1. Membership

1.1 Membership Classes

• u3as can define any number of membership classes in addition to the default class,
• ‘individual’, each of which can have its own subscription rates. This class is a mandatory class and cannot be changed.
• Associate & dummy are also used by the system but can be deleted if no longer required (See 8.2 for more information on dummy). 
• Subscription rates are defined for each membership class and have values for both ‘renew’ and ‘join’. The joining rate may be fixed or vary by month of joining.
• All membership subscriptions fall due at the same date (the first day of the start month of a membership year).

1.2 Member Status

• Two status values: ‘current’ and ‘lapsed’ are built in and are used by various Beacon functions. In addition, ‘deceased’ and ‘resigned’ are available, and other custom statuses can be added. Infodist (Information Distribution) & Walking Weeks are also used by the system but can be deleted if no longer required. (See 5.11 for more information)
• User Responsible for Request: Chairperson or Systems Admin 
• Beacon Updater Responsible: Systems Admin

1.3 Members

• Members may be added to the member list by using the add member function. Many fields are built-in, including name, address, phone number (mobile and/or home phone), email address, and ad-hoc notes. Up to four custom fields can be added (See 1.5). A u3a can add any number of ‘poll’ fields. These are fields with only true/false values. For example: ‘wants posted monthly newsletter.’ (See 5.12) 
• Note on member creation: a membership number for each member is automatically assigned.  If an error occurs when adding a new member such that creation is aborted, the next membership number may already have been incremented. This may result in ‘holes’ in the membership number sequence. It is important to check when adding members that they are not already a member. The only way to do this is to check the member list by name and if there is a match verify that the address is different. Member’s details may be changed or deleted. Any member’s data can be edited. The online portal (see section 6.3.2 & 8.1) allows members to update their own data.
• Note on member changes: a member can ‘share address with’ one other member. Such members are described as ‘partners’. If a deceased member shared an address with another member, they should have their ‘share address with’ changed to <no-one>. 
• If a lapsed or resigned member shares an address with another member, it is recommended that you do not change the ‘share address with’ to <no-one> –this link will be useful if the member re-joins (the lapsed/resigned member will not show up in an addresses export of current members). 
• Removing members from groups when a member has lapsed, resigned or deceased: their name will remain in any group list of which they were a member, and they need to be removed. There is no mechanism by which the group leader is notified that their member has left. It is therefore preferable that whoever changes the member status also deletes the member from any groups they belonged to. 
• If a member is to be completely deleted it is important to do this before the actual deletion so that the groups are still visible. In all cases to remove a member, from their groups, whose status has changed (including deletion) the member record must be accessed and each group they belong to can be clicked to gain access directly to all members of that group. The members can now be directly removed from the group.
• Note on member deletion: although a delete button is provided to remove a member record, this should only be used if a member record has been created inadvertently (perhaps there is already a record for the member). When you delete a member record, the membership number is not re-used. 
• This is what happens when a member is deleted:
• If sharing an address, the other member is not impacted (now sharing an address with no one). Associated transactions are retained, but without the link to the now-deleted member record. The payee/payer’s name is retained. The entry on the gift aid screen, which included information from the transaction and the linked member, is now deleted (as the member has been deleted). The audit log shows the deletion, referenced to the internal key of the member record. Following that key leads to a blank membership record, which can’t be re-populated. In normal operation, member records should not be deleted but the status should be changed to lapsed or some other non-current value such as resigned or deceased.
• The current advice is that member records must be retained for up to 7 years to comply with HMRC and charity commission regulations for their associated financial transactions including gift aid. At the end of this period, expired records are removed through the non-renewals option.
• Note: if duplicate member records are inadvertently created, it is recommended that the Membership Officer reviews the duplication and contacts the Systems Administrator who amends / re-links as necessary to ensure that financial transactions and group memberships remain linked to the member being retained, before deleting the unwanted membership record.
• Important note – the associated membership fee transaction must also be deleted. It is recommended that the privilege to delete members is very tightly limited and at the moment only the Systems Administrator can perform this function.

1.4 Membership Renewals

• Members can be renewed for the next year using this function. The system calculates the correct subscription fee, and expiry date. A finance transaction is created for each subscription payment and linked to the relevant member. These payments are assigned to the finance category called ‘Beacon subscriptions’. Overpayment is permitted and such amounts are treated as ‘donations’. 
• Do not change the member record or enter a renewal transaction directly. If a renewing member is changing membership class, the class on their member record must be updated before processing the renewal payment so that the membership fee will be correct.
• If a member has become newly eligible for gift aid, the ‘gift aid from’ box on the member record must be filled in before processing the renewal payment. If a member stops being eligible for gift aid, the ‘gift aid from’ box on the member record must be cleared before processing the renewal payment. Doing this does not affect the gift aid eligibility of transactions already in the system. When a member’s subscription has expired, after some grace period, they should no longer be regarded as current members. Beacon does not do this automatically but provides a simple function to change the status of all such members to lapsed, or to send them a warning email or letter, as a preliminary step. 
• The data of non-current members is normally retained in the system and there is a function to remove this data for members who have not been current for 7 years or more.
• User Responsible for Request: Membership Officer 
• Beacon Updater Responsible: Membership Officer & Systems Admin (only for Membership Deletion) 

