Making the Link

If you have a list of members in your membership application and another list in DutyMan then, for synchronisation to work, you need to establish a permanent link between individual members in the two systems. The link is a member's unique identifier (UID) from your membership application stored in the corresponding member's Member DBID field in DutyMan.

There are two ways to achieve this – load and link. You should consider carefully the pros and cons of each before deciding which is best for you.

Load

Either start with a new DutyMan account or, if you already have an account, delete all members. Starting with no members in DutyMan, use synchronisation to add them.

Pros Simple, foolproof.

Cons If you already have an operational DutyMan roster then new member login names are issued, members’ passwords and personal settings are reset, duties are deallocated. This is not a consideration if you are starting with a new DutyMan account.

Link

Upload a spreadsheet containing member names and their UIDs to DutyMan. The UID column is headed Member DBID. Members in the spreadsheet are matched by name to their corresponding member record in DutyMan. Values in the UID/Member DBID column are stored in matched DutyMan member records thereby establishing the link.

Pros Member login names, passwords, settings and duty allocations are retained.

Cons Exacting to create the spreadsheet, any errors may result in members being deleted or updated incorrectly. Backup your member list before synchronising.