Fraternity Websites & Sorority Websites | WeGoAll

We’ve been working hard to listen to our clients and provide the features they’ve requested. It’s been requested several times for WeGoAll to add support for importing members from an existing spreadsheet. We listened.

You can now upload a .CSV file using the new member import feature to import a list of members to your website. The import feature automatically makes sure each member in the list is not already a member of your website and sends out a welcome email to each member containing the member’s password.

Don’t make your alumni/alumnae register on yet another website; Just import them.

Fraternities and sororities have many passionate and intelligent members. We’ve had a great experience with each and every one of our clients, and we listen to what they have to say. We are constantly getting great feedback from our client community, and we do appreciate it.

Our clients have requested a lot of different features over the past few months. We do our best to analyze which features are relevant, and the ones that make the grade are added into your website. You wanted browsing pictures to be faster — done. You wanted private access to message boards to be given to more than one member group — done. You wanted email accounts — done. And there are countless other features that have been added or updated thanks to feedback from our great clients.

We’ve learned over the last couple of years that running and maintaining a website is not the goal of any chapter, but simply a means to an end. You shouldn’t have to sift through countless pages of documentation before you can start using your website to promote your chapter and improve communication. You should just be able to look at it and know how it works. We’ve tried to accomplish this through what we call “intuitive design.” When we build new features and revise old features, we try to think about how you, our end-user, will use it, and how we can create a design that will help guide you through it.

We think our website system is very easy to use and user-friendly, but we want to make it even easier. Starting today, WeGoAll is launching a new initiative called, “Simplify your site,” an initiative designed to make your website more intuitive and easy to use.

To kick it off, we’ve rolled out a new Site Dashboard to replace the old Control Panel. The Site Dashboard displays links to the different website features in a more meaningful and easy to understand manner. Instead of the old, overwhelming, Control Panel that listed something like 32 links, we’re opting for a simpler, cleaner, and easier to understand Dashboard that will only show the information and links you are interested in. We also know that the Control Panel made it easy for expert members to access the tools they needed quickly, so we added a Quick Links panel to provide quick links to the really important features like Dashboard, My Profile, Private Messages, and Add Event.

As you can see, the Site Dashboard provides a list of several different control panels, each with links to various features and a description of each feature. We believe this new approach will benefit both newcomers and experts when managing their website. This is just an example of how we plan on making our websites easier, from the inside-out.

Keep an eye out for more blog posts about how we are making our websites easier to use. If you think a feature on your WeGoAll website could be improved, please let us know — We’d love to hear from you.

We’re going to Simplify Your Site.

Gathering different kinds of information is an important part of any organization, especially fraternities, sororities, and clubs. You need to know who is interested in joining your chapter, and you need an easy way to visualize form submissions. Some chapters might want an online absence excuse form for missing meetings or work nights. Are you about to start a fund-raiser that needs sponsor sign-ups? You’ll want to make it as easy as possible to gather the sponsor information and to track and manage that information. WeGoAll has addressed all of these problems with our new Custom Forms feature. Create, publish, and manage customized forms using our online form builder.

You can create forms with short answer text fields, long answer textareas, checkboxes, and drop down lists. Form submissions can be automatically emailed to you the second a form is submitted, and form information is always stored on our servers — making it easy for you to track and manage your data. Need to get your form data into a spreadsheet? It’s as easy as clicking the “Export” button. Auto-reply emails can also be sent to the person who submitted your form with a customized message from you.

So if your chapter needs recruitment forms, absence excuse forms, surveys, or any other type of form, WeGoAll’s Custom Forms feature will help get your chapter all of the feedback it needs.

WeGoAll is always trying to improve and enhance the user experience on our clients’ websites. That’s why we’ve been using the Yahoo! User Interface (YUI) to improve our clients’ websites and allow for more intuitive viewing and administrator controls. We recently implemented one of the newest controls from the YUI team: Charts. The charts control allows us to easily visualize tabular data in several different formats, including a pie chart. We implemented the pie chart feature to more graphically and understandably display the votes to member polls.

Rich Text Editor - YouTube plugin

We also have been using another great feature from the YUI team, the Rich Text Editor. The rich text editor allows our clients to easily create and style content, and does not require users to know or understand HTML code.

