2327 L Street, Sacramento, CA 95816-5014 916.440.1985 FAX 916.440.1986 Email info@capta.org www.capta.org E-Membership Cards Made Easy Questions and Answers QUESTIONS Q: How do you find out if your District has decided to take advantage of e-cards? Q: Where do you get the verification codes for the membership cards? Could I mail the cards out to the new members? Q: Is the number of verification codes we can receive preset from the number of members from the previous program year? Q: Can I order codes before I know the number of members I'll have, and how soon do I need to get a card to a member after they pay? A: Contact your PTA council, if your unit is in a council, or your PTA district. A: The verification codes are pre-printed on the hardcopy cards from National PTA and if you chose to use the new digital e-cards, we will send you a list of unique verification codes to assign to your members. A: No, you may request the number of verification codes your unit needs. A: Absolutely! Members should get their cards as soon as possible. Q: How many codes will we receive upon first request? A: You are able to request the number of codes you'd like to receive when you complete the survey form. Q: What happens if we have more members than verification codes on the roster template? Q: We ordered both e-cards and paper cards for our school. What if I ordered too many paper cards? Can I return them? Q: Is it ok to go completely paperless and just issue e- cards to members? Q: Can someone get both paper and electronic? A: Yes A: You can submit a request for additional e-cards using the same survey link you used to request your first batch. A: Yes, we have a card shortage this year, so please return them to your council or district. A: Whatever works best for your members Q: Can the paper cards be hand written? A: Absolutely! Whatever works best for you and your unit. Q: Can this be combined with a custom membership A: I would recommend copying and pasting from your database created in Excel? datebase/spreadsheet into the spreadsheet that you will receive from State PTA if you want to use the Mail Merge to Email function. Q: Can the mail merge function work with other email programs - like Gmail? A: You must setup and configure Outlook to use the Mail Merge to Email function. When setting up Outlook you can use Gmail, AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo, pretty much any email service out there. You may need to contact your email provider to help you with setting up Outlook.
Q: If we make mistakes on mail merge do we have to start over with a new name? Q: Is it possible to use Outlook just for email merging even though I normally use Gmail? Q: Is there any reason why we can't just send e-cards to our members if we have an email address for every member? In the presentation it mentions that the e- cards are not replacement for paper cards. Q: Is there room for mistakes with unique verifications? I would like to practice first? Q: Must all email addresses be unique for each member? Or can we send more than one e-card to one email address? Some members in the same family may list the same email address. Q: What about if you use Windows Live mail? How do I mail merge everyone? A: No, you don't need to rename the group. Just exit out and start from the beginning. If e-cards were actually sent out, I would recommend putting something in the subject line saying to disregard the previous emai. A: Yes, but you must setup and configure Outlook to interface with your email account whether it is Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, etc. A: You can send e-cards to everyone with an email if you wish. Paper cards are an option if the member prefers a hard copy card. A: I would strongly encourage practice runs. Doing so will not cause problems with the unique verifications codes. Just send the emails to yourself, friends and/or family with the understanding that it's a practice run. A: You can send multiple e-cards to the same email address. A: It appears that Windows Live Mail doesn't work with Outlook. I would suggest establishing a new email account with another online email provider just for your PTA's membership purposes. Then you can setup/configure Outlook using that new email address. Q: What do we enter in the "verification code" field? A: The hardcopy cards you receive will have the verification codes printed on them. If you chose to use the new digital e-cards, we will send you a list of unique verification codes for your unit. Q: What if members are renewing their memberships; don't they already have unique IDs? Wouldn't they have to be the same as before? Q: Where can I add the information I need on the merge roster such as student name, room number and grade? Q: Can we just distribute e-cards since we have emails for all the new members? Or do we have to do paper cards too? Q: Can we use PTAEZ to generate e-cards? A: Yes you can! Q: Can you confirm - do we send you our list of members and then you send us an Excel file with all the names in there, for us to use with the mailmerge? How long will it take for us to get the roster file back after we've sent it to you? A: No, National PTA has given us a brand new set of numbers this year. A: You can add columns to the right of the email column on the MembershipRoster.xls that we send you with the unique verification codes. A: You can choose to only distribute the e-cards, if that's what your members want. A: We send you the Excel file that has the verification codes, and your unit name and ID number. You fill in the member names, and send out the e-cards to the members. Q: Can you email this Powerpoint for future review? A: If will be available on our website in the next 2 weeks. 2
Q: Do I need to keep track of verification codes that apply to each individual if I am sticking with paper cards this year? Q: Do you show your PTA membership card to get these discounts? Q: Given that the local PTAs print the membership cards, when do you get that National PTA verification code to include it with your printing? Are they individual codes per member? Q: From whom do I get the E-cardMerge.doc and E- cardtemplate.doc? A. No. Q: Are the membership cards available in Chinese? A: Sorry, not at this time. A: Some benefits providers ask for the card and/or the unique verification code as proof of your PTA membership. A: If you get the hardcopy cards from National PTA, they will be pre-printed with the unique verification codes. Each member receives a unique code. A: If you did not receive the email from California State PTA with the link to request the e-cards, you can ask your PTA council or district about it. Q: Have the paper cards been sent? A: The paper cards were delivered to the PTA districts in July. Please check with your PTA