5 Tips for Choosing an AMS System: Insights from Reggie Henry, ASAE
May 1st, 2023 By Chris Laskey As associations grow and expand their membership base, managing member data can become a daunting task. That’s where AMS (Association Management System) software comes in – it can help associations manage their membership data, events, and other functions. But how do you choose the right AMS system for your association? During the ASAE Demo Days introduction, Reggie Henry, Chief Information and Performance Excellence Officer at ASAE, shared his insights on how to choose an AMS system that works best for your organization. 1. Outline your requirements and prioritize them Before you start evaluating AMS systems, it’s important to outline your requirements. What do you need the AMS system to do? What features are essential, and what are nice-to-haves? Once you have a list of requirements, prioritize them. This will help you focus on the most important features when evaluating different AMS systems. 2. Develop a script for your demos When evaluating different AMS systems, it’s important to have a consistent approach. One way to do this is to develop a script for your demos. This script should be based on the priority of your requirements. For example, if online transactions are a top priority, make sure you allow enough time in the script to explore this feature. This will help you compare different AMS systems more effectively. 3. Consider your members’ needs AMS systems are designed to help you manage your relationship with your members. It’s important to consider your members’ needs when evaluating different AMS systems. What features will help your members get the most value from your association? For example, if your members attend conferences, they may want to be able to connect with other attendees from their area. Make sure the AMS system you choose can support these needs. 4. Minimize customizations Customizations can be tempting, but they can also be a double-edged sword. While they can help you tailor the AMS system to your specific needs, they can also make it harder to upgrade the software in the future. In general, it’s best to minimize customizations and stick to the out-of-the-box functionality as much as possible. This will make it easier to upgrade the software and avoid costly customizations. 5. Focus on what gets done, not how it’s done Finally, it’s important to focus on what gets done, not how it’s done. Don’t get bogged down in the details of how a particular feature works. Instead, focus on the end result – does the feature help you achieve your goals? Too often, associations get caught up in the minutiae of how things are done and end up with over-customized software that is hard to maintain. Instead, focus on the big picture and choose an AMS system that helps you achieve your goals. In conclusion, choosing the right AMS system can be a complex process. However, by outlining your requirements, developing a script for your demos, considering your members’ needs, minimizing customizations, and focusing on what gets done, you can make an informed decision that will help your association manage its membership data more effectively. Selecting the right AMS can be an overwhelming process. We’re here for you! Need more information? Look at Altai’s Buyers Guide for in-depth guidance, information, tips, and tricks on making an informed decision on selecting your association’s next AMS.
Configured Association Management System VS Custom-Built
A Configured Association Management System VS Custom-Built Why Altai Systems, built within the Microsoft Power Platform is the right fit for associations even if your association is considering a custom-built solution In economic terms, custom solutions depreciate in value year after year. The long-term impact of employee turnover and leadership changes is rarely factored into the cost of building a custom solution but has real negative impacts on how they are managed, used, and maintained. This devalues the software your association relies on to service members and follow your association’s mission. One of the main arguments for building custom software for your association is that it will fit exactly what you need and match your specific user requirements. Custom Solution developers argue an off-the-shelf software is built to fit a generic audience and not your association’s unique needs. What’s missing from this argument is the configurability of off-the-shelf platforms that perform and behave like custom software without the years-long effort to get your custom-built solution where it needs to be. These platforms start your association in the final mile of a marathon, we’ve already run the first 25.2 miles so that when you join the team, we simply finish the race together. This option has all the benefits of custom software without the detraction of a long, harrowing, implementation followed by ongoing retrofitting and maintenance. A configurable platform is designed to meet your unique needs while also working behind the scenes to remove bugs, install upgrades, security patches, feature enhancements, and more. There will never be a question about who is responsible for this ongoing maintenance and improvement. Your SaaS partner takes that burden off your shoulders, alleviating that stress from your internal team. Altai Systems has 100,000+ hours getting our solution where it is and continue to invest hours into improvements, maintenance, and upgrades. We already know associations and have done development creating a solid framework for your association-specific solution. Building on top of that kind of investment in our technology allows us to configure the platform to exacting terms that match your association’s needs today