to see who was suspended, who had left, or who was who. The Members > Management section has traditionally been devoted to setting up Roles like Forum Moderator, Admin, or custom roles for your specific needs. Pulling this all into one interface will allow you to do more moderation in one place -- and with less clicks.

What's different?

Previously, you had separate tabs for Members, Admins, Pending, Invited, etc. These have all been replaced with a drop-down filter that allows you to take contextual actions. This should save you some time and allow you to filter content more easily. You'll be able to choose multiple members and simply apply an action to those members. You'll also now see a prominent way to administer Roles, which we've renamed "Administrative Roles" while giving it a full tab position.

We've made a few other minor changes that should improve the experience of working in this area. When viewing your list of Suspended members for example, it makes more sense to have that list be sorted by the date they were suspended — and not the day they joined your network. And in the Invited list we've added a new column so that you can see what kind of invitation (Network, Group or Event) someone has received.

To what end? 

This is the initial phase of a larger project: Member Categories. Member Categories will let you create different member types and assign your members to them. We think it's going to be a great feature for every network, and we'll provide more details on it in the days ahead.

[KWASI Akyeampong]

I can't wait for Member Categories.
I hope this really means that I'll be able to create list of members based on my chosen criteria - like facebook.

Hurry up!!!

~Kwasi.

[Philip Voice]

"This is the initial phase of a larger project: Member Categories. Member Categories will let you create different member types and assign your members to them. We think it's going to be a great feature for every network, and we'll provide more details on it in the days ahead."

Is this development along the lines of my wish-list?

http://creators.ning.com/forum/topics/my-network-wish-list-of-killer

[Eric Suesz]

I don't think it will be as extensive as your wish list. It won't initially be tied to Paid Access, for example. But, it's a start toward tiers of members.

[soaringeagle]

can a fute=yre version be tied to the paid acces?

i have a brand new site

www.phillyhangout.com

its an ambitious project that i hope will be massive (its new as new can be so not alott here)

anyway i made up a membership types list since we will be catering to a wide range of catagories each with individial rules and donations expected

http://www.phillyhangout.com/page/membership-types is the riough draft of that i have unpublished the paywall  i may not even use it however  idealy once membership types are tied to s paywall this is sorta what my hopes are

ofcourse i understand 1st generation wont be tied to paywall and i wouldnt even dare request it was

however

if a 2nd generation can be it would be a huge problem solver

is it a great addition to though in any form

just being able to compare membership types to the donation they made will work g[however its a pain in the butt

please concider in a 2nd version to add paywall intergration

i know thats a huge project and will take long time but it will be awesome

[SweetPotato]

Being tied to paid access is a long term winner. Different categories of members can use different modules, as assigned by NCs, and each are charged for. That would be awesome.

[John M]

End users will pay for premium access and features.  When I look at news portals, it is so glaring.  So much free stuff that will always be that way. Many media companies do not have one clue.  My two cents.  I have been with Ning almost 3 years now and I am very optimistic about the future.  Good content has to be a pillar of your offering. If you have good content, they have to take a look at upgrading.   I also really like what Ning is doing with Top News.  

[SweetPotato]

I agree. I would always let members upload blogs (my main content) and then charge members to get access to the video module, for example, and that video module would be available to certain member categories. I will never charge people to read or view content.

[TJ Gilsenan]

This!

[Corinne]

Or just get subsriptions working! I'm based on subscriber monthly and can't use paid access for my site until this happens.

[Aanu Bello]

Good but something important is missing: Where is our link for those who have invited their friends on our network  

[Phil McCluskey]

Hi Aanu,

Click the dropdown that says Active Members and you will see all of the other member lists, including Invited.

[TJ Gilsenan]

Great to hear!!  +1 on sweetpotato post re: chargeable mem types