Here is a plugin WeGoAll created so that our clients could easily insert YouTube videos into their websites using the Rich Text Editor from the Yahoo User Interface.

View a demonstration

<style type="text/css">
  .yui-skin-sam .yui-toolbar-container .yui-toolbar-youTube span.yui-toolbar-icon {
    background-image: url(http://www.wegoall.com/themes/default/images/shared/icons/youtube_icon.gif);
    background-position: 1px 0px;
  }
</style>

...

var myEditor = new YAHOO.widget.Editor('full_editor', {
  height: '300px', width: '530px', dompath: true
});

myEditor.on('toolbarLoaded', function() {
    var youTubeMovie = {
    	showDlg : false,
    	dlg : null,
    	dialog_config : { width: '400px', height: 'auto', fixedcenter: true, constraintoviewport: true, visible: false, draggable: false, modal: true },
    	handleCancel : function() {
    		this.cancel();
    		youTubeMovie.showDlg = false;
    	},
    	handleSubmit : function() {
    		if (!this.getData().ymovie) return false;
    		youTubeMovie.showDlg = false;
    		var fl_url = this.getData().ymovie.match(/(youtube).*(v=)([^&]*)/);
		    fl_url = fl_url[3];
		    fl_url = "http://www.youtube.com/v/" + fl_url;
		    var html = '<br><br><div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; background: #eee; width: 425px; height: 350px;"><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="' + fl_url + '"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="' + fl_url + '" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object></div><br><br>';
		    myEditor.execCommand('inserthtml', html);
		    this.cancel();
    	},
    	createDialog: function() {
    		var youtubeEle = document.createElement('div');
    		youtubeEle.setAttribute('id', 'youTubeDlg');
    		youtubeEle.innerHTML = '<div class="hd">Insert YouTube Movie</div><divclass="bd"><form name="youTubeForm" class="text"><br/>YouTube Movie URL: <input type="text" name="ymovie" size="30"/><br /></form></div>';
    		YAHOO.util.Dom.setStyle(youtubeEle, 'visibility', 'hidden');
    		document.body.appendChild(youtubeEle);
    		youTubeMovie.dlg = new YAHOO.widget.Dialog(youtubeEle, youTubeMovie.dialog_config);
    		youTubeMovie.dlg.cfg.queueProperty("buttons", [ { text:"Submit", handler:youTubeMovie.handleSubmit, isDefault:true }, { text:"Cancel", handler:youTubeMovie.handleCancel } ]);
    		youTubeMovie.dlg.render(document.body);
    	},
    	toggle : function() {
    		youTubeMovie.showDlg = !youTubeMovie.showDlg;
    		if (youTubeMovie.showDlg) {
    			youTubeMovie.dlg.show();
    		} else {
    			youTubeMovie.dlg.hide();
    		}
    	}
    };    

    myEditor.toolbar.addButtonToGroup({ type: 'push', label: 'Insert YouTube movie', value: 'youTube' }, 'insertitem');				    

    myEditor.toolbar.on('youTubeClick', function() {
        youTubeMovie.toggle();
    });    

    youTubeMovie.createDialog();  

});

Rich Text Editor - Yahoo Maps plugin

Here is a plugin WeGoAll created so that our clients could easily insert Yahoo Maps into their websites.

View a demonstration

var yahooMapsScan = function(e) {
	var mapEle = YAHOO.util.Dom.getElementsByClassName('yahooMap'), mapElement;
	if (mapEle) {
		for (var i = 0; i < mapEle.length; ++i) {
			mapElement = mapEle[i];
			var map = new YMap(mapElement), address = mapElement.getAttribute('address'), zoom = mapElement.getAttribute('zoom');
			map.addTypeControl();
			map.addZoomLong();
			map.setMapType(YAHOO_MAP_REG);
			map.drawZoomAndCenter(address, zoom);
			YEvent.Capture(map, EventsList.onEndGeoCode, function() { map.addMarker(map.getCenterLatLon()); });
		}
	}
};