1.5 Custom Fields

• Up to 4 custom fields can be included on the membership record. They must be set up by the Group Support Team. 
• Typical uses for custom fields include: one u3a uses 2 custom fields, one for leaving date and the other for the reason.
• Another u3a uses two custom fields, one to indicate the delivery round for hand posting of the newsletter and the second to indicate the people who deliver the newsletters to those rounds. This allows management of the system following downloading the data to excel and link to google maps. 
• User Responsible for Request: Chairperson, Membership Officer 
• Beacon Updater Responsible: Beacon Group Support, Membership Officer & Systems Admin

2. Groups 

2.1 Intro

• Please refer to section 5 of the Beacon user guide for more information. There are various functions to describe a u3a’s groups and which can be used by a group leader. Different u3as have varying terminology for ‘group’ and ‘leader’ and their preferred terms can be set-up to be used by Beacon. 

2.2 Group Information

• To show a list of groups, click groups on the home page. By default, only active groups are shown. To show all groups, untick show active only. To display only those groups assigned to a particular faculty, select the faculty in the drop-down list. 
• The information includes when (day, frequency and normal start and end times), where (from a list of venues), contact info for enquiries, and a textual description about the group. For display purposes groups can be assigned to a u3a defined ‘faculty’ e.g. ‘walking’. When populating the information field for your group, be aware that this information is visible to u3a members & the public. To change this, contact your system admin to change the public links configuration. (See 6.3.4 for more information)

2.3    Venue Information

• Venues can be stored for future use. Details can be generic e.g. ‘a home in my village’ or fully detailed so that a map location can be displayed. Optional details include phone number, email, website, and contact name. 

2.4 Group Members

• One or more Group Leaders should be assigned to each group. Other u3a members can then be added as members of the group. Any user with the correct privileges can do this, but Beacon is designed to allow Group Leaders to do this themselves. As an aid, members whose membership subscription has expired are shown in red, but they are not automatically removed from the list of group members. 
• If a group has specified a maximum number of members and more members are assigned to the group, they are placed on a waiting list. The information about each group, includes the current number of members of the group, the maximum number permitted and the number on the waiting list. Max members is the maximum number of members that the group can have. If this field is blank or 0, there is no maximum number of members.  If more members than the maximum are assigned to the group, they are placed on a waiting list. If members are on the waiting list (because the group is full), the date when they joined the waiting list is shown. Click join group to make a waiting member an ordinary member of the group.
• If given the appropriate Beacon privilege, the Group Leader can select the group’s members, or any subset of them, and send them an email via Beacon’s email system. Alternatively, a spreadsheet with their details can be downloaded, for use outside Beacon. Note: if a member is not current, their name will be highlighted in red. They should be removed from the group if they do not renew. The Group Leader should contact the Membership Secretary & Group Support Team.

2.5 Group Ledger

• Each group can choose to operate a group ledger. This is a basic facility to assist group leaders to account for monies paid and received. There is at present no connection between these ledgers and the main Treasurer’s ledger.

2.6 The Schedule

• Is not utilised currently, all events (group sessions) are available through the u3a website. 
• If it is decided to stop website events and use Beacon instead, events may be entered for a group. These can either be one-off events or one or more series of regular events with defined start and end dates and a selected frequency. Venue (default is the group’s normal venue), topic and free text details can be added for each event. 

2.7 Calendar 

• Is a chronological list of meetings and events and is not currently used.
• User Responsible for Request: Group Leader & Group Support Team
• Beacon Updater Responsible: Group Leader, Group Support Team, Systems Admin (only for public links configuration) & Membership Secretary (only for lapsed members to potentially be deleted).

3. E-mails

3.1 Creating e-mails (and letters) 

• The content and use of emails and letters is entirely up to the user and each email or letter sent can be customised to each recipient by the use of a variety of ‘tokens’, e.g. #SURNAME will be replaced by the member’s surname. Examples of possible usage are: 
• Welcome message sent to a member when they join
• Renewal overdue message sent to members whose renewal is overdue
• Notice of the u3a’s monthly meeting sent to all current members 
• Bad-email-address letter sent to members who have supplied an invalid email address

3.2 Standard Messages

• Each u3a can save any email or letter as a standard for use whenever needed. In the e-mail screen, if you send similar messages regularly, they can be saved as standard message templates and recalled for use again later. To safeguard all users’ standard messages, no deletion is allowed. If you are confident that no other user needs a standard e-mail message, contact your Systems Administrator to get it deleted.

