Membership applications

The form families fill out when they apply through your join link is set up under Admin › Applications, on the Application form tab. You don’t have to build anything before you share the link. The standard questions are there from the start, and whatever you add appears alongside them. The Preview form button at the top of the tab opens the form the way an applicant sees it, so you can check a change right after saving it.

What every application already asks

These questions are always on the form:

• The applying parent’s name, email and phone, and whether they want text messages
• A second parent or guardian’s name, email and phone, and whether they want text messages (optional)
• Each child’s name

These are on the form too, unless you turn them off:

• A home address (optional, and families can add it later)
• Each child’s grade, birthdate, allergies and dietary restrictions, plus an optional personal email and phone
• How they heard about you, and a note to the coordinator

Turning built-in questions off or on

The box at the top of the Application form tab lists the built-in questions with a checkbox next to each one you can change. Untick a question your co-op doesn’t need and it’s left off the join form. It also disappears from each family’s Profile page and from the forms they use to add or edit a child, so families aren’t asked for it there either. Answers families already gave stay on file, and ticking the box again brings them back.

One question starts unticked: Birthday (month and day) for each parent. Tick it to ask each parent for their birthday on the form.

The names, emails, phones and text-message questions can’t be turned off. Account invitations need a name and email, and your co-op’s texting registration points to the phone and text-message questions on this form.

Because that list sits above your own questions, you don’t end up adding a question for something the form already collects. If you let applicants pick a reduced rate themselves, the form also shows a Program option choice; see reduced rates for a family.

What you can add

• Your own questions: short or long text, a dropdown, radio buttons, a multi-select list, or a number. Any of them can be required, carry a formatted explanation, or be asked once per child.
• For questions asked once per family, a choice about whether the answers show up in your Families directory.
• Waivers, typed into the editor or uploaded as a PDF. Each one is signed with a typed name or answered with a plain Yes or No.
• The order: your questions first, or the waivers first.

Question types

When you add a question, pick its Type: Text for a short answer, Text Area for a longer one, Dropdown or Radio Buttons when the applicant picks exactly one option, Multi-select when they can check any number (useful for something like “which age groups are you interested in?”), or Number. A question created as a single Checkbox before that type was retired still works, but new questions use Radio Buttons or Multi-select instead.

Every question also takes an optional Explanation. It sits between the question and the answer box, and it’s written in the same editor as a waiver, so it can carry headings, bold text, a link, or a short list. Use it when the question needs something explained before anyone can answer it honestly: what your co-op counts as a completed background check, say, or what a training requirement actually involves. The question’s label is a single unformatted line and gets hard to read past a sentence or two. Once a family is approved, you can record each adult’s background check as a certification, which tracks renewal dates.

On a Multi-select question marked required, a Minimum a family must choose box appears. Required on its own means “tick at least one of these”. Set the minimum to 2 and families see Choose at least 2 above the options and can’t submit with fewer. That covers a question that has to collect two separate confirmations from one list, where “at least one” would let somebody answer half of it and move on. Leave the box blank and a required question needs one answer.

Check Ask once per child when a question needs a separate answer for each student (an allergy detail, a grade-specific question). Leave it unchecked for anything that applies to the whole household: the applicant answers it once, not once per child listed on the form.

A per-child question can also go on your class rosters, which suits anything a teacher needs in the room, like a media release or pickup permission. Check Show on class rosters and give it a short label. Teachers, class assistants and admins then see each child’s answer on the class roster and in the roster download, including answers families already gave. A child with no answer shows “not answered”. Families see a note under the question saying teachers will see it. To make families answer before they enroll, also check Required. A family who already confirmed their information for the term isn’t asked again until the next term.

Family-level answers (the ones asked once, not per child) aren’t locked to the original join form. A family can update theirs anytime from the Family Information card on My Profile, and you can edit them yourself from a family’s record on the Families page (open the family, click Edit family). Either way, the change applies going forward; it doesn’t rewrite what the family originally submitted with their application.

Showing an answer in the Families directory

A question like “which curriculum do you use?” or “where do you attend church?” is often the sort of thing members would like to be able to look up about each other. Each family-level question has a Directory block in its editor that decides whether its answers show up there. Every question starts at Hidden, so nothing is published until you choose to publish it, one question at a time.

The four choices:

• Hidden: not shown in the directory at all. This is the default.
• Admins only: you and your other admins see the answer on a family’s record. Ordinary members never do.
• Family details: any member who opens that family in the directory sees the answer.
• Details + card: the answer also appears as a line on the family’s card in the list, so it’s visible without opening anything. Cards are tight, so this one asks for a short label to use instead of the full question (“Curriculum” rather than “Which curriculum does your family use?”), and you can put at most two questions on the card.

Two extra checkboxes appear once a question is shown. Filterable turns the answers into a filter in the directory, so a member can narrow the list to everyone who picked a particular option. It’s only offered for questions with a fixed set of choices (a dropdown, radio buttons or checkboxes), because a free-text answer is usually unique to one family and would make a filter of one. Searchable includes the answers in the directory’s search box.

Per-child questions can’t be published this way. The directory lists households rather than individual children, so the Directory block is replaced with a short explanation when Ask once per child is checked.

Waivers

Each waiver can be typed directly into the editor, or you can upload a PDF (up to 50 MB) instead if your co-op already has a formatted liability waiver or code of conduct on file. Choose how a family responds too: Ask for a typed signature (they type their full legal name and check a box confirming they’ve read it; a file-based waiver shows an inline preview to read first) or Simple Yes/No agreement, a plain Yes-or-No answer with no typed name. A good fit for something like a photo release, where you just need the decision on record, including an explicit “No.”

