Invite-only and apply-to-join tiers

Not every tier should be open to anyone with a card. A mentoring circle, a crew pass, a room you want to keep small: those are worth deciding person by person. Who can join on any tier gives you two ways to do that, and TribeNest handles the awkward parts (holding the seat, holding the card, chasing the invite) for you.

The three ways in

Open the tier form, or the tier card menu and Edit, and look for Who can join:

• Open is the default. Anyone who finds the tier can join straight away.
• Invite only hides the tier from your site. Only people you invite by email can see it and join, using the link in their invite.
• Apply to join lets people apply. On a paid tier their card is saved but not charged. You approve or decline each one, and approving starts the membership and the first charge.

You can also flip the setting from inside the invites drawer, which is handy when you are already there sending the first batch. Any tier that is not open carries a badge on its card so you can see the difference at a glance.

Invite-only tiers

Sending invites

1. Go to Membership then Membership Tiers.
2. On the tier card, open the menu and click Invites.
3. Check Who can join at the top of the drawer, and set it to Invite only if it is not already.
4. Under Send invites, paste the Email addresses. One per line, or separated by commas, whichever is easier. The drawer counts them as you type and tells you if it skipped a duplicate or cannot read one of them. Up to 100 at a time.
5. Add a Note if you want. It goes into the invite email, so use it to say why you are inviting them.
6. Set Expires after (days). It starts at 14 and can be anything from 1 to 60.
7. Click Send invites.

TribeNest emails each invite for you, and the Results list tells you what happened to every address: Sent, Sent again with a new link for somebody who already had one, Already a member, or Not sent: tier is full.

Managing invites already sent

Under Sent invites, four tabs sort everything you have sent for this tier:

• Live are the ones still usable, with the date they expire. These are the ones holding a seat.
• Accepted are the people who used theirs, with the date they joined.
• Revoked are the ones you pulled back.
• Expired are the ones nobody used in time.

Each row shows the email, who sent it and when. Resend is offered on live and expired invites, and gives that person a brand new link (the previous one stops working). Revoke is offered on live invites only: the link stops working and its seat is freed straight away.

You do not have to chase anyone: TribeNest emails an invitee a reminder two days before their invite runs out.

What the invited fan sees

An invite-only tier does not appear on your site at all. Somebody browsing your memberships will not see it, and cannot guess their way in.

Clicking the link in their email opens the tier with You're invited to join, and the page says which address the invite is for. From there they answer any questions you ask, pay if the tier is paid, and they are in.

Three things keep an invite yours to give:

• It works for one email address. Signed in as somebody else, they are told to sign in with the invited address instead.
• It works once. After it is accepted it is finished.
• If it has expired, been revoked, been used, or been replaced by a newer one, they see "This invite is no longer valid" and are told to ask you for a new one.

Apply-to-join tiers

What the fan does

On an apply-to-join tier, the join button reads Apply to join. The fan answers your questions, and on a paid tier they enter a card at that point. Nothing is charged: the page says so plainly, and names the amount you would charge if you approve them.

They then see Application received, with a reminder that nothing has been charged and that you will email them once you have reviewed it. On a free tier there is no card step at all.

Their own account area keeps a Your applications list, so they can see where each one stands and Withdraw one they have changed their mind about.

Reviewing applications

1. Go to Membership then Members.
2. Click the Applications tab. The tab carries the number of applications waiting on you, so you can see the work from the other tabs.

Three cards sit across the top: Pending applications, Seats reserved, and Approved, awaiting payment. Under them, filters split everything by where it stands: Pending, Approved, Joined, Declined, Expired, and Withdrawn.

If you arrived by clicking the pending count on a tier card, you land already filtered to that tier, and Show all tiers clears it.

Every application card shows you:

• The applicant's name and email, with View contact through to their contact record.
• The tier, and what approving would charge: an amount per month or per year, or Free.
• A line about the free trial, when the tier offers one, naming the date of the first charge.
• The card they saved, where there is one.
• How many seats are left on a capped tier.
• Their answers to your tier questions.

Approving and declining

Approve opens a confirmation that spells out exactly what the click does: who joins, what is charged now, and how often after that. On a free tier it says there is no charge. On a tier with a free trial it says nothing is charged today and gives the date of the first charge. Their answers are in the dialog too, so you can read them while you decide.

To work through a batch, tick Select all on this page (or the box on individual cards) and click Approve selected. The confirmation tells you how many join, how many are charged today, and how many start on a free trial.

Decline opens its own confirmation: the applicant does not join, their saved card is removed, and their seat is freed. You can add a Note, which is included in the email they receive, and untick Email the applicant if you would rather they were not told.

When the card does not go through

Approving charges the card the applicant saved, and sometimes it fails. When it does, the application sits under Approved with a Payment failed badge and a deadline. The applicant is emailed a link to finish paying, and they get seven days to do it, without being asked your questions again.

If that week runs out, the application moves to Expired and its seat is released.

Seats, and why nobody gets bumped

On a tier with a Member Limit, TribeNest holds a seat for anything that could still turn into a member:

• every live invite, and
• every undecided application, pending or approved.

That is what Seats reserved counts, and what the seat line in the invites drawer means by "reserved". It is the reason approving somebody can never overfill a tier, and the reason an invite can come back as Not sent: tier is full.

Seats come back on their own. An expired or revoked invite frees its own, so does a declined, withdrawn or expired application, and joining through an invite never counts twice.

Where to go next

• Set up the tier itself, its trial and its questions: membership tiers.
• See who joined, and read their answers: members.
• Make a tier a requirement for buying something: members-only access.