Manual: Operations-Welcome

It is quite typical for new Users to your Site to Register online. However, whether they register online or are manually added to the Users table, most SiteManagers require a mechanism to welcome a new User to the Site and provide them their initial SiteName and Password. We call this the Welcome action.

Complicating this Welcoming action a bit, the User Passwords are stored in the Users table in an unintelligible format (meaning they aren't stored as normal characters/letters). This means that the site itself cannot actually "read" a stored password. As a result, it is not possible to read an existing Password and send it to the new Registrant.

While this is nicely secure, it does leave us with a problem:

1. How do I get a new User his/her SiteName and Password?

The Welcome Action

The primary Users maintenance page (Administrator: Manage-Users) contains a "Welcome" action in the Actions column. If you click this Symbol, here's what happens:

1. The Site dynamically generates a random password for the User and updates the User entry
2. An Email message is sent to the user containing the text defined as the Setting named "WelcomeMessage"

You'll be shown the password in the page immediately after the Welcome action, but it will not be available in any form after that. Of course, you could click the Welcome action again to see the next randomly generated password, but....well, you get the idea.

The Welcome Message

The Welcome message is sent to the User's defined PrimaryEmail address and, as a result, the Email address will need to be present and specified. If there is no Email address, your only option is to read the randomly generated password to the User (e.g. over the phone, etc.)

However, assuming the PrimaryEmail address IS present, you might want to format a WelcomeMessage setting in a format something like this:

Your registration has been approved. You can now return to Referees.biz and logon using the

SiteName: [dusNewName]
Password: [dusNewPassword]

I recommend you review the information you'll find at Services: FAQ-Introduction to obtain more information about how we operate.

Welcome!!

This sample WelcomeMessage makes the presumption that you have allocated a Topic called FAQ with a SubTopic of Introduction (see Services: FAQ-Introduction). We DO recommend constructing the Welcome message with the Topics mechanism instead of putting it into the WelcomeMessage itself. That way, the user can return to the Services: FAQ-Introduction page at any point in the future...even after they've deleted the Email message they have received.

The internal variables "[dusNewName]" and "[dusNewPassword]" cause the RidgeStar formatter to replace these strings with the then current values of the SiteName and dynamically created password (these exist ONLY for the duration of the Welcome action to eliminate any potential for subsequent exposure). You CAN, of course, format this WelcomeMessage in whatever fashion you find appropriate for your membership.