mariposacoop/mess — Issue #364: New Member Sign-up form needs to be moved from Wordpress to MESS
Author: tmmagee
Created: 2012-01-25 20:09:40+00:00
State: open

Currently the new member sign-up form is located on our [wordpress site](http://www.mariposa.coop/?page_id=3174). However, ideally it would be hosted on MESS because that is where all of the information entered eventually ends up.

Currently the process works as follows:

# A user fills out the form on the wordpress site
# The user receives an email welcoming them with their orientation date
# The volunteer coordinator receives an email informing her of the new member
# The volunteer coordinator downloads a CSV from with all new members and manually enters each member into MESS

We could skip that last step (which is a really big and time-consuming one for the volunteer coordinator, especially with the expected influx of new members when the new store opens) if the form is moved to MESS.

This is going to be a big change and IMO should be discussed and thought about with the entire team (or as many as possible who will have time to discuss it). This change will have the following ripple effects:

# It will allow unauthorized users (people not logged in) to submit data in a form and enter things in our database. Spammers and other nefarious persons will have to be considered. Perhaps at the very least a CAPTCHA will need to be considered? Or perhaps new members will have to validate their email addresses? Perhaps both?
# The user will have the ability to select an orientation date, and consequently orientation dates will now have to be entered and stored in MESS. I will make a separate ticket for this.
# Emails will have to be sent out to both the new member and the volunteer coordinator each time a form is filled out

Are there any other things that need to be considered?