and tomorrow. With your configured solution working exactly the way you need, we’ll continue to invest in improvements and upgrades so you’ll never need to worry about it. Our software continues to improve, unlike a custom solution that remains static until you invest more money to improve it. On the flip side, custom developers argue that their solutions don’t include a yearly licensing fee. What they neglect to tell you is that your licensing fee pays for the continuous improvements, debugging efforts, revamps, upgrades, and improvements that allow your software to stay current. Custom-built solutions remain static and unadaptable to changes in technology. As you go through the long implementation phase, you lose valuable growth from the technology you’re building on and by the time you go live, you already have out-of-date software. Even worse, your association most likely needs to hire staff or dedicate significant time to maintaining your custom-built solution just to keep it secure and operating at the status quo. These expenses are difficult to predict and are therefore often overlooked. At the end of the day, your association will need to budget for the extraneous time and expense it takes to build a custom solution from scratch and then maintain it day in and day out. Weigh the stress and effort that this time and effort takes away from other projects and determine what is best for your association. Contact us to learn more about how we can incorporate Altai and Microsoft’s functionality into your Association.
Turning Membership Engagement Data into Effective Marketing
Creating cohesive, concise, and intriguing campaigns can be a challenge. Getting your members to interact with this information can prove to be even more difficult, resulting in a daunting and time-consuming effort for your staff. However, this does not have to be the case Your AMS (Association Management Software) constantly captures valuable data points from your members, contributing to various engagement points. Utilizing this material can create powerful and personalized campaigns related to consumer interests. Knowing how to leverage these decisions based upon how your members interact within your association will always provide them with the best experience possible. There are typically four basic data points associations use from their members to personalize content. This includes age, title, gender, and zip code. Using these primary elements allows you to group individuals into segments, creating a more refined target audience of the material you want them to interact with. This is only the beginning of creating a successful marketing strategy that will result in increased engagement and a more in-depth representation of your users based on their own demands. Behavioral data is created from the observed actions of users, giving you genuine and accurate insights into how they are using your services. One way you can do this effectively is by creating tags within your system that will track users and the material they interact with. As members engage with specific content it will relay these interests over to their contact allowing you to match them to these tags. Using these basic elements allows you to group these individuals into segments, creating a more refined target audience of the material they have previously engaged with. With Dynamics 365 users can utilize configurable dashboards that show a plethora of information giving the ability to organize your members into personas based on the behaviors that they exhibit. Static or dynamic worksheets can be created and directly exported to Microsoft Excel, bringing immense ease of reporting, and saving your staff time – all while allowing you to better capture your members‘ interest and create content that will speak to them directly. Tracking these behaviors within your association creates a marketing strategy that results in an intelligent (and successful) way to retain higher interaction. Who has attended a specific online seminar? Who has taken a CAE course on your LMS? Who has registered for the annual conference? These specific data points can be defined inside Microsoft Dynamics to build digital personas. This personalized output puts your members first, actively sending them content based upon the wants and desires that cater to the specific individual. For example, while sending out the monthly newsletter, multiple arrangements can be constructed, each holding the same information, but arranged in a different order. The key points that are shown first are based upon earlier interactions they have had within their persona grouping. Learning how to navigate these critical tools in your system not only will bring your association greater success in engagement but creates a more individualized experience for your members. Altai creates a content community and commerce all in one. Depending on your campaign, our portals will create a side-by-side process to guide your users into a seamless path towards a specific goal. Once your members have been defined into segments and campaigns are created – you can quickly provide them with valuable information they need to advance their knowledge and career. Hyper personalized content based on specific patterns of other users with similar interests will increase your engagement resulting in more emails being opened. Altai Systems understands the challenges you may face with membership and marketing. Offering a completely customizable CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and AMS interface – all built within the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Platform. Find out how Altai & Microsoft’s power can help your Association
How Associations Benefit with Microsoft Blog Series: Outlook
