Persistent user accounts as member database?

[msmith]

I am going to use OCS to manage an association that has held annual conferences for over 30 years and will continue. To get us started, I intend to populate the user table with the XML import facility, bringing in our entire contact database from Excel. Some of these contacts will come to conferences but some will not. Some are only there because they like to receive mailings or we like to invite them to speak. Is this proper use of user accounts in OCS? May user accounts function as contact accounts that persist, enabling people to submit articles, review, chair tracks, attend the conference or none of these in the future as they see fit?

[jmacgreg]

Hi msmith,

Yes, that is the correct usage for user accounts. When you create the XML import file, you can also specify which roles the user is enrolled as -- eg. reader, presenter, etc. The Conference Director can use the Notify Users function to notify different groups of users via email, and the Conference Manager can also bulk-email selections from a particular role or all enrolled users (even by role) at once. If you have any specific questions on how to do this, please ask. I'd also be interested to hear how moving 30 years of conferences to OCS goes -- that sounds like a very ambitious project!

Cheers,
James

[msmith]

Thanks, James. I will keep you posted and probably send more queries your way.

--Mike