Setting up a new Cameo installation : Cameo: membership organiser

This article summarises what you need to set up to get started with a new Cameo installation. Key points are highlighted: use these as a checklist.

Domains for Cameo

We’ll install Cameo for using sub-domains of your own domain name. For example, if your domain is example.com then we would usually put Cameo at cameo.example.com. This is called DNS (domain name system). You control DNS for your domain from a control panel provided by your domain registrar (the company you pay for your domain name).

If you have registered your domain with Mythic Beasts, setting up the domains is largely automatic. We just need an API key. Obtain this from API Keys in your Mythic Beast’s dashboard. It requires permission to make changes to DNS under Primary DNS API v2 and to control proxies under IPv4 to IPv6 Proxy API, both just for that one domain.

Otherwise, we will provide a spreadsheet of ten or so additions you need to make to your DNS manually. If you are not confident about doing this, provide access and we will do this for you.

domain format

You can choose which style of sub-domain you want to use (we’ll use secondary unless you have a strong preference otherwise):

primary: cameo.example.com, forms.example.com, checkin.example.com, signup.example.com
secondary: cameo.example.com, forms.cameo.example.com etc
dashed: cameo.example.com, cameo-forms.example.com etc
prefix: our-cameo.example.com, our-forms.example.com etc

You can have any word instead of cameo, for example membership.example.com (but we’ll use cameo as default unless you ask otherwise).

DNS additions

Ignore this if we’re doing it for you. If you need to do this yourself, note:

values of CNAME and MX DNS entries end with a dot (e.g. “example.com.“). Some providers add this for you and won’t let you enter it manually. That’s fine. But include it if they let you.
TTL (time to live) says how long an entry can be stored locally before checking whether it has changed. Some providers don’t let you change this, in which case you just get what they give you. Providers that do that often set the number very high, which means it can take many hours for changes to take effect.

email

Cameo will be set up to send email for you.

However:

We usually leave this turned off initially to avoid mass mailing mistakes when setting up, so make email live in admin → system preferences once you’re ready. We recommend not doing this until you have set up the templates and forms you need (see below).
Sending bulk email has requirements beyond domestic email. These are handled for you, partly through the DNS settings as above. But you may also now need to adjust settings to lock down other email sent through your domain, in particular the DMARC setting, and to more tightly control where email in your domain not sent by Cameo is sent from and who by. Please ask about this.
If you reply to membership queries through a separate email account (Google Workspace, for example), consider BCC the email to Cameo (see profile → incoming email), so you have a central record of all your correspondence attached to people’s membership records. This makes it easier to keep a history, and also much easier to fulfil subject access requests, which you must do on demand by law.

Admin set up

Once you are able to log in to Cameo, a user with Admin permission needs to set up various administrative things in the admin sections (dark pink).

system preferences

Review the list of system preferences in admin → system preferences. These control things like what features are available, your default location, your workflow, whether to make two-factor authentication mandatory, and so on. Normally you would set these once at the start. However, you would quite likely leave email turned off while you get templates ready, and make these live when complete.

cameo users

Add anyone else to Cameo who needs access, in admin → cameo users. Send them an invitation to get a password.

New users will probably want to receive notifications by email, so you get to know, for example, when someone joins. Control notifications from your profile. Many notifications are aggregated so you aren’t deluged by email, but you can opt in or out of particular kinds of notification as you get used to them. All notifications are stored and shown in library → notifications.

custom fields

If you have information about members or contacts that Cameo doesn’t support out of the box, you can add extra fields to membership records here. For example, date of birth.

