Your association creates its own membership application form, including the pages and questions you see. This article covers the membership choices on the form, such as your membership type, package, chapters, sections, and add-ons, plus review and checkout. For general help with portal forms, including pages, required questions, error messages, and what Submit does, see Fill In a Portal Form.
Prerequisites
- You have started an application through one of your association's paths, such as joining, renewing, reinstating, or changing your affiliation. That earlier page lists the application paths your association offers, not membership types. After you choose a path, and complete a short contact form if your association asks for one, you choose your membership type and package.
- You must be signed in to complete a new-member application. Signing in lets Rhythm connect your submission, membership, and contact or organization records to your account, so you can find and manage your membership later. If you are already signed in and applying for membership, you already have a Portal profile and a matching contact record your association can see.
- If your form offers Save & Return Later, you can stop and finish another time; see Save a Form and Finish It Later. Some membership applications do not offer this option, including membership sign-up embedded in another form's checkout. That embedded sign-up may also skip the full application workflow, so some questions you would otherwise see or need to answer may not appear or be enforced. If you get a submission error and are not sure why, use Save & Return Later if it is offered. A saved draft gives your association something to review with you.
- If your account has an unresolved pending order or open invoice, Rhythm may block a new application until that is cleared up. Contact your association if you cannot submit.
Tip
If your form asks you to upload a photo or file, keep it under 10 MB. An oversized image may not display after you submit, and a large upload can make submission take longer than expected. If you open your file browser and decide not to choose a file, close that window to stay on the application.
Choose Your Membership Type and Package
Every membership is sold as a package, and each package belongs to one membership type. This is usually the first major choice on the form because it sets your price, term, and, for an organization, how many people the membership covers. Your association's form must include this choice, or another way to set the package, before Rhythm can price the application. Some associations use a different question, such as a combined chapter and dues-product choice, to set the package for you. You cannot join a chapter, or change which chapter you belong to, without a membership type and package because Rhythm does not support chapter affiliation for true non-members.
- Choose a membership type.
- Choose a package within that type. The page shows the package description and the price you will pay, which may be lower than the list price if your association has set a customer-specific rate for you.
Warning
The package you choose here is not always final. If your association's application path has a rule that assigns a package, such as a rule based on how you are applying, Rhythm prices your order using that rule. The form then updates to show the package the rule assigned instead of the one you picked. If you are reinstating, your association's process may let you rejoin at a different, or higher, membership level than the one you previously held instead of returning to your previous level.
Tip
If your form shows "Unable to determine the membership package," your association's application process needs attention. This is usually caused by order-generation rules that do not cover your situation, or by a form that is missing the package-selection part. Contact your association so they can adjust the process.
Tip
If package choices are slow to load, will not load, or the form shows an error while initializing, try signing out of any VPN before contacting your association. A VPN connection has been a factor in this kind of issue.
Choose Your Chapters
If your association is organized into chapters, you choose a primary chapter and, when allowed, any additional chapters.
- Choose your primary chapter from the choices offered for your package.
- If your association allows additional chapters, add or remove them within the limits your association has set.
Associations handle chapters in different ways. Some let you choose freely, some suggest chapters based on your address, and some assign a chapter automatically. At renewal, your association may not let you remove a chapter that was assigned to you or that charges dues.
Some associations ask one combined question for a chapter and one of its dues products instead of separate chapter and package questions. In that setup, you choose a chapter first, then choose one of its dues products if it offers more than one. That choice sets your membership package instead of asking you to choose a package separately, and the form only offers dues products connected to a package.
Warning
If your form allows you to skip the chapter step, completing your application without choosing a chapter means you are not charged chapter dues and are not added to any chapter.
Choose Your Sections
If your association offers sections, such as interest groups within the association, you choose them here, grouped by section type.
- Review the sections offered, grouped by type.
- Choose the sections you want to join, following any minimum or maximum your association sets overall or for a specific group of sections.
Tip
If you change your membership package after choosing sections, Rhythm automatically removes any section that is no longer allowed under your new package.
Choose Your Add-Ons
Add-ons are optional extras, such as a printed journal subscription or extra event credits, grouped by add-on type. Your association's form must include this add-on step before you can see and choose add-ons, even when those add-ons are configured and priced. A single add-on is an on-or-off choice. An add-on that allows more than one uses a quantity box where you can enter zero or more.
