Every membership belongs to one contact or one organization. To find a member, first find the contact or organization that owns the membership. This article explains how to search for a membership, open it for review, see which people receive membership from an organization, and print a member’s ID card or certificate.
Before You Begin
Prerequisites
- To print an ID card, you need the ID card permission, and your account must have ID cards turned on before the option appears.
- To print a certificate, you need the certificate permission.
Search for a Membership
- Go to Membership & Committees › Members.
- Fill in any filters you need — owner name, city, state, country, job title, email address, owner type, origin, membership number, type, package, status, status reason, or a date range for join, expiration, renewal, or termination — or paste specific membership IDs into the ID: box.
- Click Search.
Result
The results table shows matching memberships, ten to a page. Each result includes the owner’s name, type, location, join date, expiration date, and status.
Tip
All filters are optional, and each one works on its own. Choosing a type does not narrow the package list, and choosing a status does not narrow the status reason list. Rhythm also remembers the filters from your last membership search on this device, so the form may already contain values when you open the page. Use a join-date range to find every new membership between two dates, or build the same filter as a saved query in the Membership Query Center if you want to reuse it later.
Tip
The ID: box expects the membership’s own identifier, not a contact or organization number. Rhythm formats the membership ID as contact:<id> or organization:<id>. That ID stays the same even if an organization’s name changes later, so pasting it into the ID: box is a reliable way to find the organization’s current record when a search by its old name no longer works. Bulk mass-update and mass-delete operations also need this Membership ID to change or remove an existing membership record. If you use a contact number instead of the membership ID, Rhythm returns a membership-not-found error, though a contact ID can work when you are adding a membership for someone who does not have one yet. If you need the visible member number, use a field labeled with “number” or “member number” in the field browser when you run a membership query or export, not the generic ID output field.
Warning
If your search matches a very large number of memberships, the results may load only partially. When you see a banner warning that the results are incomplete, narrow your filters and search again.
Warning
Some organization records still carry a legacy website value that membership search checks. If that value is wrong, you may not be able to correct it through a mass update or Security & Settings. Contact Support instead.
Tip
A search can also help you spot records that need a second look. An inactive status with a renewal date can flag memberships worth reviewing after renewal processing. If a search returns no results for a specific contact or organization, that usually means the owner does not currently have a membership, not that something is broken. When you check how many memberships an expiration-date range affects, remember that a first-time membership with a blank expiration date falls outside any date range. Include blank expiration dates too if you need a complete count, though that will also include some unaffected records.
View a Membership
Click a result’s name to open the contact or organization page that owns the membership. You’ll see the membership across several tabs, including current details, billing information, applications, and history. Membership status, type, and expiration belong to the membership record itself, not the contact or organization record. Review and retrieve those values from the membership, including through the membership API, instead of expecting them on the contact.
When a membership has a termination date, Membership 360 shows it as a red bar at the top of the Membership Info section. You can view or enter this date by editing membership info, which also requires changing the membership status to Inactive.
The Join Date shown on the membership can display as relative time, so it may look rounded or slightly offset from the exact moment the membership was completed instead of appearing as an exact timestamp.
From the member’s own record, you can also open the Contact Options menu and choose Edit This Membership to edit the membership directly, or start an eligible application process from the membership view.
- To change any field on the membership, see Create, Correct, and Activate a Membership by Hand.
- To manage the member's primary chapter or their history of past chapters and sections, see Manage a Member's Chapter and Section History.
Tip
The Membership Information component on the console can show a custom field whenever that field exists on any related membership form; it is not limited to one package or scenario. If the Join Date shown is not precise enough to confirm exactly when something changed, check the membership’s own Last Modified value for the exact date and time instead. To confirm whether a membership activation confirmation email went out, check the contact’s Emails tab. If the email is not listed there, it likely was not generated or queued.
Warning
The console’s membership view can show the wrong user, or no user at all, for who created or last updated a record, even when your account’s audit logs correctly identify who made the change. If a membership shows as active in search results but clicking through fails because the organization record that owns it cannot be found, the organization record itself may be missing. Contact Support rather than trying to recreate it.
Tip
Merging duplicate contact records is intended to carry the surviving contact’s membership history with it. If the history looks incomplete right after a merge, check the surviving record’s History tab before assuming records were lost.
See What an Organization Has Passed Down to Its People
An organization’s membership can reach its people automatically or through seats the organization assigns. If your Rhythm account commonly stores memberships on organizations, build any event discount or access eligibility rule against that organization-held membership data. The rule cannot assume the person’s own contact record carries the membership. To see everyone who receives membership this way:
- Open the organization's own record.
- Go to the Member Contacts tab.
Result
The tab lists everyone whose membership comes from this organization, whether by automatic flowdown or by an assigned seat. For each person, you’ll see their membership type, title, email address, location, status, and expiration date. This lets you check who is a current member, what type they hold, and when their membership expires without opening each contact individually. Use Show active members only to hide anyone whose membership is not active, and use the filter box to narrow the list by name.
Warning
When an organization has a large number of people, this list may show only its first page of results, and the tab does not tell you that the list is incomplete.
Print an ID Card or a Certificate
From the member’s own record, open the options menu and choose Print ID Card or Print Certificate. The document opens in a new browser tab, with nothing else to confirm.
Warning
Print ID Card only appears in the menu when your account has ID cards turned on. Both options create a document whether the membership is active, expired, or in another status, because Rhythm does not check the membership’s status before printing either one.
Warning
Printed ID cards have occasionally changed accented characters in a member’s name during printing. If that happens, check the membership and contact record first. The name is usually stored correctly there, and the problem is in how the card renders it.
Tip
If the new tab does not open, check whether your browser’s pop-up blocker stopped it.
Expected Result
You can find a membership by owner, number, type, status, or date; open it to review the details; see everyone an organization’s membership reaches; and print a member’s ID card or certificate.