What's the process for bringing a new site online?

After we receive your order, we'll contact you and discuss the schedule and milestones for putting your site online. During this call, we'll help you to choose a domain name for your new website and we'll discuss any special requirements that you may have.

With that information in hand, our developers will start working on your website and we'll be in touch as soon as the website is ready for you to review. We'll give you a couple days to review the site and, once you've given sign-off, we'll publish your site to the Internet.

After your site is online, we'll schedule a call to walk you through the key features and answer any questions you have about maintaining your site.

How long will it take for my organization's new site to be online?

For sites that do not require custom programming, it currently takes 2 to 6 weeks to bring the site online. The complexity of your membership data, and how quickly you can supply it to us, will directly impact the timeline for bringing your site online.

Can I use SSL to secure my organization's site?

Yes, SSL certificates can be used to secure your website. If you activate Online Payment Processing and wish to accept payments from within your own website an SSL certificate will be required. Because we maintain maximum availability for your solution by hosting on a "web farm", you'll need to acquire one certificate for each server where your app is hosted. Contact us to determine the correct number of certificates.

Is a long-term contract required to use this service?

No. We believe in using the quality of our service rather than contractual entrapment to keep our customers coming back. For that reason, all of our standard offerings are available on a month-by-month basis if you so choose.  We do, however, offer discounts for longer term contracts.

What happens as the membership of my organization grows/shrinks?

Our websites are designed to evolve with your organization. We'll re-evaluate your pricing every few months and you will be charged based on the appropriate tier for the size of your organization at that time. That means that you'll pay more as your organization grows and less should your organization shrink. If you've purchased service in a block of several months and your membership shrinks, we'll credit your account to be used toward future months. If you've purchased service in a block of several months and your membership grows, we'll bill you in the months in which your actual membership exceeds the amount for which you prepaid.

How do I initially create accounts on my site for all of my members?

The answer depends on the nature of your organization and the format of the data that you already have. If your organization is relatively small and you have an enthusiastic typist, you may choose to use the Add New Member feature within the website's administrative section to add each of your members.

If you already have your membership data in an electronic format such as Microsoft Excel then you may choose to use our Membership Import Wizard to pull your membership data from that existing location into your website.

In the event that you don't have your membership data in electronic format, you may choose to utilize our custom data entry services to get your data into the site or you might choose to implement a one-time registration process on the site whereby members access the site, enter there own information, and then you validate that information against the hardcopy (to ensure they are who they say they are) before activating their account.

If you don't have any existing information about your members or if your organization is more loosely organized, you may simply choose to allow members to self-register and gain instant access to the site.

Can I charge a fee for users to access my site?

Currently we do not offer this functionality as part of our standard packages. This functionality is available on a custom basis, however. If you'd like quote, please contact us at inquire@ization.com and describe your requirements.

Can I use a subdomain for hosting my site?

Absolutely. If your organization already uses a domain, such as http://www.ization.org/, and you'd like your Ization organization website at a subdomain, such as http://members.ization.org/, your ISP will simply need to add a DNS entry that will point the subdomain at our servers.

Can I require users to register to use the site?

Yes. One of the available options for securing your site is to allow members to self-register. There are actually two types of registration that we support - auto-registration will give users access to the site immediately upon registering while validated-registration will queue the registration request for the person(s) you designate to approve the registration before the user can access the site.

Are there any restrictions on how this service can be used?

Of course there are, our lawyers wouldn't have it any other way! Your contract will outline the specific restrictions, key to which are limitations on use of our service for any illegal activities, unrequested email delivery (aka "Spamming"), as well as delivery of pornographic or sexually explicit materials.

Can I use a custom site design and/or integrate with the design of my existing site?

Absolutely.  In fact, we encourage it!  We'll work with you to seamlessly integrate your membership website with your existing Web presence.

What happens to my organization's data if we cancel service?

After you discontinue service, we will delete all records from our system that were acquired exclusively from your organization. If desired, we will export your membership data to a flat file so that you can import it into Microsoft Excel or some other program or data store. A service charge will apply for exporting the data.

Does Ization sell or otherwise share information about users?

No. At Ization we believe that each person deserves the opportunity to control his or her own personal data. We will never release, sell, distribute, or share data about individual users without the consent of that user and/or the organization to which that member belongs. We do not supply individually identifiable data about user preferences or user habits to any third parties.

In short, we protect your personal data like it is our own. In fact, each of us uses an Ization website everyday so we have a vested interest in ensuring the data stays secure.

Can you add a feature that... ?

Given enough time and money we can make almost anything happen. If there's a feature you don't see that you think would be useful to other organizations, drop us a line at inquire@ization.com. We can't guarantee that it will make a future release but we can't consider it if it isn't on our radar screen!

Alternatively, if there's a specialized feature that you're looking for, drop us an email at sales@ization.com. We'll gladly take a look at your requirements and provide a quote for custom developing the feature you need.

Can we host this application on our own servers?

The infrastructure that supports Ization organization website is significant and robust. As such, the investment in hardware and software to support a standalone installation is significant. Because of the economies of scale provided by our own hosting environment, we can generally offer significant savings over standalone installations. Additionally, our capacity-on-demand model allows us to easily add capacity to our hosted solutions as they grow, allowing you to focus on more important things.

That being said, on a case-by-case basis we will evaluate requests for standalone installations on membership bases exceeding 50,000 members. If your organization meets this criteria and is interested in a custom quote, please contact us at sales@ization.com.