If you are renewing, the form starts with the add-ons you already have. If you change your membership type during the application, Rhythm checks whether those existing add-ons are still allowed for the new type. That means you may see an add-on-related error even if you did not choose a new add-on yourself. If an add-on you already have is not compatible with the new membership type or package, removing or unselecting it before you continue usually clears the error.
Warning
If you are changing your affiliation, an add-on already on your membership can carry into the new order and be charged again, even when this add-on step is not part of the form you are completing.
If You Are Applying for an Organization
When an organization applies, its package usually includes a set number of seats. Seats are the people who receive membership benefits through the organization's membership. If your organization's membership uses flowdown instead of named seat holders, benefits pass down to related individuals automatically, and this step may not appear at all. If you later look for the application under the organization and cannot find it, check your own Portal applications list. In some organization membership setups, the application record is attached to the individual who applied rather than to the organization.
An organization application only appears as an option if you have permission to act on behalf of that organization. If you do not see the organization path you expect, confirm your role at the organization allows it; see Act for Your Organization's Membership.
- Review the organization's contacts and switch on the people who should receive a seat.
- If someone who should receive a seat is not yet a contact, choose Add Someone Not Listed to add them.
- If your association allows it, give each seat holder their own chapters, sections, and add-ons.
Warning
Rhythm checks the number of seats you assign only on this page. If your organization can buy extra seats beyond the package's included number, assigning more than the included number adds a charge for the extra seats, and Rhythm notifies you of that charge as soon as you go over the included number. If buying extra seats is not allowed, this page still does not stop you from assigning more seats than the package includes. This page can only assign seats if your form includes it. Without it, no contacts are assigned during the application, and if your organization's package allows flowdown, flowdown decides who receives the membership instead, even if that reaches more people than the package's included-seat count.
Tip
If your organization needs to submit several separate memberships at once for different individuals, such as a batch of new employees joining on their own, use an application group instead of one organization application. See the Related articles for starting and checking out an application group.
If your organization's membership sets a maximum number of contacts, adding more people than that maximum during the application notifies you that the extra people will add a charge, so you are not surprised by the total at checkout.
Review Your Choices
If your association's form includes a review step, it is usually the last page before checkout. It shows a read-only summary of everything you chose, including your membership type, package, chapter or chapters, sections, add-ons, and, for an organization, seat holders.
Result
The review step does not include an edit link. To change something shown there, go back to the page where you made that choice.
Check Out
- Continue to your association's checkout steps.
- Complete payment as directed.
Result
After your order is processed, your application takes effect, your membership activates, and you appear as a member on your record. Your application is carried inside the order instead of being saved as its own record beforehand, so your association will not receive it until the order is processed. If you completed checkout but your membership does not show as active and no application appears on your account, contact your association with your order number so they can look into it.
Warning
This form does not detect duplicate submissions. If you submit twice, such as by pressing the submit button more than once or going back and submitting again, your association may receive two applications and two orders. If you are not sure whether your submission went through, check your Portal's own applications list before submitting again.
Tip
In rare cases, a payment can go through and still leave no application record behind. If that happens to you, contact your association. They may need to refund the order and have you submit again, or collect your information directly and complete the application on their end.
Tip
If your form includes a custom validation rule, Rhythm usually checks it for the whole form rather than one page at a time. You may be able to continue to later pages even though a value is not yet valid, and Rhythm prompts you to fix it when you submit, not necessarily when you try to move on.
If your package offers installment plans, review the schedule shown before you pay. A plan marked as your association's default is not always pre-selected for you, so choose it yourself if you want it. Automatic future charges on an installment plan only work when your association's application allows saving payment information. If it does not, plan on paying each installment yourself. Rhythm does not send a separate email confirming your installment selection or its dates and amounts. Your usual application email arrives once your membership is activated, not right when you choose the plan, and your Portal shows your open invoices rather than a dedicated installment schedule.
If your checkout includes a donation prompt, that gift is a one-time donation made with your membership purchase. Recurring giving is not available at membership checkout. Ask your association about its giving program if you want to give on a recurring basis.
If Your Application Is Not Charged Through an Order
A small number of places that include membership applications, mainly group registration, save your application directly as a record instead of putting it inside an order. If you are filling out this kind of form, the choices above still apply, but there is no order or checkout step for the membership piece itself. The process you are in handles payment separately, if any payment is required.
Related
To start an application, see the Related articles listed with this page. If you are applying on your organization's behalf and are not sure what you are allowed to do, see Act for Your Organization's Membership. If you are offered membership sign-up while completing a different Rhythm form, such as an event registration, see Join Through Another Form's Sign-Up Block instead.