Page 8 - Sojourner Newsletter-Summer 2024 Final1

8 THE SOJOURNER

FROM THE WEBMASTER

It’s just after ANC and the office is busy receiving and processing the CARs from the
chapters. I’m likewise occupied trying to get all that information into the various places –
notably the Staff Directory – and it’s important that folks send in those CARs in a timely
manner, for both the office as well as the Webmaster.

I continue to get requests for website accounts that indicate folks are simply not reading the
instructions contained on the website for that purpose. When you point your browser to
https://nationalsojourners.org, you are on the publicly viewable portion of our website – so you are NOT
logged in as a member. Well, if you don’t have an account, you still need to go just a little bit further. Up at
the top of the public page is a black ribbon with various links on it. Go all the way over to the right side and
click on “members area.” Yes, I know, you’re NOT yet a member of the site. This will take you to a page
where you would login to the member area IF you had an account. BUT, on the left of that login area is a set
of instructions telling you how to request an account:

NOTE: If you wish to register for access to the member area on the website, you must send an email
directly to webmaster@nationalsojourners.org and it MUST contain the following information:

First Name, Last Name, email address, chapter number, preferred phone number for contact
purposes, address (street, city, state, zip) AND PASSWORD you wish to use. The webmaster will
contact you after verification of your eligibility and establishment of your account. Incomplete
information in the email will result in the request being deleted with no further action.

NOW, I haven’t actually deleted any incomplete requests, but it takes extra time and effort on my part to
remind people to RTFI (Read The Flipping Instructions) and get that information from them. This is for me
not only to verify your eligibility, but also to validate what we have in the MMS database for you. Make my
life easier, and I’ll make yours easier. Make mine difficult, well you can guess what will happen.

I do want to thank those of you who follow those instructions – it makes my life a lot easier and I can get to
your request much quicker. By the way, if you forgot to provide me with a password, I MUST set a password,
so I let the system set a VERY ugly, VERY unpronounceable, but VERY secure password for you. YOU can
change it, but the nasty password is the price YOU pay for forgetting to give me the information. And, lest
you think it is a compromise for me to set it, trust me, I have NO inclination or desire to worry about 2000+
passwords for you folks. I have a lot better things to do with my time. And, remember, I can NOT retrieve
your password if you lost it or forgot it. They’re encrypted for your privacy and protection.

We (Mark and I) have collectively been working on the MMS adding capabilities that we always knew we
wanted and needed but for whatever reason we couldn’t get. So, you will see features showing up from time
to time that are new – and like anything new in the software department, there WILL be “bugs” so be patient
with us and let us know if you have problems. There are TWO things that I’ve been seeing of late that you
need to be aware of:

1. Some secretaries report getting an ERROR code when trying to update some information on a member of
their chapter. There are TWO possibilities here. One is that you have “timed out” in MMS and you will
simply need to log out, then come back in. The other is that you might be trying to change something that
you aren’t allowed to do, and we need to know that is happening. Typically, it will be part of the data that
only the National Office can enter/change for a member’s record, so you will need to report it to them to
get it changed, but to me as well so we know what the problem is, where it happened, and why.