• Teamware's solution provides associations and trade unions with a modern and efficient way of enhancing member services.
• The member portal allows for producing a significant part of the services on the Internet to facilitate the staff's work.
• The organization portal employs personalization to produce dedicated views for individual users or groups while, at the same time, maintaining the general views available to the public.

Enhancing membership services

associations and trade unions must meet new challenges in collaboration, communication, information management and member services.

It must be possible to respond better to the expectations set by the members while making it easier to find new members. The members expect increasingly practical service and efficient communication from their associations and trade unions at a time when many organizations need to consider the sufficiency of the resources they invest in their members. In addition, member activation and the services provided to them need to be cost-effective.

Internet-based web community is the solution

The association's or trade union's own member portal is an Internet service that incorporates the services and information provided by the association to its members.

The member portal can be created to support the entire operational model. In one service, a person may apply for a membership, sign up for events and training sessions, update his/her contact information, seek information, purchase services and communicate with other members and participate in collaboration.

Members indicate what they are interested in and receive focused information, bulletins and service. The Internet service is the fastest and most affordable way to manage member communication.

The solution, built on the Teamware Pl@za platform, is personalized according to the needs and interests of each group. At the same time, the members are provided with increasing possibilities to define their own services so that the association's and trade union's officials will have more time to develop and produce new work methods and services.

It will be possible to use the services and systems from any computer, workstation or terminal that has a browser and a network connection.

A member portal is an efficient and affordable service

In the member portal, the services and information are adjusted for members according to their requirements. At the same time, as information is produced and distributed in the Internet it enables the association's or trade union's employees to work more efficiently.

The publishing tool saves on information creation and distribution expenses

When a publishing tool is used, one can rest assured that up-to-date information can be found in the right place and that it is presented consistently. The publishing tool can be used in a distributed environment: an association's or trade union's officials and experts can produce content without middlemen. If necessary, an approval procedure can be utilized to ensure information reliability.

Document folders reduce mailings

The association's or trade union's officials can store internal documents in the document archive, or make the documents available to the members by storing them in public folders. Therefore, fewer documents need to be mailed on paper or in e-mail.

The user directory increases communication and makes it easier to maintain registers

A personal, interactive business card is created for each member that also acts as a link to his or her e-mail or cell phone. Quick messages can be sent to individual members and groups by e-mail or SMS. Users can also update their own information in the business card so that the changes are stored in the member register.

The event calendar reduces the workload involved in arranging events

Various events and arranging them are part of any association's or trade union's routine. The event calendar allows the right people to be informed about meetings, training and other events . The event page can be used to sign up for events or to request additional information, which reduces the money spent on communication and arrangements.

Discussion groups and surveys activate members

To make the portal more interesting and to maintain the activity of the members, there must be interaction; e.g., the employees can write columns for the web page or, if the pages display news, the news can have links to the discussion forum. The surveys can be used to collect feedback and to measure member satisfaction.

Notification and search functions master the information flood

With notifications, members can receive announcements when new content has been uploaded to the site and thus keep up-to-date. The search function allows the right information to be found quickly even among vast amounts of information.

Integration with back office systems

The portal provides organizations and associations with real benefits if the service allows access to relevant information sources and tools. With integration, information stored in other systems can also be made available on the member portal. Such systems could include member registers, which can be updated by the members themselves. The members could even update the information for their entire group.

Implementation

The member portal solution is based on Teamware Pl@za® software tools and services and, if necessary, the Teamware Office™ collaborative application software.

Services offered

- Publishing tools for distributing news and other content updates
- Form-based content update
- Document archives
- Event calendar
- Address book and Interactive Business Cards
- Virtual workgroup and project spaces
- Discussion groups
- Surveys
- Notifications
- Search
- Information security solutions

Supplementing services

- E-mail and calendars
- Integration with back office systems

Consultation services

- Internet service requirement specification
- Functional design of the Internet service

Teamware Pl@za, Teamware Office and Teamware consultation services are each described on their own fact sheets.