Enable end-to-end capabilities between Microsoft Office and your Microsoft CRM. Why Altai Systems, built within the Microsoft Power Platform is the right fit for associations. Email has changed our lives. And while it can be a distraction, it’s also where a lot of work gets done. Consider how often we’ve all walked out of a meeting or closed a Zoom or Teams video thinking that an email would’ve been so much more efficient. Because that’s what email can be – an effective and economical tool to convey information. But what if you’re not harnessing all that it could be. Think about how often you communicate with your members. You get an email from a leader about material prep for an upcoming meeting or you get a complaint from a member threatening to drop. What if you could see key information without toggling to your CRM. Or update data like job titles and contact info directly from the email. With Microsoft, you can do just that. Microsoft’s Power Platform connects its suite of functionality including Microsoft’s CRM and Outlook to work for you seamlessly. Microsoft is turning the tools you use into a collective Customer Engagement ecosystem that will sustain your work now and into the future. Features that you don’t want to miss out on include: Linking email messages and meetings to a record in your Microsoft CRM. This connection allows your colleagues the opportunity to understand past interactions to ensure consistent, engaged customer service. In addition, studies have shown that this synchronization saves the average user 30 minutes per day from copying/pasting. Syncing contacts between Outlook and the CRM. Do you regularly email your leaders directly? You’re likely to get a contact update before it’s updated in the CRM. Now you can sync the data so everyone can send timely information to the right address. Add email templates to share valuable content when you create an email message or set up a meeting. You want your messages to feel authentic and maintain a personal touch. But you also want to make sure your team remains on point. Email templates from the CRM can be accessed in Outlook to do just that. Contact lookup. Can’t remember a contact’s phone number. Allow outlook to search Dynamics, find the right contact, and display his/her contact information without having to leave Outlook or log into the CRM separately. Send group messages to the right people in the group. As people are added and removed from certain groups, Committee members, for instance, the two solutions can synchronize those contacts for you so that the right people are always immediately reachable. Assigned Tasks for your team are also synced with Outlook’s Tasks so that nothing slips through the cracks. Outlook even works with the CRM when you are offline. The system will sync when you come back online. Contact us to learn more about how we can incorporate Altai and Microsoft’s functionality into your Association.
How Associations Benefit with Microsoft Blog Series: Power Automate
Why a system built on the Microsoft Platform is the right fit for associations. We’re introducing a new series about Microsoft features and how Altai Systems has adapted them for associations. Automate the Mundane. Altai champions this phrase to all of our prospects and clients. So do lots of other people based on how many hits you get when googling the phrase. But what does it really mean? And how can it help associations and you move your mission forward, better serve your members, and help your career development? Altai talks about automating the mundane because not only do we think that technology frees you to spend time on directly serving your members, but it also opens up new opportunities to leverage the system you’re using in new and different ways. So how can you turn your repetitive tasks into automation that works for you? Microsoft has solved this by using low-code/no-code technology that can not only automate your tasks but make you a citizen developer! Really, that’s just a fancy way of saying that it’s built with the user in mind. Just as you want to be productive by automating these repetitive tasks, you also want to be productive without waiting for resources to build your automation. Microsoft’s Power Automate uses “flows” to make it happen. A Flow puts the proper steps in place to determine what happens during the automation process. Event-Driven Flows. Do you want to create an automatic update to a member’s record when they update their job title in LinkedIn? Do you want to automatically forward an email to the right department? Event-Driven Flows are designed to be trigger or time-based so you can set it and forget it. Business Process Flows. These are flows designed to guide you through a process. Are there repeated steps you follow to save a canceling member? Creating a business process flow will guide any staff to follow your win-back process to save the member. By having the system lead you through the steps, your staff can be confident the most effective steps are being taken. Desktop Flows. Do you have a process that is unique to you or a small group of staff? Documenting processes are important but time-consuming and often get de-prioritized. With Desktop Flows, you can record your actions for the flow to be triggered to repeat those actions. Altai uses each of these flows to make Altai’s Association Business Platform your Association’s Platform. By building on Microsoft’s Power Platform, we’re able to leverage the latest technology tools to keep our functionality up to date – and to future-proof your solution. And best of all, Power Automate is now free with Windows 11. Contact us to learn more about how we can incorporate Altai and Microsoft’s functionality into your Association.