However, this should be quite rare. Consider:

Avoid tick boxes. Often this arises for things like “member of whatever subcommittee” or “volunteer photographer”. Instead, put these people into manual lists for the purpose. If you add a tick box, you’ll almost always end up creating a corresponding list anyway in order to communicate with them. You won’t lose anything by not having a tick box: membership of such lists is shown
Think about implications for data protection, in particular for sensitive information and the legal requirement to store and process only what is actually needed.
Where you need quite a lot of extra information about only a few people, perhaps do this instead by questionnaire responses. These let you collect arbitrary information linked to a membership record. This avoids overwhelming everyone’s membership records with fields only needed occasionally. It also means you can ask the relevant people to supply it using a form set up for the purpose.

backups

Turn on backups! Add at least Cameo backup server as a destination if we haven’t already done this for you. Once any backup destination is available we’ll store a copy locally on the Cameo server, and at that destination.

However, you should ideally also keep backups in a third location for your own security. Cameo supports many free cloud storage providers (though you may find you already have a suitable place to store the files on your web server).

Backups are encrypted. Keep safe a copy of the decryption key available from the Backup destinations sub-section, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to decrypt the backups if that were ever necessary.

Organisation set up

Once you can log in to Cameo, a user with Admin permission needs to set up organisation details. In short, work through all the sections of the purple menus, organisation settings.

Where you need to supply credentials to link to third-party services, click set/show credentials. This then explains what’s needed and how to get them.

organisation details

Often your logo will already be included
Images in your emails will usually come from your website. If this is WordPress, choose that method and provide its URL. Some WordPress sites require credentials to access the media library via its API. Add credentials anyway if you want to be able to upload pictures direct from Cameo to your media library (recommended).
Click the help icon for explanations of some of the more obscure settings.
If you are importing an existing set of membership (including contact) records, you’ll need to set Next available membership number at least one more than the largest already in use in your old system.
The subsections following let you add information that you can insert into templates and elsewhere, so that when something changes (for example you have a new membership secretary), you can change the details in one place, rather than in every template etc.
Add information for the following as required:
- add any additional organisation information
- at least add one organisation rôle.
- any social media accounts you operate.

membership types

Define your membership types (for paying members). Usually, you’ll just need to set the first three lines to start with.

However, when you have them all, come back to each and pay attention to on renew, also offer… . This lets you suggest alternative membership types people could choose when they come to renew (for example, offer a higher value upgrade but not a lower value downgrade).

If you have frequent payments (for example a monthly subscription) you may want to limit these to automated payment methods.

contact types

Likewise, define any contact types you need, for non-paying supporters, stakeholders, customers and political representatives.

Avoid making these too specific. It is better to group people into lists, except where the contact type is their defining characteristic.

politics and government

(Not in all Cameo installations)

Include political areas of interest to you locally. For example, the local councils and any parliamentary constituencies covering your area. This means we import boundaries for these and can use that to group members by political area. If supported, we may also be able to import your local councillors as contacts automatically.

delivery rounds

If you plan to hand deliver materials in your area, such as a paper newsletter, define the area for each delivery round. Once you have members and contacts, you’ll be able to assign who delivers each round.

bank accounts

Add all bank accounts that relate to membership and donations (and ticketing or accounting if you plan to use these features). Include things that behave like bank accounts, even though you may initially only be thinking about the clearing banks. Essentially, anywhere you may receive membership and donation income. These are needed to confirm payments have been received and what they are for. In turn that lets you operate renewals, Gift Aid claims and your more general accounting for membership income.

If you plan to allow BACS Faster Payments or Standing Orders, make sure you include the sort code, account number and confirmation of payee name for the relevant account, so forms can tell people where to send the money.

This section deals only with income, and in particular income transactions made through your third-party account providers. Taking payments is managed separately, in payment methods (see below). There is much overlap, but not completely. For example, you may well have one Stripe account, but use this to receive income via two separate payment methods, card and Apple Pay. Conversely, you may obtain transaction feeds through a third-party which does not itself take payments.

Transactions for many of these can be imported automatically with a feed:

Payment services like Stripe can be connected directly
Clearing banks can be accessed through open banking via either Bank Account Data (a free service from GoCardless) or via Xero (an accounts package, which is only useful if you already use it for your accounts, as it is quite expensive).