district office if you have not received cards for your unit. Q: How are the verification codes determined/issued? A: National PTA sends us a list of preassigned verification codes. Q: How do we store the membership card for when A: When using the template, you can rename the file to people come to us saying they can't find their card. include the member's name and save it under a folder such as Membership 2014-2015 making it easy to find and resend as an attachment. If you are using the Mail Merge to Email, Outlook will store the outgoing emails in your "SENT" folder. You can access the sent email and resend. You can also do a Mail Merge to Email for just one e-card and resend. Q: How do you determine who receives an e-card and a paper card? When is a good time to ask members? Q: How does the e-card that is emailed get transferred to your mobile device as a card that is stored on your phone or tablet? A: If you have their emails, you can send out an email asking them if they want a paper card or a digital e-card. The best time to ask is when the members join. We will add that informatioin to our PTA membership envelopes when we redesign them this year. A: Open the email on the smartphone or tablet device. If the card image is in the body of the email, in most cases, it's a right click and select "save as picture". If that doesn't work, save the email in an email folder that can be easily remembered and accessed. If you receive the e- Card as a PDF attachment, open the attachment and save it to your pictures or whatever file you choose. If you're using an Android smartphone, the image will be in your downloads folder. 3
Q: I have followed all steps you have showed. When I go to preview results and click the right arrow to see the names of my members all the cards show up blank. Not sure why and what I may be doing wrong. I have followed step by step instructions. Can you copy and paste the first/last names and email to the excel sheet (from a different excel file) that we saved on our desktops (the membership file)? Q: I have no Microsoft products installed on my computer, so am I able to use the e-cards? Q: I have Word, but not Outlook. Is Outlook the only way to send e-cards? Q: I noticed the template looks for First Name and Last Name. Our online system gives first and last names as one field. Not First Name and Last Name. Do we just paste the full name into the Last Name field? Q: I have already have a roster started with 100+ members. How do I deal with 2 lists? Q: If I understand this correctly we should NOT be entering our newly joined members into an Excel file until you send us the template? Q: We already received a membership roster with 300 verification codes. If we need to add more members, do we need to request more unique codes? Q: Do we need to send you a list of our members after we've updated the roster? A: In response to your blank cards, did you use the "e- CardMerge.doc"? If you started with the "e- CardTemplate.doc", the results would be blank because the merge fields are not inserted. Something else to look at is whether or not you unchecked all recipients during the "select recipients" step. e-cards will only be generated for names that have a check mark appearing on the screen. Yes, you can copy and paste the first names, last names and emails into the spreadsheet but be sure to leave the column headings unchanged. If you still have issues after considering my suggestions, I would recommend calling the state office at (916) 440-1985, extension 100, for more help. A: You can use PTAEZ or you might consider using a computer at your school site which has Microsoft Word and Outlook. Something else to think about would be to ask your PTA to purchase Microsoft Office for PTA use. A: You can use the "e-cardtemplate.doc" with any email program to send out individual emails with the e-cards as attachments. A: Yes, that should work. I would recommend previewing your results carefully if you plan to use the Mail Merge to Email. A: I would recommend copying and pasting your e-card requests into the Excel file received from State PTA if you will be using the Mail Merge to email function. A: If you like, you can go ahead and begin an Excel file, using the same columns, and then copy and paste into the spreadsheet that you'll receive from State PTA which will contain the unique verification codes. A: Yes Q: Is there a fee for PTAEZ to use PTA store? A: Yes there is a fee A: No, it isn't necessary to submit your rosters, just maintain one for your unit's records. Q: Where do I find out more about PTAEZ? I keep A: Visit www.ptaez.com for more information. hearing about it but have no idea what it is or how I use it. Q: Where do we get membership envelopes? A: Please contact your PTA district to request membership envelopes for your unit. Q: Can members print their e-card if they like and use that to show as proof of PTA membership? A: Yes 4
Q: I tried to activate my card online to access discounts, but National PTA didn't recognize my membership upon trying to do this. Is it because the PTA treasurer needs to submit the official list to national before I'm actually recognized as a PTA member? A. There is no official list, as we do not send membership lists to National PTA. If you are having trouble creating a profile, please contact National PTA at info@pta.org. Currently, you can access the discount page at http://www.pta.org/benefits. More discounts are available at the California State PTA website at http://www.capta.org/sections/membership/perks.cfm Q: How do you get printed cards requested and made? A: The printed, or hard copy, cards come from your local PTA district. Please check with your PTA district office. Q: How would you recommend doing e-cards if you have a Mac computer? A: There is a Macintosh version of Microsoft Word and Outlook which will work with e-cards. Q: Can Mac users do PDF's or only JPEG format? A: Macintosh users can use the "e-cardtemplate.doc" and save it as a PDF or JPEG. Q: I used e-cards last year and had to email them out individually. It worked OK, but sending out hundreds of emails all with the same title shut my email down because it was flagged as SPAM. I would suggest people add the number/name in the title to avoid that problem. Q: Where on the bylaws can we find the PTA Unit ID so it can be put on the membership cards? A: Great idea, thanks. A: Typically on the very first page of the bylaws. Look for a 3 or 4 digit code for your state ID and an 8 digit code for your National ID. You can always call our state office at (916) 440-1985 and we can look it up for you. =) Q: Will the e-cards be available in Spanish? A: At the present time we do not have Spanish cards. We would need to receive several requests from our district PTAs to create them. 5