 3.2.1 Adding a New Message

• To access standard e-mail messages, start by sending yourself an e-mail, compose the standard e-mail that you wish to save, hit ‘save as standard message’, name the message & hit ok, hit home to exit

3.2.2 Amending an Existing Message

• To access standard e-mail messages, start by sending yourself an e-mail, hit the down arrow to the right of the empty box for ‘save as standard message’, select the standard message that you wish to amend NB make sure it is your own and not another users, amend the message, hit ‘save as standard message’.
• If you want to create a new message & keep the existing message that you used as a template, change the name displayed; otherwise leave it as it is, hit ok, hit home to exit.

3.2.3 Delete a Standard Message 

• Contact the System Administrator.

3.3 Sending e-mails

• When multiple emails are sent, the email addresses of other recipients are not exposed, so there is no facility to reply to all or to copy (cc) anyone.

3.4 E-mails Rejected by Beacon

• The system uses an industry renowned supplier, SendGrid, to deliver emails. This enables the system to keep a record of delivery status, report bounces and spam reports back to the user and their u3a so that the issue can be dealt with. Where messages are bounced, dropped or are the subject of spam reports, an email will be sent by Beacon to the sender and to the site Administrator naming the offending email address and describing why the address has been blacklisted. Contact the site Administrator to remove email addresses from the blacklist. It is strongly suggested that all users that suffer from a rejected e-mail should set up a Gmail account as these emails are not rejected by Beacon.

 3.5  Sending Letters 

• The system will create a single-page pdf file with separate pages for each recipient. (The system should also create a matching set of address labels, but it doesn’t.) 

User Responsible for Request: all users

Beacon Updater Responsible: all users, Systems Admin (only for unblocking email addresses (3.4) or deleting standard email messages (3.2.3)) 

4. Finance 

(Please refer to section 7 of the Beacon user guide for more information)

4.1 Finance Accounts

• Beacon provides book-keeping facilities for multiple accounts held by a u3a. Accounting is done on a ‘cash’ basis and there is no built-in support for accrual accounting. Two default accounts are set up, a current account and a PayPal account (currently Chepstow u3a has decided not to enable PayPal as stated later in 4.5). Any number of additional accounts can be created. A u3a can define its financial year (which will start on the first day of the chosen month). It need not be the same month as the membership year start. The online ledgers show the amounts in/out for an account for any selected financial year. (See 5.8 for more information).

4.2 Finance Categories

• Each u3a can define any number of finance ‘categories’ which are used to define the type or income or expenditure. A transaction can be assigned to a single category or can be split between two or more categories. There are three built-in categories, subscriptions, donations, and PayPal commission and automatically entered transactions are correctly apportioned to these categories. (See 5.9 for more information).

4.3 Transaction Records

• Subscription payments and PayPal payments are automatically entered into the correct account by the system and are linked to the members to which they relate. Other financial transactions can be entered manually. The transaction details identify the payer/payee, the method of payment, e.g. cash, cheque, bacs transfer, etc. and the date of payment, and allow a textual description to be entered. Optionally, a transaction can be assigned to a u3a group, to allow items relating to that group to be listed separately. A transfer of money between two accounts is handled as a pair of linked transactions, one for each of the accounts involved. In addition, each u3a group can maintain its own ledger, completely separate from the main accounts, to allow a group leader to record income and expenditure which they are managing separately. You may display a transaction record from the ledger and from certain other places where transaction numbers are displayed by clicking on the transaction number. To add a new transaction click add transaction on the home page or the ledger.
• Important: transactions should not be entered directly for membership applications or renewals. Use the specific links on the home page under the membership heading for these operations.

4.4 Gift Aid

• Under system settings, there is a checkbox labelled tick to enable gift aid operation. Chepstow
• u3a have decided to tick this checkbox and are responsible for the consequences of doing so. 
• Having enabled gift-aid recording, the system will record the amount claimable for gift-aid.
• There is a finance function to output all these amounts in the exact format required by HMRC. Beacon will determine the income that can be submitted to hark for gift aid relief. In addition, the system can download a spreadsheet of gift aid amounts that have not been previously claimed, in the format that can easily be pasted into the current hark official format.
• If the checkbox is not ticked, all gift aid functionality within Beacon will be turned off (although the member records will still record whether a member is eligible for gift aid claims). (See 5.6.6 for more information).

4.5 Working with PayPal

• Currently not used.

4.6 Annual Financial Statement

• This shows data in a similar format to a formal annual financial statement. 

4.7 Other Output 

• The system allows an authorised user to download data by account, category or group to either an excel spreadsheet or as a pdf file for printing. 

4.8 Reconciliation

• With an external bank statement: an often-onerous task is to check the Beacon transactions with those on a bank statement, and to mark those transactions that appear on the bank statement as ‘cleared’. Beacon provides a webpage to facilitate this. In addition, subscriptions paid by cash or cheque are often paid into a bank together and show on the bank statement as one item. Beacon allows such transactions to be grouped together as a batch which shows as a single item on the reconciliation page, and which can be ‘cleared’ together. (See 5.9 for more information).