myEditor.on('toolbarLoaded', function() {
    var yahooMaps = {
    	showDlg : false, dlg : null,
    	dialog_config : { width: '300px', height: 'auto', fixedcenter: true, constraintoviewport: true, visible: false, draggable: false, modal: true },
    	handleCancel : function() {
    		// If the user clicked cancel in the dialog, then hide the dialog
    		this.cancel();
    		yahooMaps.showDlg = false;
    	},
    	handleSubmit : function() {
    		// If the user clicked submit, then insert the YouTube HTML into the editor
    		if (!this.getData().street && !this.getData().city && !this.getData().state && !this.getData().zip && !this.getData().country) return false;
    		yahooMaps.showDlg = false;

    		var street = this.getData().street,
    			city = this.getData().city,
    			state = this.getData().state,
    			zip = this.getData().zip,
    			country = this.getData().country,
    			address = '';

    		if (street) address += street;
    		if (city) address += ',' + city;
    		if (state) address += ',' + state;
    		if (zip) address += ',' + zip;
    		if (country) address += ',' + country;

		    // Create the HTML code to insert the map into the editor
		    var html = '<br><br><div class="yahooMap" address="' + address + '" zoom="3" style="margin: auto; text-align: center; background: #eee; width: 425px; height: 350px;"> </div><br><br>';
		    // Insert the html into the editor
		    myEditor.execCommand('inserthtml', html);
		    // Hide the dialog
		    this.cancel();
    	},
    	createDialog: function() {
    		// Create the container element for the dialog
    		var yahoomapsEle = document.createElement('div');
    		yahoomapsEle.setAttribute('id', 'youTubeDlg');
    		yahoomapsEle.innerHTML = '<div class="hd">Insert Yahoo Map</div><div class="bd"><form name="mapForm" class="text"><table><tr><td>Street</td><td><input type="text" name="street" /></td></tr><tr><td>City</td><td><input type="text" name="city" /></td></tr><tr><td>State</td><td><input type="text" name="state" /></td></tr><tr><td>Zip</td><td><input type="text" name="zip" /></td></tr><tr><td>Country</td><td><input type="text" name="country" /></td></tr></table></form></div>';
    		YAHOO.util.Dom.setStyle(yahoomapsEle, 'visibility', 'hidden');
    		document.body.appendChild(yahoomapsEle);
    		// Create the dialog
    		yahooMaps.dlg = new YAHOO.widget.Dialog(yahoomapsEle, yahooMaps.dialog_config);
    		yahooMaps.dlg.cfg.queueProperty("buttons", [ { text:"Submit", handler:yahooMaps.handleSubmit, isDefault:true }, { text:"Cancel", handler:yahooMaps.handleCancel } ]);
    		yahooMaps.dlg.render(document.body);
    	},
    	toggle : function() {
    		// Show/Hide the YouTube dialog
    		yahooMaps.showDlg = !yahooMaps.showDlg;
    		if (yahooMaps.showDlg) {
    			yahooMaps.dlg.show();
    		} else {
    			yahooMaps.dlg.hide();
    		}
    	}
    };
    // Add the Yahoo Maps button to the editor's toolbar in the Insert Item group
    myEditor.toolbar.addButtonToGroup({ type: 'push', label: 'Insert Yahoo Map', value: 'yahooMaps' }, 'insertitem');
    // When the user clicks the button, then run this function
    myEditor.toolbar.on('yahooMapsClick', function() {
        yahooMaps.toggle();
    });
    // Create the dialog that allows the user to enter the map address
    yahooMaps.createDialog();
});

About WeGoAll

WeGoAll creates interactive fraternity and sorority websites and database management tools that will professionally present chapters online, help to facilitate internal chapter communication between members and alumni, help improve communication with potential new members, and improve alumni donations.

We have been very busy these last few months signing new organizations and improving the features of your chapter’s website.

With the growing interest in WeGoAll, we had to find a better way to communicate with potential clients and give support to our current clients, while still finding time to constantly improve our websites’ features. WeGoAll recently started using a free service called the Zoho CRM that not only allows us to streamline our sales process to potential clients, but it also helps us to provide top-notch support to our current clients.