How Associations Benefit with Microsoft Blog Series: Teams
Why a system built on the Microsoft Platform is the right fit for associations. We’re introducing a new series about Microsoft features and how Altai Systems has adapted them for associations. Odds are that you – or someone close to you – is using Teams. That may not have been the case 18 months ago. Microsoft saw a growth of 233% of Teams users since April 2020. That’s right. Triple-digit increase from 75 million users in April 2020 to 250 million users in July 2021! Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella was not exaggerating when he said that we’ve seen ‘two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months.’ But that’s old news now, right? You’ve been on Teams. You’ve adapted. You’ve embraced it. It’s changed how you work with your colleagues in real and tangible ways. But what if there’s more? Teams can extend beyond your internal communication. Associations are about collaboration. Sharing of content and information. Networking. Building a community. What better way to collaborate with your members than with the tool you’re already using to collaborate with your co-workers? And with Microsoft Teams you can do this. Everyone has different collaboration needs. Your Board or other leadership committees need extensive conversations and shared access to develop materials, discuss policy changes, or vote on action items. By extending the collaborating tool you’re already using to team up with your members, you’re eliminating one more distraction to your day with another tool. One productivity study showed 52% of workers’ time is spent dealing with distractions – including using multiple tools for meetings and searching for information from colleagues. By bringing your leadership into the Teams fold, your network of resources becomes centralized and less distracting. That’s where Altai can help make that connection even easier. Altai’s system is designed to leverage the data in your CRM to create automated workflows to populate designated Teams appropriately. Creating a new committee in your CRM to oversee your next annual meeting? We’ll create a Teams for it. A new term for your board of governors? We’ll add and remove members from the team based on their roles. Worried that these members aren’t in your Active Directory or don’t have a Microsoft email? No worries, Microsoft has solved for that. Community has become more important than ever in these evolving times. And that can mean different things to different people as we adjust to a ‘new normal’. But the days of not prioritizing online collaboration are gone. Online conversation, real-time document sharing and updating, and leveraging the tools your members are already using are here to stay. By turning to Teams for your collaboration tool, you’re not only extending the tool you’re likely already using – you’re extending the tool your members are likely already using as well. Talk about no learning curve needed! And to further entice you, here are just a few Microsoft Teams features you and your members will benefit from: Meeting recordings and transcriptions (Perfect for those minutes that your bylaws require!) Share an email to the Teams channel directly from Outlook (Whether you’re sharing a compliment from a satisfied member or troubleshooting a response to the latest fire you’re putting out, you don’t even have to leave your email.) Create tasks lists for your working committee (The organized team member will love this and the unorganized team member will quickly be a convert!) Move the conversation to breakout rooms (Has your committee turned into multiple subcommittees? You can still start and end in the same place and leverage the breakout rooms in between.) Speaking of breakouts, Teams has a channel for that. (Those subcommittees will inevitably last longer than just a breakout room session, right?) Set your status. (You want to be available, but maybe not always available? The Do Not Disturb status is your friend.) SharePoint creates your library of resources. (Libraries have been around for centuries because they work. SharePoint creates that library at your fingertips.) We’re committed to Microsoft Teams because it works. And we’ve built our integrations to our web portal and our platform to make it work for your association as well. Contact us to learn more about how Altai can personalize your Teams experience.