See this article about payment processors Cameo supports. Choose the appropriate provider for each to import transactions. Set credentials to access each.

book-keeping chart of accounts

You can largely ignore this section unless you plan to use Cameo to run your organisation’s accounts, at least initially.

However, you can use it to keep track of membership subscriptions and donations of various kinds for statistical purposes and reports, even if you don’t run your full accounting here.

payment methods

Define the payment methods you want to offer in forms that take payments. You can say which of these each form actually offers when you make the form.

You’ll want to open accounts with the providers Cameo supports that you wish to use to take payments with. Set credentials for those accounts when you define the payment method, which authorises Cameo to use the service to take payments on your behalf.

Make sure you link each to a bank account where the payments are received. For third-party providers like Stripe, this is a Stripe account, not the current account they make pay-outs to. Note that Stripe also handles Apple Pay and Google Pay for you (same credentials).

Import members and contacts

If you aren’t starting from scratch, you’ll want to import your existing memberships. Do this in new members → import members. See the detailed instructions for importing members from a spreadsheet.

If you want to put people into lists where you currently have a tick box (see custom fields above), create the lists first, in communications → lists. These will be manual lists.

Templates

You’ll need to set up templates at least for:

all the administrative processes you run. This is known as servicing tasks.
any forms that should send an acknowledgement or a request to verify an email address: services forms

Later on, but not immediately, you’ll also need templates for:

any event ticket handling or trading document delivery (services event and services trading)
mailshots you want to send, via a list. Consider using Cameo’s News Builder for this.

servicing tasks

Many procedures in Cameo generate emails or letters as a side-effect of that procedure. For example, when you enrol a new member, you’ll produce a welcome email or letter, and maybe also a covering letter if you send email and also a new members’ pack, for example.

Such emails are not sent automatically. They are merged into communications → pending emails from where you can check and send them all in one go.

While you can do this from scratch by making a new template and then indicating which task it should service, it is easiest to request a template in each section that it is relevant to. All the relevant places show you which template services the task, and if there isn’t one, offer to make a proforma one for you. That will put at least some basic content in the template for you. Then, customise it in communications → templates. (In some cases, these buttons add stationery and multiple templates, for complex tasks, like sending out tickets or invoices).

For example, in new members → enrol new members, you can make templates to cover both the above, including, for the acknowledgement, a pair of templates for email and a fall-back letter for those who don’t have email.

Here is a list of tasks you may want to service and the corresponding sections where you can create proforma templates. You’ll need most of these down to overdue automated payment to get started; add the rest as you need them.

new member	new members → enrol new members	on enrolment
new member covering	new members → enrol new members	additionally on enrolment, usually a letter
welcome contact	new members → welcome contacts	the equivalent of new member for contacts
reminder first	*renewals → renewal reminders*	first reminder of renewal due for people who renew manually each time
reminder second	*renewals → renewal reminders*	depending how many reminders you ask for in *organisation details*
reminder third	*renewals → renewal reminders*	depending how many reminders you ask for in *organisation details*
reminder fourth	*renewals → renewal reminders*	depending how many reminders you ask for in *organisation details*
reminder automated	*renewals → renewal reminders*	for people who renew by automated payment methods, to tell them payment will be made shortly
renewal thank you	*renewals →incoming renewals*	when you process a renewal (either from the renewal form or when you add one manually)
renewal thank you automated	*accounting tasks → reconciliation*	only for installations where automated renewals are processed post-hoc (as a side effect of reconciling their payment; most installations would send in advance of renewal using reminder automated above). This is an installation setting, not accessible from the UI.
overdue automated payment	*accounting tasks → overdue automated payments*	to people whose automated payment has not arrived, after an appropriate period

