It has been almost a week since we made the transition to this new system. Many of you are even beginning to figure it out. There is plenty that still needs attention. I want to explain the basic setup here. In the past the Home Office has kept member records on servers in the office. We uploaded a member database to the web server once a week so the directories could use it. Almost all the functions on the old site were my code or were public domain software that I modified for our use. That had changed.
Now the data on ptg.org is now live and show immediately when updated. This kept the office from needing upgrade servers and software at the office.
We are dealing with two entities here. A company called MemberMax hosts ptg.org and has an extensive back end for managing member data. The Home Office uses this to keep member records and do the functions necessary like dues payments, accounting, etc. When you log in at ptg.org and click View My Profile, the changes you make here take place immediately. If you move your address change will be there when the next Journal labels are printed. Basically, MemberMax (ptg.org) has our web site and member records.
A company called Higher Logic hosts my.ptg.org and is our social media site as you have already found. The login is the same for both and it is supposed to transfer the login when you go from one site to another but that doesn't completely work yet. The member data has a record of your chapter and that get transferred here and makes you eligible for the community for your chapter. Same goes if you are on a committee. Pianotech and CAUT are available to everyone. But you must set yourself up here especially if you want to receive anything by email. All discussions are here in web format and you can search them.
One big difference that happens now is that these pages are written by someone else, so I only have limited control over how they function. In some areas, I'm only a little ahead of you in figuring out how they work. Many things are configurable but we will run into some things that we can't change or will find work-arounds.
Thanks to all for your patience. Part of the confusion is just that this is new to us and we have to get used to it.
Ron