Why Associations Should Choose a CRM
For years – decades even – associations have managed their customers using an Association Management System. Vendors rightly saw a niche audience and built proprietary tools to address the specific needs of a membership organization, which was great. Associations do have specific needs. And with over 20,000 associations in the US alone, there’s a rich market for companies to serve those needs. But technology has come a long way since the first AMS was built. And associations have too. While associations benefit from doing mission-driven work to serve their members, the public, and the common good, they’re also running a business. The common phrase “non-profit is a tax status, not a business model” has become more relevant than ever, with the increasingly common expectation from members to receive the same customer experience they get in their everyday life. Associations want to deliver that and more. That’s where a CRM comes in. Let’s break that down.” Customer – You serve members. And that member is consuming a product or service that you produce. And you want to track things about that customer. Contact information. Demographic information. Relationship – Does your member work for an organization? Does your member belong to committees? Your member doesn’t exist in a vacuum. You want to know how your members relate to you, each other, and the products and services you provide. Management – Whether someone is joining, buying, or registering, you want to manage that experience. You want to keep track of it for fulfillment and reporting and serving that customer. The real benefit is what happens when you put that all together. Customer Relationship Management is greater than the sum of its parts. Because a CRM is built to use more than just what you’ve been told, it’s designed to give you context, to analyze those interactions with your members, predict trends, personalize content, and seamlessly connect to how you talk to your members. A CRM puts the member first – and recognizes that the member’s experience is a journey. One that you hope to nurture for a lifetime. And a CRM is built to be by your side through it all. Altai Systems is also by your side. We bring the CRM to you – without sacrificing those AMS-specific features that make you unique. Altai has the AMS functionality and the CRM functionality – all built within the Microsoft Dynamics Platform. We know CRMs. You should too. Let us show you what our platform can do for you.
RFP Pitfalls to Avoid
The RFP process can be stressful. In great part because you know it’s the start of a big change for your association. You’re likely ready to embark on a system implementation or upgrade and the RFP is the necessary step in that process. But…is it? Some associations need to do an RFP because it’s built into their procurement or is a general counsel-directed policy. Some associations use it to get competitive bids. But some associations use it as an opportunity to do a feature assessment. By having a list of features to send to prospective vendors, you want to make sure your selection meets your needs. But that also means you’re doing part of your discovery before you even know what system you’ll be using. An important consideration is understanding what solution you’re trying to solve. Are you updating your infrastructure or systems that have reached their end of life? Do you have specific needs that are no longer being met? Do you believe your association is being left behind as technology continues to evolve? All of those are valid reasons to change, but risk not telling you – or the prospective vendors – what you’re looking for. Being able to articulate the why as much as anything else should help drive your process. Articulating specific requirements – and a broad vision – is important. Be careful that the RFP doesn’t turn into your detailed requirements gathering. If your RFP is limited to a checklist of features, you may miss out on opportunities you don’t even know to look for. Be open to adjusting your scope when a tool presents itself to meet new needs. And be ready to have a conversation with the prospective vendor about what your future vision could be. Be sure to check back for our blog post on preparing for a change where we cover the 5 areas to consider ahead of an RFP. Another consideration when preparing your RFP is whether you’ll use a consultant in the process. If vendor selection is a regular part of your job and managing the process is something you or your team have the bandwidth to do, maybe a consultant isn’t something that fits your budget or needs. But a consultant adds value beyond managing the process. They can help target your RFP to vendors or software that are a good fit based on understanding the marketplace and learning your needs. Having a partner there to manage your selection process and understand industry leaders can be a valuable extension to your team. Regardless of whether you have a consultant or not, crafting a good RFP question is important. One key is to remember not to limit to yes/no questions. Some questions may be straightforward and only need a yes/no answer, but be sure to include plenty of opportunities to expand on that. For instance, asking if the vendor has security will give everyone the opportunity to say yes. But you want to know how they do it. Or more specific needs such as field-level security, security at the user level or department level, etc. Open-ended questions like “How do you..” or “Explain your process for…” better prepares you for your selection and demo steps. Asking engaging questions can also give you the opportunity to read between the lines. A recent study by Third Coast Consulting shows the type of software implemented has less of an impact on the success of implementation than the people you’re working with. While you’ll get a feel for the vendor during the demo and subsequent conversations prior to signing a contract – and plenty after! – you want to make sure the vendor is someone you want to work with and can deliver what you need. That starts with how the RFP is answered. The three things you want to look at – Software, People, and Process – help make for successful implementation and ongoing relationship with your vendor. Make sure your RFP gives you a feel for all three and you’ll start that relationship out on your best foot forward.
