Inviting Members
After you enter information about group members, you may want to invite them to participate. (See Why Should You Invite Members? for why you might or might not want to invite members to join your group.) When you invite a member, here's what happens:
- Directra sends an email to the member asking them to join the Group and provides a URL to which they can respond and join.
- The URL takes them to a page where they can supply a password to be used for all subsequent logins.
- The member then enters the Group web site, where they can update their contact information and participate in all activities available to a member of the Group.
Sending the Invitation Email
Since invitations are handled via email you can only invite members for whom you have assigned an email address. Other members will be able to view the public web page for your Group but will not be able to log in and participate as members.
- Inviting All Members
From the Members tab select the Invitations view. You'll see a list of members and their invitation status. Click the action Invite All Members. Directra will send an invitation to any member who has not yet been invited.
- Inviting Individual Members
From the invitations view select Invite next to the member's name.
Directra opens the invitation email so that you can review it and edit it as you please.
Click Send and the invitation email will be sent to that member. You'll see a confirmation that the email was sent.
Checking the Status of Invitations
The Access view provides the invitation status of each member.
- Accepted: The member has been invited and has accepted the invitation.
- Invited: An invitation has been emailed but the member has not yet accepted.
- Not Invited: An invitation has not been sent to this member.
If a member has been invited but has not yet accepted the invitation you can Cancel the invitation. In this case, the member will not be able to join the Group until another invitation is sent.
Invitations may get flagged as Junk or Spam and thus never get to the invitee. You should follow up on any unaccepted invitations and make sure members check their Spam folders for the invitation.
Customizing the Invitation
Directra allows you to customize the invitation email for all members, or for individual members.
- All Members: Click the Settings tab, select Group Settings, then click the Members tab in the left column. Edit the message by entering the text that you want to be included in all invitations. This is the text that will be sent when you use the action Invite All Members (see above). Note that you change only the text part of the email. You cannot change the greeting or the instructions that will be included at the bottom of the invitation email.
- Individual Members: When you send an email to a single member Directra will display the invitation that will be sent, allowing you to change the text of the message so that it is personalized for this member.