replacement card	*member tasks → membership status, cards and qrcodes*	when you want to send someone a replacement membership card or similar
bounce apology email	communications → sent email	if an email bounces, particularly if it says it is spam, you can try a simpler email giving them the option to read it online, and maybe suggest they contact their provider to find out why (or allow-list sender or whatever)
bounced email letter	communications → sent email	if a mail bounces because say the account is closed, your only real option is to send them a letter to prompt them to give you their new one. Cameo can manage this process for you.
cyclescape acknowledgement	membership record and *member tasks → membership status, cards and qrcodes*	Just the basics for a one-off message to selected members. It merges, but then edit in your one-off content in *pending emails*.
oneoff message	*member tasks → send canned message*	Just the basics for a one-off message to selected members. It merges but then edit in your one-off content in *pending emails*.
reply	*library → notifications*	When a notification is related to a membership record, you can prepare an email in reply.`
printed ticket	*events & bookings → reservations, bookings and attendance*	When you need to prepare printed tickets for those not sent by email.
attendance	*events & bookings → reservations, bookings and attendance*	to attendees at nominated events
dispatch note	*trading → online sales*	prepares a dispatch note in response to saying goods are ready for dispatch

servicing forms

These emails are sent in response to someone filling in a form (see Forms below). These emails are sent automatically, not held as pending, the only emails that Cameo ever sends without you asking.

Most form emails are either

confirming the result, for example acknowledging a payment or receipt of an application to join
verifying email address: to be sure they are who they say they are.

Create these templates as you create forms. In the form editor at forms → manage forms, each step where an email can be sent is indicated by an email button. Use that button to turn on or off sending such emails, and, when on, to create a template to service the action. As for servicing tasks, this creates a proforma which you then customise.

Forms

Add forms in forms → manage forms.

Your website must run under https to embed Cameo’s forms, not http. These days, this is pretty much standard.
Instructions underneath each form say how to embed it in your website.
If you’re using WordPress, install one of the WordPress plugins to make this easier. These are for older or newer versions of WordPress. Download the plugin from forms → wordpress plugins.
If you have entered your website URL in organisation details this normally just works. However, if your website is fronted by a proxy server, you’ll need to add the actual IP address or domain of your server in forms → server configuration to give permission.
You might want to set general styling for forms in forms → colour scheme and style. But get the default working first. Forms take on your website’s style, which is mostly good but sometimes that interferes too much. You can also adjust style using stylesheets on your website: forms are liberally sprinkled with classes to enable this. Conversely, Cameo doesn’t know things like which font your website uses, so you can tell it here so they look more similar when shown inside Cameo.

Cameo provides many different kinds of form. You won’t need all of them initially. Here are those you’ll probably need to get started:

optout: all bulk mailshots (not the transactional mails like renewal reminders) must by law have an opt-out link in them, usually in the footer. This should lead them to Cameo’s opt-out form embedded in your website. The link must be personalised. See below.
join: for applications for membership
renew: to let people renew their membership (manual payment methods only). Personalised links in renewal reminder emails strongly recommended, so the form knows who they are.
updates: self-service form to update their details. Ideally include a personalised link to this in the footer of all your emails.
email: let email recipients view the email in their web browser (via a personalised link) rather than their email app.

Consider also:

contactus: a “contact us” form on your website that posts as a notification
giftaid: a stand-along gift aid declaration, if you are a charity that can offer this. Most other forms that take payments can also optionally include a gift-aid declaration
contact: for people to sign up as non-paying contacts

opt-out

If you are planning to send out mailshots, you’ll need to set up a page on your main website to allow opt-outs. It is a legal requirement under GDPR that all mailshots have an opt-out link or similar in the email.

To do this:

decide where the page will be on your website
add the URL of that page to organisation details section in Cameo, with _H_ where a unique identifier will be automatically substituted when mail is sent. For example:
https://www.mysite.org/optout/?msg=H
Create the opt-out form in forms → manage forms.
Use the instructions underneath your new form to embed it in the page you chose.
Use the substitution {show: optout link} in your email footer. This will be replaced by the mail merge in each message with a link to the URL you provided with a unique identifier in place of the _H_.

Because the form only works with a personalised link, and that comes from an email, you need to have at least prepared one email to someone on a public list before you can manage the form. You don’t have to send the email, but you will need to have a public list to opt-out from and a template with that list as its audience before the form will work.

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