If you ever have a question for our staff or you are running into a problem on your website, simply click the “Help” link in your site’s control panel .  Next click the link at the top of the window labeled “Have a problem or need help?” From there you will be able to contact our staff and let us know what you need. After the contact form is submitted, the information is sent via email to all WeGoAll staff members and added into the Zoho CRM case manager.

We have also been hard at work helping our clients to communicate more easily. Text-messaging has been possible with our websites since last year, but we recently lowered the price of each text-message considerably. Text-messaging members provides a way for any chapter to communicate more effectively.

We also recently improved the “Automatic Newsletter” feature with fully customizable information and images.  The automatic newsletter feature allows organizations to automatically send out newsletters on the first day of every month.  The newsletters can be sent to any or all members and contains the latest news, upcoming events for the month, and other organizational information.

The message board, private messaging system, file sharing, and job listing features have also been completely redesigned.

Does your fraternity or sorority need a WeGoAll website to enhance chapter communication?

WeGoAll recently teamed up with Amazon.com and Amazon Payments to allow chapters to accept alumni donations and sell items such as chapter tshirts directly on their website.

These new features open chapters up to new ways of increasing the collection of money from members and alumni. Because the transactions are made online, quickly, securely, and with credit cards, our clients can expect to significantly increase cash flow for its chapter.

The setup process is quick and simple, and using the new features is even easier. Learn more by watching our product videos: http://www.wegoall.com/video

We recently created some great videos that show our websites’ features and how to use them.

Check them out on our video page, and learn how to use your site on the screencast page.

You may have noticed that your WeGoAll website is easier to use and has more features than ever. Our team is constantly improving the tools that your chapter relies upon. We have several goals in mind when adding features and enhancing features: make features easier and more intuitive, allow chapters to communicate more efficiently, and give chapters more control of their website.

Here is a list of the most recent upgrades we have made to make your site better:

• Ever need help with a certain feature or page in your website? We recently published an instruction manual that covers every aspect of your site. If you don’t feel like searching through the manual, you can click the “Help” link in the control panel to get help information for whatever page you are currently viewing.
• Easily send out mass text-messages from your website. Create a list of members and send the results to the site Data Manager. Then send a text-message to each member in your list. Communicating with members is made more effective and faster by using our integrated text-messaging solution.
• Adding images to articles has become much easier. Insert images that have already been uploaded, upload images from your computer, seamlessly search for images on the internet, or choose and image from your chapter’s photo galleries.
• Member profiles got a major face lift and provide more information about members. There are also more security controls in place to prevent sensitive information from being displayed to unregistered members.
• You can now search your entire website by using the “Site Search” page. Search through pages, news, events, personal broadcasts, pictures, and tags.
• Browsing pictures has been made much, much easier. When viewing pictures, the next picture to be viewed is preloaded before you view it, making navigation almost instantaneous.
• The member registration process has become easier and more flexible. Additionally, you can acquire more information from your members than ever before by creating member attributes. Sigma Nu - Louisiana Tech University recently added every officer that their chapter has ever had to a list of presets for the Offices Held member attribute. This allows their chapter to easily track members who were ever commander, treasurer, recorder, etc… So when someone registers on their website, they can select any offices they have ever held from a drop down menu.
• The events calendar got a major upgrade. You can now view a large calendar that lists all of the events in a given month. You can also print a list of events for a given month. This is very useful for chapters who wish to pass out an event list at chapter meetings.
• Members can now request permission to be able to access certain features of your website. This provides administrators an easier way of managing which members can access certain features of your site.
• Navigating to articles and pages is now easier. “Clean urls” have been added to chapter websites, allowing you to go to http://www.yoursite.com/news instead of typing in http://www.yoursite.com/index.php?page=news. This will allow content creators and members to easily share links to your website’s content. Clean urls also help increase a chapter’s search engine rankings on sites like Google.com, Yahoo.com, Ask.com, and others.
• We added polls so that you can gather information from your members and get a better idea of how your members respond to different questions. For example, you could poll “members only” to find out if members would like to have a cookout or a volleyball tournament…. or both! You could also poll “alumni only” and ask where the annual alumni meeting should be held.

So with all of the new features and upgrades, you must be wanting to get back to your chapter’s website and start using them… Go ahead, but come back later to read more great articles from WeGoAll!