Join Application - Management

Context

Provide a UI that allows internal staff to manage application processing for new membership applications, including data validation, duplicate detection, and status tracking.

Architectural Decisions

Integrated with Call Center — .NET Framework 3.5 - 4.8 — to allow the membership services team to stay in their common UI.

Challenges

• Managing complex business rules for application validation.
• Managing duplicate detection against existing member records.
• Managing a defined workflow for application review and approval.
• Providing reporting tools for application processing status.
• Managing the back and forth communication with applicants for missing or incorrect information.

Outcomes

• Removed manual paper-based processes for application processing.
• Provided tools to speed up application review and approval.
• Provided management with reporting tools to track application processing status.

Notes

The application process was very manual and paper-based prior to the development of this system. Applicants would submit paper applications via phone, mail or fax, which would then be manually entered into the Association Management System (AMS) by staff. This process was time-consuming and prone to errors, leading to delays in application processing and frustration among both applicants and staff.

When an application is received from the Online Join Application, the membership services team would see a notification in the Call Center system on their static menu area. The menu item would show the number of new applications waiting for review. Staff would click into the application processing area to see a list of pending applications. This list would show key information about each application, including applicant name, submission date, and current workflow status.

When an application was submitted, the application would store the data in a staging area for review. The first step in the workflow was duplicate detection. The application provided tools to search the AMS for potential duplicate records based on name, email, phone number, and other criteria. Team members could review potential matches and either link the application to an existing member record or proceed with creating a new AMS record.

Once duplicates were handled, the qualification process would begin. The application provided a process for gathering qualifiers for membership based on the organization's rules. This could include verifying business information, industry classification, and other criteria. The system provided emailing tools to communicate with applicants for any missing or incorrect information.

After qualification, the application would move to the approval stage. The system provided a workflow for management to review and approve applications. Approved applications would then be automatically processed by processing any payment, updating the non-member record to a member record, and sending welcome communications to the new members.

Membership services agents could see their list of applications in progress while management could see overall processing status via reporting dashboards. This allowed for better tracking of application processing times and identification of bottlenecks in the workflow.

My Role

Sole Architect, Developer, Trainer and maintainer for the application. Met with stakeholders to gather requirements and define project scope. Maintained contact with management and end-users to gather feedback and implement improvements.

Tech Stack