Thinking of Switching your AMS? Preparing For Change
Your current AMS has stopped meeting your needs and you’re ready for a change. Time to write an RFP and implement a new system, right? Sure. That will get you a new system. But will you be more successful than you are now? Are you preparing for what a change can do for you, your members, and your future? Advances in technology will give you more functionality, make integration and configuration easier, and allow for more flexible decision-making. But beyond the technology, let’s walk through 5 things you should consider ahead of the RFP to set yourself up for not just a successful implementation, but a successful future. 1. Change Management Implementing a new system using the same business processes, the same approach to data, or the same skillsets is like buying a boat when you don’t know how to swim and don’t live near a lake. Great in theory, but quite a costly sunk cost that you may never get your return on investment. Take a step back. Think about what you’re doing now and ask why. Was a process that you’re continuing built because of past system limitations vs actual business needs today? Do your business rules make sense in today’s world and are they adaptable to a changing world? The world – and likely your association – has gone through a lot of change in the last year. Change fatigue is real. But this is also an opportunity to illustrate to your board and the C-suite team that your association can handle change. That being open to re-imagining your business as well as your technology will set you up for future success – and future abilities to adapt to a changing world. 2. Data Management Whether you’re integrating with other systems or implementing an all-in-one platform, knowing your data, how it’s used, and how it’s maintained is necessary for not just an effective implementation, but for an effective business. Squeaky wheels get attention. So anecdotal decisions get made. That may never change in an association world. But having faith in your data – and being able to report on that data in digestible ways, such as with PowerBI reports that the world has gotten used to seeing, allows you to make data-driven decisions. 3. HR Management This one may come as a surprise. You’re thinking about an AMS/CRM solution, not a new HR system. What does HR have to do with this? Well, an effective HR team – and by extension, an effective team overall – cares about the skills their team has, career development, and talent pool. Customized or targeted tools will have a more limited pool to pull from when hiring – and minimize marketability. That may be good short-term, but fostering a culture that wants to nurture and encourage staff career development should be a factor in the technology chosen. The ability to work in a low-code/no-code environment, including manage customer journeys with automation, may require different skills than some staff is used to. Leveraging the extensive online learning opportunities now available is a good start in ensuring your team stays ready for what comes next. 4. Member Management Are you providing a personalized “Netflix experience”? Personalization is how we live our lives now. Your recommended queue is likely far different than mine. People expect that. Whether it is a personalized welcome journey in marketing automation or offering up the right discounts and recommendations based on who I am, your tech should support this. 5. Vendor Management Integration allows you to get the features you want – from the vendor you want. You may go with a tool that meets most of your needs with just some supplemental integration or cut across the full spectrum of specialized vendors. More vendors are seeing that associations are an industry worth investing time and money into development. They’re also looking to form partnerships with their customers. Reggie Henry from ASAE likes to talk about how the vendors are partners and an extension of his staff. Look for vendors who want to form that partnership with you. For instance, Altai Systems is confident in our software – and confident in our process. Our process, our ease at integrating within the Microsoft 365 universe, and the ability to look ahead for you are what we’re bringing to the table to make sure you succeed. Are you in the position to pivot when the next curveball comes your way? Are you looking ahead with a plan for continuous improvement? We’ve had to pivot a lot at the start of the pandemic. And there will be new tech and new needs and new obstacles. Is your ecosystem ready for what’s next?
