TIMSS 6: Membership Default Date Masks

When setting up a membership product, there are 2 variables that you can set to determine what the default begin and end date of the membership will be. They are set on the Membership Structure Setup screen (MBR000) and on each membership product (MBR001).

The available codes for these to variable are found in types and codes under DEF_END_MASK and DEF_START_MASK.

DEF_START_MASK:

• BEGJAN- First of January
• BEGFEB- First of February
• BEGMAR- First of March
• BEGAPR- First of April
• BEGMAY- First of May
• BEGJUL- First of July
• BEGJUN- First of June
• BEGAUG- First of August
• BEGSEP- First of September
• BEGOCT- First of October
• BEGNOV- First of November
• BEGDEC- First of December
• BEGMY- First of the current month
• CUTOFFMONTH- First of Next Month after cutoff days- stored in OPTION_1 of the DEF_START_MASK code
• CUTOFFYEAR- First of Next Year after cutoff months- stored in OPTION_1 of the DEF_START_MASK code
• NEXTMONTH- First of Next Month
• NONE- NONE
• TODAY- Today

DEF_END_MASK:

• 1YEAR- One Year
• 1YRMINUS- One Year Minus (end date is last date of previous month next year)
• 1YRPLUS- One Year Plus (end date is last day of current month next year)
• ENDJAN- End of January
• ENDFEB- End of February
• ENDMAR- End of March
• ENDAPR- End of April
• ENDMAY- End of May
• ENDJUL- End of July
• ENDJUN- End of June
• ENDAUG- End of August
• ENDSEP- End of September
• ENDOCT- End of October
• ENDNOV- End of November
• ENDDEC- End of December

A common choice for the end date is the One Year Plus. This will give the member a few extra days of membership on their FIRST order by making the end date the last day of the month. So if they joined on 3/15/2007, their end date would be 3/31/2008, giving 12.5 months of membership.

Many organizations go with the One Year Plus so that they have a few extra days in that first year to get setup. For example if they joined at the end of the month they might miss that month's magazine, but they would still get 12 issues; if they joined early in the month, they might actually get 13 issues, but they would not get 11 issues and short change the member.

My organization is a Trade Association and our membership runs annually. Thus we use the value for End of December as our default end mask.

I would imagine that most organizations use TODAY for the start date of their new membership orders.

You should note that this really only effects new membership orders. Renewals are based on the end date of the current order and whatever length you have setup for the membership product.

Applies to: TIMSS6