Families have to open a waiver before they can sign it. The name box, checkbox, and Yes/No answer stay locked until they tap Read full text or View document. That shows the waiver was opened. It can’t show it was read, which is what the family’s own “I have read and agree” checkbox is for.

Editing a waiver’s wording only affects people who sign after the change; everyone who already signed keeps a record of the exact wording or document they agreed to. If you need everyone (including people who already signed) to sign again (say, a materially different liability waiver), that’s a separate, deliberate step: open the waiver’s row actions and choose Require re-sign. It’s independent of editing the text, so a typo fix never accidentally forces a re-sign. Everyone who already signed is asked again the next time they go through a term-start review.

If your co-op would rather every waiver be signed fresh each term regardless of whether the wording changed, check Re-sign every waiver each term above the waiver list. It’s off by default. A text edit or an individual Require re-sign already covers most co-ops’ needs without asking families to re-sign things that haven’t changed.

By default, custom fields appear before waivers on the form. If you’d rather applicants read and sign waivers first, each section on the Application form tab has a Move above link that swaps the order for everyone.

Setting up the questions and waivers on the form is covered in Building your application form, above. This section is about what happens once applications start arriving.

Go to Admin › Applications to review incoming requests. Each applicant’s answers, waivers, and student information are all on the same page. Click any row to open them.

Approving creates their account and sends them an invitation email right away. If the term you’re currently working in charges an enrollment fee, the charge is added to their account at that point and they’re prompted to pay it. If that fee is set to required, they can sign in immediately, but they’re blocked from enrolling in classes, RSVPing to events, or signing up for volunteer shifts until it’s paid. The fee belongs to the term, not the co-op as a whole; see Join fees below.

Join fees

The enrollment (join) fee belongs to a term, not your co-op as a whole, so each term can charge its own amount. Set it on Admin › Terms & Schedule: open the term, click Edit term, and fill in the Enrollment fee amount and collection mode. Four modes: no fee, Stripe required before a family can use the co-op, Stripe optional (a charge is added but they can pay anytime. Enrolling in classes, events, or volunteer shifts is still blocked until it’s paid), or handled outside the system (you record payment manually and nothing is blocked automatically).

A family can be charged at two different moments: once when their application is approved (if a term is active at the time and it has a fee configured), and again at the start of any later term that also has a fee configured, as part of that term’s review step. See opening a term to families. A returning family with an unpaid required fee is walked straight to checkout right after confirming their information, before they can reach the class catalog.

If your co-op has more than one pricing rate, say a reduced rate for families on assistance, the Edit term dialog also shows Amount by rate under the fee. Give a rate its own amount and families on it are charged that instead of the flat fee. Leave a rate blank and it falls back to the flat fee. Enter 0 and families on that rate are not charged a join fee at all. Your default rate is not listed, because that is what the flat fee above already sets. The whole section stays hidden until you have created a second rate, and a term with no amounts filled in charges exactly what it charged before. Setting those rates up is covered in reduced rates for a family.

To charge the fee for each child instead of each family, check Charge the fee per student. A family with two students then owes twice the amount, as a single charge that shows the count (for example, “2 students × $125.00”). The count is every student on the family’s record at the moment the fee is added: at approval, or when they confirm their information for a new term. A student added after that isn’t included automatically, so add a charge for them in Billing. A family with no students on record isn’t charged. It works with rates too: a family on a rate pays that rate’s amount per student. The box is off by default, and a term with it off charges once per family as before.

If your fee is annual or one-time, check Only new families pay this fee on the terms where returning families shouldn’t pay it again. Families approved for that term still owe the fee. Families returning from an earlier term aren’t charged when they confirm their information, and that includes a family who skipped a term or two. If one of them should pay, add a charge for them in Billing. A fee already on a family’s account stays there until you cancel it in Billing. The box is off by default.

The Edit term dialog also has two exemption checkboxes, both off by default. Checking Teacher families are exempt from the join fee waives that term’s fee for any family with a member who holds the Teacher role at your co-op, whether or not they’re teaching a class that specific term. Checking Admin families are exempt from the join fee does the same for any family with an owner or admin. The two are independent, so turn on either one, both, or neither, depending on who you want to waive the fee for.

These checkboxes are the only way staff skip the fee. A teacher or admin with no children still gets a payment record when their application is approved. A one-adult household that carries their join fee (none on a per-student term, since they have no students) and can receive credits from Admin › Billing, shown with a Staff badge on your Families page (members don’t see it in the directory). A teacher whose spouse already holds the family account isn’t billed twice: their application lands on the household that’s already on file, and the household gets one join fee per term (multiplied by its students if the term charges per student). For staff who joined before you added waivers or a fee: if they’ve never applied, use Require membership application on the Members page; if they already have an application on file (or you’d rather not send them a form), use Add as a household there instead. Either way they’re asked to sign any required waivers at next sign-in, and the fee applies unless your term exempts staff.

Admin › Applications › Application form still has its own Join fee card, but it does a narrower job now: it just sets the default amount and mode that pre-fills a brand-new term when you create one. Edit a specific term’s fee from Admin › Terms & Schedule if you need that one term to charge something different. Changing a term’s fee only applies going forward. Families already charged for that term keep the amount that was in effect when they were charged.