User Responsible for Request: Treasurer

Beacon Updater Responsible: Treasurer, Systems Admin (for correction of errors)

5. Set-up Operations 

(Please refer to section 8 of the Beacon user guide for more information)

5.1  Summary

• These operations establish the working environment of Beacon for your u3a. Most options will not need to be changed often, if at all, although all will need to be confirmed for a new installation. There are other configuration options for your site that can only be changed by the Beacon Group Support team.

5.2 Beacon Support Team Changes

• These options include the starting date for the financial and membership years, PayPal enablement, custom membership fields and terminology aliases for groups and group leaders. You should ask the Systems Administrator to apply to the Beacon helpdesk if you think a change is needed.
• User Responsible for Request: Chairperson, Systems Admin
• Beacon Updater Responsible: Beacon Support Team 

5.3    System Users

• Each u3a can create a number of Beacon users to allow them access to Beacon. This is done by setting up a member with a Beacon system user account and then define the role or roles that each user has. All system users must be assigned one or more roles in order to access Beacon. System users may be added or deleted. 
• User Responsible for Request: Chairperson (only for committee members & dummy users (See 8.2 e.g.
• liaison), Group Support Team (only for Group Leaders)  Treasurer (only for additional Treasurers)
• Beacon Updater Responsible: Systems Admin

5.4 Roles and Privileges

• Roles are the means by which privileges are assigned to users. Privileges determine which parts of Beacon a user may access and the tasks they may carry out. A u3a can create its own roles or use Beacon built-in roles. each role has a set of fine-grained privileges, which describe which features of Beacon the role has access to, and whether that access is for viewing only, or for adding/editing/deleting/downloading data relating to that feature.
• User Responsible for Request: Chairperson, Systems Admin
• Beacon Updater Responsible: Systems Admin

5.5 Beacon System Standard Functionality

• This is the way Beacon works specifically dependent on the Beacon default roles. When a new site is created the following default roles are already set up: Administrator, Group Leader, Group Support Team, Membership Secretary and Treasurer. This functionality can only be changed by making a software change Request to the Beacon Support Team.
• User Responsible for Request: Chairperson, Systems Admin
• Beacon Updater Responsible: Beacon Support Team

5.6 System Settings

Setting various system wide parameters for the operation of Beacon.

 5.6.1 E-mail Membership Cards

• Chepstow u3a currently do not use Beacon generated membership cards. If this option is changed, the system messages should also be changed (see 5.7). These messages are sent when people join or renew online to reflect the fact that there is, or isn’t, a membership card attached.
• If used, each renewing or joining member is marked as needing a membership card for that year. An authorised user can print all such cards at any time. The format is fixed and is credit card sized. They can be printed on to A4 sheets designed to hold 10 cards per sheet. Blank or replacement cards can also be printed.

 5.6.2 Membership Fees / Advance Renewals Period / Grace Lapse Period

• It is important that the correct mode of operation for these fields is chosen if membership renewals are to operate correctly. Advanced renewals or extended joining periods permit members who renew/join in a defined period before the start of the next membership year to have their subscription run to the end of the following membership year. Note: these periods are defined in weeks not months.

 5.6.3 Public Enquiry

• Telephone & e-mail contact details are displayed via the public links to allow the general public to communicate with Chepstow u3a. (See 6.3. for more information)

 5.6.4 u3a Home Page

• This web address (URL) should only be changed if the UK Beacon Support Team Request it.

  5.6.5  On-line New Member Enquiries / Renewal Enquiries

• Not used at present. They are links that would be displayed for the public to join the u3a online & existing members to renew.

5.6.6  Gift Aid Declaration

• The u3a must decide whether or not to enable gift aid operation. (See 4.4)

 5.6.7  Default town, County and STD code fields

• Provide defaults (if required) on creation of new members. They can be overridden at the time of creating a new record. If a default STD code is left in place without the addition of the telephone number, it is automatically removed upon saving.

5.6.8 PayPal E-mail

• PayPal account (not used)

5.6.9 PayPal URL

• u3a home page typically (not used)

5.6.10 Member Record Warning

• If ticked will show a warning message when the ‘share address with’ field on the member record is set to another member. Warns if both members aren’t of the same member class & member status.

5.6.11 Hide address from Group Leaders

• When this is ticked, group leaders are not able to see the addresses of any members in their group (unless they have been allocated other membership privileges). Group leaders will still be able to see member phone numbers and send emails to the group members. If you hide all addresses from group leaders, you may also wish to disable add member by name because this displays the member’s address when a member is selected in the drop-down list. This is done by unticking groups: add members by name (as leader) from the group leader role record. Note: this global hide address from group leaders setting has no relation to the hide contact details from group leaders tick box on the individual member record screen.

