If you are reading this article, you probably already know how awesome the Wild Apricot membership and events management platform is. Let’s say you are now ready to begin your journey and either setup a new Wild Apricot website, or migrate your existing website to Wild Apricot? Where do you start?
Well, we want to outline a few tips and tricks that can help you avoid delays, reduce stress, and failure to meet expectations. The following is NOT a comprehensive list and you should always contact Wild Apricot sales to ensure your particular project is starting on the right foot. So, without further adieu – here is Nicasio Design’s Wild Apricot Migration Tips & Tricks:
1- Set and define the end goals
2- Get to know the platform better
3- Ask for help
4- Find the right service partner
5- Perform A Post mortem
Setting & Defining The End Goals
My wife always reminds me that ‘expectations without communications always lead to confrontations.’ Setting the goal and defining or communicating it upfront is key to ensuring everything you do works towards the achievement of this goal and not against it. One such goal can be the improvement of the website’s navigation. Once set, this goal helps drive any and all decisions about pages, content, calls to action, sitemap, etc… any task which is counter productive to an improved site nav should be called into question immediately.
Getting To Know Wild Apricot Better
As the old adage says ‘there is always room for improvement.’ And so it is with the familiarization of the Wild Apricot platform. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Always make a backup before you edit. Play with a test Wild Apricot account and break things on purpose. There are also abundant resources for you to slowly master the UI:
– Support Portal
– The Knowledge Base
– Service Partners
– The User Forum
– Youtube Channel
Stuck? Ask For Help!
There is no reason for you to reinvent the wheel! If it is a problem you are having, the chances that someone else has faced the same challenge(s) and perhaps even found a solution are very high. So, here is a tip – ask for help and you will be surprised how often others are willing to help. Use the Forums to post the issue. Email or call the Wild Apricot Support team. Use the Support Portal. At the end of the day we all want our problems resolved right? That usually means we then move on to another problem no? So, if you are ever stuck using the Wild Apricot CMS, take note there are many avenues available to you.
Find The Right Partner
Perhaps one of the biggest challenges you may find yourself facing is selecting a competent Wild Apricot Partner to work with. However, before you approach a partner please make sure you have a high level scope of the work you want done. And note that asking a partner for examples of his work does not mean you will have the same results. It is this writer’s opinion that relationship is a better indicator of potential success than past performance.
Most Don’t But Should – A Post Mortem
Always take a moment to ponder the good aspects of a project [what went well] as well as the bad [what went wrong.] Some say that we learn by making mistakes. Feel free to read this article about Making Mistakes. Most importantly, note that learning from these mistakes is key to not repeating them. If we are NOT taking the time to analyse, in detail, what went wrong and how to avoid it again, then we are asking for it to happen again.