Voting Form

This is where you can add the questions you would like all voters to complete. You will have the opportunity to add questions specific to a particular item/option at a later point. By default the form will have fields to collect the Name, Email and Phone. In most cases you won’t need to update this. If you do you can follow the directions below.

How to delete a field

1. Click on the field you’d like to delete
2. Click Remove
3. Click “Confirm Remove”
4. Follow steps 1 through 3 to delete all of the fields you no longer want
5. Click Save Template & Continue to Items to finalize the changes

How to add a field

When adding a field, you can either opt to add a custom field or click on the “Field” drop down menu to select one of the existing system fields. If a system field exists for your purpose, we recommend using that field type instead of creating a new one. To create a new custom field:

1. Click “+ Add Box”
2. Add the question you’d like to ask in the box next to “Description”
3. Next to “2-letter identifier” type any 2 letters
4. Set the “Type” to the kind of questions you’d like to ask
5. Click OK
6. Repeat steps 1 through 5 for each question you’d like to add
7. Click Save Template & Continue to Items to finalize your changes

How to add new boxes

You may want to organize your questions into different boxes. You can see an example of a form with different boxes at https://demo.membershipworks.com/survey. Here are the directions to add a new box.

1. Click on “+ Add Box”
2. Put a title for the box in “Box title”
3. Add a description if you’d like in the “Description” field
4. “Visibility” should only be set if you would like to limit which members or groups of members can see the questions in this box.
5. Click OK

Once you’ve added the box you can follow the above directions on “How to add a field” to add fields to the box. You can also drag and drop existing fields from one box to another. Don’t forget to click Save Template & Continue to Items to finalize your changes.

This is where you can add the positions (board chair, secretary, treasurer) that are up for election. You can add as many items as you’d like.

Directions to add an item

1. Click “+ New Item.”
2. Give the item a name and description, for example “Board Chair.”
3. Set the “Item type” to “No cost/price”.
4. You can limit the number of times a person can vote for this item at one time by putting “1” in “Limit of this item per checkout.”
5. Add the email addresses of anyone you’d like to be notified when someone checks out this item. You can add multiple emails by separating them with a comma and no space.*
6. By default the button text to select this item will say “Add.” If you’d like to change it you can add the text you prefer in the box next to “Button text.”
7. You can restrict the item to only accounts with a particular membership level or label by enabling the “Restrict to” feature. After you enable it click on the membership level or Label you’d like to have access to the item. You’ll see the background turn blue to show that it has been enabled.
8. You can exclude the item from accounts with a particular membership levels or Labels by enabling the “Exclude” feature. After you enable it, click on the membership level or Label you’d like to exclude from having access to the item. You’ll see the background turn blue to show that it has been selected.
9. Checkout actions allow you to add current accounts to folders or labels when they check you. Please note that as long as they just check out an item, they will not count towards the total number on your MembershipWorks plan. However if you have accounts created for people, those accounts will count towards the total on your plan.* 
10. For organizations that have our Premium MailChimp integration, you can have people who select this donation automatically added to a MailChimp audience. You can also attach MailChimp Tags to them. If you don’t have our Premium MailChimp integration you’ll be able to export them from the form Dashboard and import them into MailChimp or another newsletter platform.
11. Click Next

1. To add an image, click or drop the file in the box as directed – the first picture will be the one that shows as the main image. Additional picture(s) will show when the website visitor clicks on the item for more information.
2. Click Next or Save Item (the latter will appear if you have returned to add to/edit this item after creating it).

This is where you will add the names of the people that are running for the position. We recommend putting “Abstain” as your first option so no one gets the advantage of getting more votes just because their name is on top.

1. Click “+ Add Item Option” 
2. In the “Option Name” box type the name of the person
3. Repeat steps 1 & 2 to add each person that is running
4. Click Next or Save Item (you will see the latter if you are editing this item later after creating it)

The Questions tab allows you to add as many questions as you’d like for this item. This question will be asked each time this is selected. You can ask questions such as, “Why are you voting for this person?”