5.7 System Messages

Select system messages under settings on the home page and then click in the drop-down box to see the following system messages:

• Email when member renews online (not used at present)
• Email when new member joins online (not used at present)
• Home page notices
• These are generated automatically by Beacon but may be customised. Home page notices are displayed at the bottom of the home page and may be used to communicate to users when they log in. Clear the message to remove. Tokens (on the right side) and links (at the bottom) may be included in messages in a similar way to their use in emails. To date this has been used to post monthly meeting info or special meetings info.
• User Responsible for Request: Chairperson, secretary (for home page notices only), Systems Admin
• Beacon Updater Responsible: Systems Admin

5.8 Finance Accounts

• Click finance accounts under settings on the home page to create or edit accounts. Finance accounts should correspond one-to-one with bank accounts (including PayPal if used). Note: current & PayPal accounts are locked. You are not allowed to change these, although we do not use them in any case.

5.9 Finance Categories

• Click finance categories under settings on the home page to create or edit categories. You will not be allowed to delete a category if there are transactions recorded against it. In which case, consider making it non-current instead. Note: donations & membership categories are locked. You are not allowed to change these.
• User Responsible for Request: Treasurer
• Beacon Updater Responsible: Treasurer

5.10 Membership Classes

• The means of determining the fee to be paid for membership. They can also have consequences for the claiming of gift aid (see 4.4). ‘Current’ indicates that the class may be used for new memberships. Some class records, individual at the moment, are locked against deletion. Note that the class called dummy is for use with dummy groups like members for magazine, so the ‘current’ field is not ticked. (See 8.2 for more information)
• For each ‘Class’ the following details can be set
• Class Name e.g. Associate
• Explanation e.g. A full member of another u3a
• 1 of 2 people at same address (meeting the HMRC requirements of family membership
• Full member of another u3a (i.e. associate)
• Show to members joining online (if using online joining allows the display of this information if ticked)
• Membership Fee
• Notes
• Assigning membership fees to a member class differs according to the membership fees option selected under system settings (see 5.6.2). We use annual – same fees all year.
• Note: if fees are ‘rolling’ or ‘same fees all year’, a single fee per person field is included in the main class record. Enter the fee and save as above. If fees can vary by month of joining, a panel is shown below the main class record with one field for each month of the year (starting with the configured membership start month) plus another for renewals. You must complete all fields before pressing save fees to commit; if you enter the fees from left to right and autopropagate is ticked, then the fee you enter will be copied automatically to succeeding months. In this way you will only need to alter the fee in the month(s) when it changes. Important: all membership fees must be per person.

5.11 Member Statuses

• Current and lapsed are mandatory statuses and cannot be changed as they are fundamental to the Beacon functionality. Infodist & walking weeks are assigned to dummy members to facilitate e-mails to a specific dummy group. (See 8.2 for more information)
• User Responsible for Request: Chairperson
• Beacon Updater Responsible: Membership Officer

5.12 Poll

• A way of grouping members by some particular characteristic that may be used when filtering lists. When adding a poll, it then appears on the member record and on the members list under poll. All members that have the characteristic should be ticked on their member record. All members can then be easily found using the relevant poll on the members list.
• To remove all members from a poll, click clear all assignments next to the poll name. This unticks the poll field on all member records. Note: typical uses for a poll include: committee members, members who don’t wish to receive the third age matters magazine, members who receive paper copies of newsletters or AGM documents, members willing to assist at meetings.
• User Responsible for Request: Chairperson, Systems Admin
• Beacon Updater Responsible: Systems Admin

6. Miscellaneous Options 

(Please refer to section 9 of the Beacon user guide for more information)

6.1 Audit log

Every change to the database is recorded in an audit log, which can be viewed by an authorised user. The audit log also records each log-in and failed log-in attempts. Records of all actions by any user that change data, and certain other actions too can be viewed The format is technically-orientated to assist support personnel, but users may find it useful to look at the audit log if something has not gone as expected.

6.2 u3a officers

• A record of the details of all your u3a offices and post holders. You may associate with each office a non-personal office email address (such as Treasurer@myu3a.org.uk). In this case when you send an e-mail, you will need to choose which e-mail address you wish to send it from.
• User Responsible for Request: Secretary 
• Beacon Updater Responsible: Secretary

6.3 Public links

• Online portal and public access – various Beacon webpages are accessible without being a Beacon registered ‘user’. Some of these pages are designed to be for public access and others restricted to members of a given u3a, ‘the members’ portal’. All these pages can be accessed from the u3a’s own website or could be sent as a web address by email. Click public links on the home page to see the URLs (web addresses) that must be embedded in your website in order to access these services. You should accompany these links with some explanation of their purpose. They are not changeable and were generated when the system was set up. The options visible to members or the public are configured on this page.
• Public access pages: note Chepstow u3a have not implemented this yet.
• The following three public pages can be chosen by a u3a to be publicly available: 
• List of groups, with details on each group plus two that are not used currently
• Calendar of group events which information is made available is highly customisable
• Joining the u3a: allows a person to subscribe to the u3a, paying their joining subscription online by credit/debit card. This uses PayPal, and so the u3a must set up a PayPal account

6.3.1  New Membership Services

• Requires PayPal to be enabled. Note, we don’t use this yet.

