You can enable a member contact form that allows your members to be emailed without revealing their email addresses. In this way, members can be contacted while still maintaining their privacy.
The member contact form can be enabled for all members, or enabled only for selected members. The form can be made visible to members only or to all visitors to your site.
Using the member contact form
When the member contact form is enabled for a particular member, a Send message button will appear within the member's profile.
Visitors to your site can view a member's profile by clicking on the member's listing within a member directory.
Clicking the Send message button will display the member contact form.
The member contact form consists of the following fields:
- Message subject
- Body
- Reply name
Clicking the Send button will send an email message to the member from your organization. The message will let them know that they are being contacted from your site and include the information that the visitor filled out on the form. If they wish to contact the correspondent directly, all they have to do is reply to the message in their email program.
The message will be recorded in the email log where it can be viewed by a site administrator.
Enabling/disabling the member contact form for all members
You can enable or disable the member contact form for all future members (other than those added through import), and optionally, apply your changes to existing members.
To enable or disable the member contact form for members, follow these steps:
- Click the Settings menu then click the Privacy option within the Members section.
- On the screen that appears, click the Edit button to enter edit mode.
- For the Send message form setting, choose whether to make the form visible to everyone, to members only, or to no one.
- When you are finished adjusting the privacy settings, click the Save button.
- You will be asked whether you want to apply these changes to existing records as well as new records. If you only want to apply these changes to new records, click the Leave existing records alone button. If you want to apply these changes to all existing records as well, click the Apply to all records button.
- If you choose to apply the changes to all existing records, you will be asked to confirm the request by entering the word REAPPLY in the field provided. After entering the word, click the OK button.
Enabling/disabling the member contact form for individual members
You can enable or disable the member contact form for individual members without affecting the settings for other members.
To enable or disable the member contact form for a particular member, follow these steps:
- Go to the Contacts tab.
- Find the contact's record.
- Open the contact's record by clicking on it within the list.
- Click the Privacy tab.
- Click the Edit button to enter edit mode.
- For the Send message form setting, choose whether to make the form visible to everyone, to members only, or to no one.
- When you are finished adjusting the member's privacy settings, click the Save button.
Enabling/disabling the member contact form by members themselves
From their member profile, members can change their privacy settings, including whether to enable the member contact form.
To change their privacy settings, a member follows these steps:
- Log into their Wild Apricot account.
- Go to their member profile by clicking on their name.
- Click the Privacy link.
- Click the Edit profile button to enter edit mode.
- The member can now choose whether to enable the member contact form.
- Once they are finishing changing their privacy settings, the member clicks the Save button.
Enabling anti-spam settings
To prevent automated software – known as spambots – from using the member contact form to bombard you and your members with spam emails, you can enable Wild Apricot's anti-spam Captcha feature.
With Captcha enabled, visitors to your site would have to enter a set of characters – proving them to be a person rather than a program – before being able to send the member a message.
The Captcha message is always enabled for visitors using the member contact form. Within your anti-spam settings, you can choose whether to enable it for members as well.
To enable Captcha for members using the member contact form, go to the Website module then click Settings within the menu bar at the top of the screen. On the screen that appears, click the checkbox beside Send message form under the Members heading then click Save changes.