1. Click “+ Add Question” to create your question
2. Fill out the information for the question
3. Click Next or Save Item (the latter will appear if you are returning to edit the item after creating it)

Typically for a voting form, you would not set a receipt for each Item. You can create a separate receipt for each Item or have just one receipt that you create in the Settings tab. If you do want an individual receipt for each item:

1. Add your “Subject line for the email”
2. Add your message in the “Message for email” box
3. Click Add Item or Save Item (the latter will appear if you are returning to edit the item after creating it) to finalize the item

*Notification emails, checkout actions and receipts can be set individually for each item or for the whole form in the Settings tab of the form.

First Box

This is where you control the general settings for the form. Let’s take a walk through all of the settings.

In top box you can control the following:

Form name: This is set when you create the form. You can change it here if you’d like. Please note that if you change the name it will change the WordPress shortcode and HTML5 snippet used to embed the form on your website. Therefore if you change the name after putting the form on your website, you will need to update the WordPress shortcode or HTML5 snippet on your website.

Notify email(s): You can add email addresses of people who should be notified when someone checks out this form. This can also be done at the item level if you prefer. If you have multiple emails you like notified, separate them with a comma (no space).

Redirect to: You can put a URL in this box and it will redirect the member to that page upon checkout.

Checkout button text: Here you can update the text you’d like on the checkout button. For example, some people like it to say “Vote.”

Scroll: If most website visitors will only be selecting one item, you can enable this setting and the form will automatically scroll down to the checkout area after an item is selected. If people will likely be selecting multiple items (as would be typical for a voting form), it is best not to enable this setting.

Handling fee: As voting is free, you can leave this section blank.

Limit items per checkout: You can leave this blank if you don’t want to limit the number of items a website visitor can check out. If there is a limit you can add it here.

Checkout actions:

• “If user has account, add user to these folders/labels” allows you to add users who already have an account in your system to a particular folder, or add a Label to their account. When selected, you will see a list of all the Folders and Labels you’ve created. Click on the ones you’d like and you’ll see their background turn blue to show that they have been enabled. Many groups will create a “Voted 2021” (or similar) Label in Labels & Membership and have it applied to the members who have voted. You can also create accounts for people who aren’t currently in your system.
• “If user has account, remove these labels” allows you to remove the Label from an account when they check out this form. When selected, you will see a list of all the Labels you’ve created. Click on the ones you’d like and you’ll see their background turn blue to show that they have been selected.
• “If user does not have account, add user to these labels/folders” will automatically create accounts for users that check out this form and don’t currently have an account. In most cases we don’t recommend enabling this setting as each account created will count toward the total number on your MembershipWorks plan. You will be able to see and export information from the form on its Dashboard, including contact information of people who do not have accounts in your system.
• “Add user to email list” will only be visible if you have the Premium MailChimp Integration Add-On. This allows you to automatically add people who check out this form to the MailChimp audience of your choice. You can also have it automatically attach Tags in MailChimp. If you don’t have the Premium MailChimp Add-On, you can export from the event’s Dashboard to a csv spreadsheet and then import the spreadsheet into your newsletter platform.

It is important that you always click Save after making any changes in this box to finalize your changes.

Here you can create a receipt that goes out when someone checks out the form. Below the email box you can click on “Tags” to see what tags are accepted in this email. For example if you type “[now]” it will replace “[now]” with the current date when the email is sent.

1. Go to the Dashboard tab of the form
2. Click Embed/Link
3. Copy the shortcode
4. Paste it onto your website page

1. Go to the Dashboard tab of the form
2. Click Embed/Link
3. Copy the HTML5 snippet under “Embed the form on another site:“
4. Paste it onto your website page

This situation applies when you receive a check or cash for a form payment. Payments yet to be received are listed in red.

1. Click on “View/Void” next to the name
2. Click “Record Payment received”

1. Click “View/Void” or View/Refund” next to the name
2. Select “Link registration to account”
3. Search for the account name
4. Click on the account. Once the account has been linked, the  icon will appear next to the name. The icon is clickable.

1. Click “View/Void” next to the name
2. Select “Void”
3. A message will come up asking you to confirm
4. Click Continue

1. Click “View/Void” next to the name
2. Select “Void & Refund”
3. A message will come up asking you to confirm void and issue full refund
4. Click Continue

Please note that once a transaction is refunded it cannot be undone.

1. Click Export CSV
2. Select to export all checkouts or checkouts of just a particular item