6.3.2  Members’ Portal

• This is a gateway to online services for existing members. Because members are unlikely to want to remember a password, members log-in to the portal by entering their name, membership number, postcode and email address to confirm their identity. The forename and surname fields are case sensitive and must match the information held on the member record. The postcode and email address fields are not case sensitive. Members sometimes find that they are not able to log in to the members portal. This can be due to not having JavaScript enabled in their browser and can be remedied as described at https://enable-javascript.com/. 
• The portal is used to provide access from the u3a website for non-users of Beacon i.e. u3a members who don’t have a user account. It is available so that all members can access the following four pages which can be made available but is configurable:

6.3.2.1   List of groups, with details on each group.

•  This information is set up in the relevant group record under group.
• Example Art on Tuesday
• Meets   1st and 3rd Tuesday each month
• Venue   Bulwark Community Centre – Map
• Contact    
• 01291 621980
• Details   
• Our group meets at Bulwark Community Centre every first and third Tuesday from 10am until 12 noon. Our members use a variety of mediums, some prefer painting while others prefer drawing, pastels or using pencils. We are mixed ability, so anyone is welcome to come along and have a go. We have coffee and enjoy a bit of a chat as well as seeing each other’s progress.

6.3.2.2  Change my details. 

• Shows the members personal information and allows them to change it e.g.change of address, e-mail etc.

6.3.2.3 Calendar of group events (not currently used) 

• The information that is made available is customisable, separately from the public pages. 

6.3.2.4 Renew membership (not currently used) 

• Allows a member to renew their membership, paying their joining subscription online by credit/debit card. This uses PayPal, and so the u3a must set up a PayPal account.

6.3.3  Configure Members Portal

• This allows selection of the fields to appear in the portal.

6.3.4 Configure Group Information

• This allows selection of the fields to appear to the members and the public when members use the portal or when the public have access to the groups. Note: the groups list at 6.3.2.1 would need to be embedded in a website, typically the u3a website.

6.3.5 Configure Calendar

• Similar to group information but not used at the moment.
• See chapter 10 of the Beacon user guide for more information about online services.
• User Responsible for Request: Chairperson, Systems Admin
• Beacon Updater Responsible: Systems Admin

6.4 Data Export and Backup

• This facility is provided to allow u3as to download their data for use in external applications, reporting tools, etc. and also so that they can keep backups of their own data locally if they wish to do so. Please note that there is currently no recovery process local to Chepstow u3a (see 6.4.2. below).

6.4.1  Data Export

The ‘keys’ in the excel files such as mkey (member), akey (address), gkey (group), etc.

are unique identifiers that link data across data sets.

6.4.2 Backups

• To ensure data will still be available in the event of some catastrophic failure there is a daily system back-up and off-site data back-up. Although the whole Beacon structure with all of its internal tables is backed up daily on the server, there is no capability to restore an individual u3a’s data from its ‘backup’. Additional security is provided throughout the system to protect the access to the system and to its data. These include strong password for log-in, automatic timeout, data entry validation, database encryption. Note that the local administrators, on a weekly basis, download Chepstow u3a’s data as a complete spreadsheet, so that we have some access to the local our information in the event of a data loss.

6.5 Personal Preferences

• The preferences set here apply to the current computer or current user only.

7. Extracting Reports from Beacon

7.1 Summary

Beacon has no reporting facility, however they can be achieved by using Microsoft Excel or similar standard tools. The reports following are all working examples using Excel. If further reports are required, please contact the Systems Administrator. These reports allow the user to see this information in a concise and ordered form.

For all reports to be extracted from Beacon begin as follows then continue depending on which report you require.

• Log into Beacon
• Access Misc/Data Export & Backup (If you can’t see this on the Beacon Menu under Miscellaneous contact your Systems Administrator who will assess your requirement)

• Format – Excel, Members & Addresses, hit Return
• Hit OK for ‘Save File’
• Access the downloaded file on your own computer (signified by a down arrow top right)
• Or Access ‘Computer’ and find the file in your Download folder
• Open the Excel file
• If you have a message at the top ‘Protected View’ then click on ‘Enable Editing’ and this message should disappear
• Remove all columns of information that you do not want in the report as follows
• Right Click above the column to reveal a down arrow
• With the right click held down drag the cursor as far to the right as the first column you wish to keep
• Right Click and hit Delete in the drop-down box
• Continue this process until all you have are the columns you want in the report
• Now select the columns (normally all) you wish to sort by
• Right Click above the column to reveal a down arrow
• With the right click held down drag the cursor as far to the right as the first column you wish to keep to select all columns
• Hit the down arrow bottom right of ‘Sort & Filter’ under Editing tab of Home. Then continue below depending on which report you require.

7.2 Members Renewals Overdue Report

The requirement was as follows: 

To determine the members who were overdue for renewal in Surname then First Name order.

