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System Updates

Update 1193 5 June 2025

Donations | Membership Types | Address Lookup DONATIONS Donations can now be collected via HOPS Retail Systems. This uses and early iteration of the upcoming 'shop' system. A donation is managed as a 'product'. Products can be created for '£10 donation', '£20 donation' etc, and/or with no given price so that the donor can enter their own price. Products are added and edited in Retail Systems > Shop System > Stock Items List. When creating/editing products that are donations, be sure to select NOT 'stock manged'. This ensures there is no limit on the number of donations that can be sold, and that sold ones don't appear on the stock value list. Allocate the donations products to folders in the normal way. A product can be in more than one folder, so it will, in future, be possible to achieve: A person who is likely to buy an OO gauge model of a particular loco might also be inclined to make a donation to the restoration fund for that engine, so the donation product could ALSO live in the 'OO gauge models' folder; Conversely, a person who is likely to make a donation to the restoration of that engine might also be interested in buying a badge with the engine on, so the badge product could ALSO be in the donations folder. Where donations are allowed for different specific projects, these can be created as specific products, eg '£10 donation to engine fund', '£10 donation to track fund'. If desired, to assist giving information to customers, they can be places in different sub folders of the overall 'donations' folder. Details of the 'product'/donation can be added to the product details and/or the folder details. This might include suggestions for what a donation is spent on, eg 'Your donation of £10 could buy the railway one sleeper' or 'Your donation of £10m could completely relay all the track on the entire line!'. A 'slug' field is available for giving products 'pretty' urls. If left blank a slug will be created from the product name. Links can be shared to individual folders and/or individual donation products as required. Eg x.hops.org.uk/shop/models/oo/black-fives DONATIONS CARD ON HOME PAGE A card on the Home page of the sales system (alongside events, travel, vouchers, etc) can be implemented via settings in Retail Systems > Donations tab. The colour, text, and image on the card can be set here. (As always, avoid using an image with text on as it is cropped in different aspect ratios in different parts of the system.) Also in these settings, the location of the 'donations' folder can be set. This is the folder that the user will be directed to when they click on the Donations card (or visit x.hops.org.uk/donations ) The card always points to the URL x.hops.org.uk/donations, even if the target folder is changed. Upon visiting the url the user will be directed to the 'Donations' folder specified. The target folder can be set in Retail Systems > Donations tab. The /donations link works even if the card is not enabled on the Home page. GIFT AID To collect a Gift Aid declaration on donation items the following three actions are required: * The railway is set to 'Store Gift Aid' in System > HOPS Config * The Retail System is set to offer Gift Aid declarations in Retail Systems > General Settings tab, 'Offer Gift Aid' setting. * The donation products have a 'Gift Aid Proportion' of greater than 0%. For donations, in most cases, this will be 100%. NOTE The Gift Aid Proportion is the PROPORTION of the overall price that can be Gift Aided, not the amount of Gift Aid or the rate of Gift Aid. Eg for a donation it will be 100%. OTHER NOTES The Shop Interface must be enabled for the railway. Please request this via HOPS. ====================================== MEMBERSHIP SYSTEM The Membership Type editing page has been replaced with a newly-written one, resolving several long-standing niggles. This also now has increased functionality for different membership expiry methods: The 'expires at the same month each year' (Method B) now has a 'years' option, for multi-year membership. The 'months' option now only applies to the 'expires after X months' expiry method (Method A). We hope this helps model the surprisingly-complicated issue of establishing expiry dates! ====================================== POSTCODE / ADDRESS LOOKUP The new postcode / address lookup feature in HOPS is currently half-way through its trial period. It is available to all organisations for a trial period until the end of June 2025. Please opt-in now if you wish to keep access to it after then! This is available: - when adding or editing a user's address (themselves or a manager entering details of another user) - when adding/editing emergency contacts - for public customers making online ticket purchases - for public customers making online shares sales - for public customers making online membership sales - for public customers making online shop sales This aims to: * speed up the entry of user data * reduce the effort required by customers complete their checkout for purchases * reduce the propensity for errors / missing address components Addresses can still be added 'manually' for occasions where the required address isn't in the Royal Mail list. There is a cost to HOPS in providing this service, so the lookup feature will be an optional add-on for railways for which a small fee will be charged (£5 per month). The railways with which we have developed this feature believe that the time, staff effort, and wasted postage, saved will deliver an overall saving to their railways. The system is currently switched on for all railways for a trial period (without charge) until the end of June. Railways may OPT IN at any time to subscribe to the service to continue after then if they wish. (If no action is taken, the feature will disappear at the end of the trial, and no fee charged). If you wish to OPT-IN to keep access to the Address Lookup service after the end of June please do so now by raising a support ticket or emailing alan.johnson@hops.org.uk We hope this new feature is useful - Thank you to everyone who has worked with us to develop it.