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OA Dues Lookup is a Wordpress plugin to allow your Order of the Arrow lodge members look up whether their dues are paid or not. It currently works in conjunction with data exported from OA LodgeMaster, however, if you have some other system that can export data in a machine-readable way (Excel spreadsheet, CSV, etc), file an issue requesting it and I'll try to make it work.
- Download and Installation
- Design Goals
- How to get help or report problems
- Screenshots
- OALM Setup/Export/Import Instructions
NOTE: as of June 2021, LodgeMaster now offers a Member Portal in which members can see this on their profile. Depending on your desires, this plugin may no longer be needed.
What this plugin still does that LodgeMaster's Member Portal does not yet do:
- Link to the site to pay your dues - LodgeMaster Feature Request
- Show the member whether their BSA Registration is valid - LodgeMaster Feature Request
- Allow someone other than the member to look up their dues status if they know their BSA ID (like Scoutmasters) -- LodgeMaster integration with the Internet Advancement System is supposed to be coming in the next year or so, then they'll be able to do that there.
You can download the plugin from https://github.com/oascouting/dues-lookup/releases/latest
To install it: in the Wordpress admin, go to Plugins > Add New > Upload, and give it the zip file. Click "Activate Plugin" after it finishes installing. Then go to OA Tools > Dues Lookup Settings to find the settings for it. You can upload the file exported from OALM at OA Tools > Import Dues.
You can put the dues lookup widget on any page by using the [oadueslookup] shortcode.
My design goals in creating this (mostly to deal with privacy concerns) were:
- To look up whether your dues are paid or not, you need to know your member ID. This is a piece of information that's generally not out there and won't really be of use to an identity thief anyway.
- Nobody can view the entire list. You can only look it up by member ID, one ID at a time.
- The result the member gets to look at doesn't include any names. It only has the date they last paid dues, and what year they're paid up through.
- If we don't have their BSA Member ID on file, they can't look up their dues. We're not allowed to renew their membership without it now anyway (at least in my council), so if we don't have it on file, they're not technically a member, even if they paid up. If someone tries to look up an ID that's not in the list, it will suggest how to submit their ID to us.
As you probably noticed because this is hosted on GitHub, the plugin is open source. If programming is your thing and you want to help maintain this, feel free to fork it and send me pull requests (or put a patch in a ticket). I'm also open to trying to make this work for people, so if you want it to do something it doesn't, feel free to file tickets in the issue tracker.
Use the issue tracker, or email me at the address in the screenshots below.
The main page looks like this:
From there you can look up a member ID and hopefully get a result like this:
Or maybe one like this:
There are pre-installed "fake ID numbers" that can be used as test codes to test the various situations. You can use Mishigami's installation to try them out to see what the responses look like. Someday (hopefully soon) the output will be more customizable.
| test code | ID on file | dues paid | BSA audit result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 123452 | No | n/a | n/a |
| 123453 | Yes | No | No Match Found |
| 123454 | Yes | Yes | Not Registered |
| 123455 | Yes | Yes | Registered |
| 123456 | Yes | No | Registered |
| 123457 | Yes | Yes | No Match Found |
| 123458 | Yes | No | Not Registered |
| 123459 | Yes | Yes | never run |