• Select Custom Sort then in the Sort Box select ‘Renewal Date’, click OK
• If you get the message about mixed numbers & text, select ‘Sort anything….’
• The rows are now sorted by renewal date
• Scroll down to find the first occurrence of a date which indicates that the member is up to date. These should be deleted from the spreadsheet
• Place the cursor on the Row Number on the extreme left of the spreadsheet to select the first row to be deleted by clicking on it
• Whilst keeping your finger on the mouse, scroll down to select all the rows until you reach the end of the data
• Place the cursor anywhere within the selected rows
• Right click and select delete
• Now use the process at 8.1 & 8.2 to select all columns
• Hit the down arrow bottom right of ‘Sort & Filter’ under Editing tab of Home
• Select Custom Sort then then In the Sort Box hit ‘Add Level’
• You will then have ‘Sort By’ and under it ‘Then By’
• Select Surname for ‘Sort By’ & First Name for ‘Then By’
• Edit any Column Headings you wish to change
• You are now left with the data you wish to print so ‘Save As’ to your computer. You can now print it out or e-mail it as an attachment.
• Hit OK and your list will show all members who are overdue for renewal in Surname then First Name order
• Edit any Column Headings you wish to change & ‘Save As’ to your computer. You can now print it out or e-mail it as an attachment.

7.3 Members Groups Report

The requirement was as follows: 

When putting together the tea rota and selecting groups for assistance at the summer and Christmas parties it is useful to be able to see the size of the group (visible via the groups view in Beacon), and whether two groups have largely the same members, relevant for the parties. If multiple groups are needed it is necessary to avoid having the same people doing multiple tea rota duties in a short period.  Looking at the list of members, you can drill down and see for any individual member which groups they belong to but cannot look in the other direction and see which members belong to a particular group, which would help with the above. This report allows the user to see this information in a concise and ordered form.

• Select Custom Sort then In the Sort Box hit ‘Add Level’
• You will then have ‘Sort By’ and under it ‘Then By’
• Select Surname for ‘Sort By’ & First Name for ‘Then By’
• Hit OK and your list will show Each Members Groups in Surname & First Name Order. Edit any Column Headings you wish to change & ‘Save As’ to your computer
• You can now e-mail it as an attachment. We would not recommend printing as it is a large report

7.4 Members Gift Aid Report

The requirement was as follows: 

This is to get a list of everyone who has agreed to Gift Aid or who have not agree to Gift Aid.

• Select Custom Sort then the down arrow of Sort By & hit Gift Aid
• Select the column ‘Gift Aid’, click OK
• If you get the message about mixed numbers & text, select ‘Sort anything….’
• The rows are now sorted by Gift Aid date
• Scroll down to find the first occurrence of a blank Gift Aid date which should be deleted from the spreadsheet
• Place the cursor on the Row Number on the extreme left of the spreadsheet to select the first row to be deleted by clicking on it
• Whilst keeping your finger on the mouse, scroll down to select all the rows until you reach the end of the data
• Place the cursor anywhere within the selected rows
• Right click and select delete to leave those members that you are interested in
• Carry Out 8.1 & 8.2 to select all columns
• Select Custom Sort then then In the Sort Box hit ‘Add Level’
• You will then have ‘Sort By’ and under it ‘Then By’
• Select Surname for ‘Sort By’ & First Name for ‘Then By’
• Edit any Column Headings you wish to change
• You are now left with the data you wish to print so ‘Save As’ to your computer
• You can now print it out or e-mail it as an attachment

7.5 Members who are not attending any Groups

Note: Because this report’s set up is different to previous ones the following describes how to implement from scratch. No need to follow section 7.1.

The requirement was as follows: 

In order to look after new members or members who are less outgoing, the u3a strives to assist those members. This report indicates which members do not attend any groups and along with their date of joining it an aid to the committee.

7.5.1 Download the Excel Spreadsheet that you will be working on

• Log into Beacon
• Access Misc/Data Export & Backup (If you can’t see this on the Beacon Menu under Miscellaneous, contact your Systems Administrator who will assess your requirement)
• Format – Excel, Backup all data, hit Return
• Hit OK for ‘Save File’
• Access the downloaded file on your own computer (signified by a down arrow top right)
• Or Access ‘Computer’ and find the file in your Download folder
• Open the Excel file
• If you have a message at the top ‘Protected View’ then click on ‘Enable Editing’ and this message should disappear

7.5.2 Edit the spreadsheet to leave just the data you want

Remove all tabs at the bottom apart from Members & Group Members

7.5.2.1 Members Tab

• Click on the Members tab and remove all columns of information apart from Mem_No, Status, Forename, Surname, Joined, Renew, and Class which should leave you with columns A-G as follows.
• Right Click above the column to reveal a down arrow
• With the right click held down drag the cursor as far to the right, as the first column you wish to keep
• Right Click and hit Delete in the drop-down box
• Continue this process until all you have are the columns you want in the report
• You should now be left with columns A-G
• Now edit Members Tab to have the Members Name in the same columns as Group Members Tab
• Move Status column B to follow Surname column D as follows
• Right Click on column B and hit Cut in the drop-down box
• Right Click on column D and hit Insert Cut Cells in the drop-down box