Single Sign On (SSO), Identity Management, and how to not torture your members.
Single sign-on, or SSO, allows your members – and really anyone who has an online account with you – to avoid keeping track of multiple usernames, passwords, permissions, and roles. One login gives them access to all your connected digital components they have rights to access. It also allows you to manage who has access to what. Restricted board content, digital downloads, personalized recommendations. SSO opens the door to the experience your member is often already getting in their daily life. If you are a member, you do not care that the association provides benefits from different platforms and likely don’t notice SSO details until they are absent. You just want to use the tools that make your association membership worthwhile without having to type a new password at each step. If you are an administrator, or IT professional, SSO and how it is implemented matters a great deal. The technical differences between identity, authentication, and SSO are the subjects of many books, but for the sake of this article, let’s just say they are security technologies that allow the real member to work in your systems securely without infecting you or each other. They achieve this by understanding who is at the keyboard and what they can do automatically without asking the user for more information. While there are nuances between identity management, authentication, and SSO, for now, we’ll talk broadly about secure member access to your content and their data. Do I know you? What are you allowed to do? Hey job board this is “Jeff”, he is good to go, Hey Breezio this is “Jeff” he is a board member, Everyone…. “Nancy” just got hacked, kick her out of every system now! Security has come a long way. Things like PII, PCI, and GDPR weren’t on our radar when we first started asking members to log into our websites. Whether asking them to update their mailing address or find the agenda for the board meeting, we had rudimentary safety precautions around our login information – at least by today’s standards. Today, storing usernames and passwords in your AMS puts you – and your member – at risk. I’m sure your General Counsel has thoughts on the liability risks of a password solution that doesn’t live up to today’s standards. During the pandemic, the FBI reported a 300% increase in the number of cybercrimes, from about 1,000 cases to between 3,000 and 4,000 cases each day. Enter Commercial Identity Management. Whether you set your system to timeout after a session or not, knowing that you can confidently rely on the top security in this commercial solution gives you and your leadership peace of mind. It also gives your members not only peace of mind but the ease of use. No more remembering multiple passwords for their community and membership and content. No more struggling through forget your password steps No more disconnected experiences between platforms within your organization We support almost any Identity management system, but we use and recommend Microsoft Azure B2C for three reasons. It is ultra-reliable, Azure Active Directory has an SLA of 99.9%. Service reliability and availability is one of the top considerations for our customers in choosing an Identity and Access Management solution. With Azure AD being the largest enterprise cloud identity service, reliability and security of service is a top priority for Microsoft. It protects you and your members from dangerous hackers It is free till you hit 50000 authentications a month and after that, it’s incredibly affordable AzureB2C understands volume with a trillion security transactions a day. It facilitates identity verification and proofing by collecting user data, then passing it to third-party systems to perform validation, trust scoring, and approval for user account creation. It knows if Grandma’s computer is hacked, and it knows that George the member cannot be in San Francisco and a coffee shop in Lagos at the same hour. AzureB2C allows you to set up your SSO connection to your other systems such as a job board or community site in an hour or so. AzureB2C allows you to control the authentication, including letting your members use Facebook, LinkedIn, or their email to log in. AzureB2C knows if it is the member’s computer at their office or house and logs them in automatically. You decide how loose or tight you want the controls to be and how long you want to trust the member. AzureB2C has all the “Register” and “I forgot” login built-in. You are out of that business and now your staff can focus more on creative pursuits to push your mission forward, rather than the clerical issues of identity management. In this day and age, any Web or AMS project should include commercial identity management. It benefits us, it benefits you, and most importantly, it benefits your members.