7.5.2.2 Group Members Tab

• Click on the Group Members tab and remove the Gkey column as follows.
• Right Click above the column A to reveal a down arrow
• Right Click and hit Delete in the drop-down box
• You should now be left with columns A-F

7.5.3 Pull both spreadsheets together

• Go to the first row and click on “1”, which will reveal a –> (right arrow)
• Left click and, whilst holding it down, drag the cursor right to the bottom of the data which will select all the rows. You can move the cursor as far to the bottom as possible as this will speed up the selection process
• Now right click & hit Copy
• Now select the Members tab & go to the first row and click on “1”, which will reveal a –> (right arrow)
• Left click & hit Insert Copied Cells
• All the Members & all the Members Groups should be in a single spreadsheet with all the Surnames & First Names in columns B & C respectively

7.5.4 We now need to join the surname & Christian name in one cell

• Select column E, right click & hit Insert
• In the first cell of the blank column, type in the row where there is a name =D2&” “&C2 if it is column 2. This should join the surname & Christian name in one cell.
• Place the cursor in this new cell where the full name is
• In the bottom right corner, there is a small square. Put the cursor on it and the cursor should change to a cross.
• Keep the cursor on this and drag whilst holding it down right to the bottom of the data which will select all the rows. You can move the cursor as far to the bottom as possible as this will speed up the selection process
• All rows should now have the full name in column D

7.5.5 We now wish to locate those members who have no groups

• Edit the Column Headings from left to right as Member No / Group, Status / Joined Group, blank, blank, Name, Date Joined, Date Renewed, Class
• Now we will count the number of occurrences of members names, obviously if it is ”1” that member will have no group
• Place the cursor in cell I2 which should be the first blank cell to the right of Class
• Type =COUNTIF($D$2:$D$3500,D2) where D$2 is the first row and D$3500 is the last row or higher than the last row. If not amend 3500 to the correct row number. This is the range that the formula will calculate on. D2 is the members’ name which is being checked for occurrences.
• Place the cursor in this new cell where a number should be > 0. (If it’s 0 there is something wrong)
• In the bottom right corner, there is a small square. Put the cursor on it and the cursor should change to a cross.
• Keep the cursor on this and drag whilst holding it down right to the bottom of the data which will select all the rows. You can move the cursor as far to the bottom as possible as this will speed up the selection process
• All rows should now have the number of occurrences of each member
• To see them all together sort on Count, column I as follows
• Select the columns (normally all) you wish to sort together
• Right Click above the column to reveal a down arrow
• With the right click held down drag the cursor as far to the right until all columns are selected
• Hit the down arrow bottom right of ‘Sort & Filter’ under Editing tab of Home
• Select Custom Sort & Sort By Column I Count
• Hit OK & you will have a list of Members with an occurrence of 1 which is their member record, but they have no group records
• Delete all the occurrences of greater than 1 & you are left with Members who do not attend any groups 

8. Appendix 

8.1 Changing your own u3a Membership Details

• Log into the normal u3a website
• From the bottom menu select ‘Beacon’
• Follow the instructions for ‘Update Your Membership Details’ 

8.2 Setting Up Dummy Members & Groups in Beacon

8.2.1  Summary

To specifically allow the dummy group subscribers to be maintained dynamically by the Group Support Team for purposes of e-mailing them as a distinct set of users and potentially be used for a specific role instead of using the personal user account.

 8.2.2 Add New Member 

• Set status to current for now as this will allow a user account to be set up
• Set class to dummy
• Set address as no/name to dummy, street/building to dummy
• Town to Chepstow for consistency, county to Monmouthshire for consistency, post code must be any valid one
• Amend the value of the transaction created for this dummy member to zero & proceed
• User Responsible for Request: Chairperson
• Beacon Updater Responsible: Membership Secretary

 8.2.3  Add a User Account & Assign Roles for this Dummy Member 

• Set up / add new user / find the dummy member’s name by hitting the down arrow in the box to the right of member
• Click on dummy member and give it the standard login name initial and surname, no spaces
• Save user and make a note of the temporary password displayed on the screen
• Tick all, dummy groups & Group Support Team and save role assignment
• Tidy up system from dummy transaction of add member by setting the value to zero if not already done so
• Membership / members / find & click on the member to access the member record
• In the box to the right of the member no hit the down arrow and select the status you require dependent on which dummy group you are using & press save. NB there is only one dummy status currently called Infodist (Information Distribution)
• User Responsible for Request: Chairperson
• Beacon Updater Responsible: Systems Admin

8.2.4  Set Up the Dummy Group   

• (Responsible – Group Support Team)
• Groups / add a new group as normal 
• User Responsible for Request: Chairperson
• Beacon Updater Responsible: Systems Admin.

Tony Wilson (System Administrators)

September 2024