StarChapter Erfahrungen

Star Chapter is user friendly for both members and administrators. Customer support is great and highly responsive to questions or problems. Training and resources for administrators and Board members are excellent. One of my groups consists of a senior chapter, a young professionals chapter and a non-profit 501(c)3 education foundation. They wanted one website for all three organizations with capability to manage each of them. The Star Chapter tech team was wonderful in working with our volunteer Board and communications committee to develop a website "skin" that would function on Star Chapter's system.

I have some Board members that find it cumbersome to RSVP for a meeting when responding to an email invitation. They would prefer a one click method to indicate if they will attend or not, rather than the multiple steps Star Chapter's system requires to login as a member and register to attend a Board or committee meeting that doesn't require a payment. I have asked Star Chapter to consider changing the system to allow for a "yes" or "no" response when members are responding to a system generated event invitation. We had this with Cvent and it worked extremely well.

StarChapter set everything up
The training they provided was comprehensive
The support is excellent. I had a few questions and received a response back within hours or even minutes.
Once you get the hang of how it works, it is easy to make changes
The price is incredible! We are a very small non-profit with a limited budget.
Our users love the software. The admins really like the back end and the information it provides.
Our members love the website and how easy it is to renew membership, sign up for classes and events.

Reporting is a little weak:
I can find everything I need but it isn't as easy as I think it could be. (That said it could be that I haven't figured everything out yet.)
I can get a list of new members, members that have renewed, and members that have not renewed BUT it does not produce a very attractive output. This would definitely not stop me from recommending this software.

I thought we would like that it was an all-in-one solution, but even that isn't worth the headaches of trying to use it.

Too many pros to list here but this box is requiring more characters . . . it doesn't integrate with any other tools, the website design options are incredibly limited, outdated and stale looking. Check out their website and have a look at the one positive testimonial listed - if you visit that site, you will see they are no longer using StarChapter!

Ease of setup and updating the site with current material

We have not had some of the functionality that other competitors provide; batch membership dues processing/payment, integration with member ID badges to swipe and log attendance at events, no ability to send automated "attendance certification" email to members who attended an event (we could do this initially but was lost during a recent update to email functions). There have been other features that we would like to have but don't recall right now.

StarChapter offers good functionality and management for an affordable price. It puts our website and association management into the cloud, where it belongs, and doesn't require a high degree of tech savvy to manage the site or our day-to-day activity.

The lack of a financial interface is PAINFUL, and it has resulted in higher than usual external accounting expense to make sense of what we do.

The ease of use and support that we need

There's nothing that we don't like! It fits perfectly with our needs and budget

Software has a great website component - catalog of website pages format and views, flexible build, sleek modern look and great background site security. The website provides a "wow" factor.
The Association management portion of the software has many tools for membership management, event management, dues management and email communications functions. All are very helpful.
There are a number of on-line resources serving as a knowledge base and their support is wonderful. Most questions are answered within 24 hours.
Members also really like the ability to pay dues or make donations or purchases on-line.

As a heritage culture society we had a few membership/group use case issues that the software couldn't really address and there wasn't much guidance on possible workarounds. We needed a few more project hours on our implementation phase (we were turned over to support before we went live). There needs to be a user manual document to further define screen fields as there is great flexibility in the system. While the videos are helpful, they don't provide enough detail for taking the system to beyond a basic level. The other key limitation is the lack of interfacing to financial systems like QuickBooks. While we really like the ability for members to pay dues or buy from store via credit-card, there is double entry for bookkeeping due to lack of interface.

I liked that they provided the initial set-up and conversion from our previous web-site. I like that over-all it is easy to manage the site and to update content. Please note that I do NOT have an IT background and learned everything from scratch. We are looking at an organizational name change, so it will be interesting to see if I still hold this view once I tackle that project. I have always had great customer support when I have a question, even when I pose something that the program can't do.

It is not intuitive for someone that doesn't have skills in web design. I have to research and learn new options, not just pick them up along the way. I find some of the finance and accounting functions too basic, as well as only a basic reporting functionality. There also don't seem interested in updating and adding functionality, just maintaining what they have.

The majority of the software makes it very easy to manage our chapter's website, from meetings and payments to board transitions and communication. StarChapter provides ample live and pre-recorded instructional videos, as well as an extensive "knowledge base" of articles. When I can't find what I need, or when there is a problem, I can submit a support ticket. I always get a response in under 24 hours, usually less than 12.

If you want to create complicated web pages (more complex than the template pages that are provided), you need to know a bit more about website design. It's not as user friendly for those who aren't tech savvy. Also, sometimes the editing/formatting features can be a bit frustrating, like using tables and things for page design.

The best aspect of StarChapter is that it is an all-in-one platform to create and track event registrations and memberships while also enabling us to send emails to our database.

The list of items that I like least include two aspects: membership sign-ups or renewals that get hung-up as pending because the payment didn't go thru, yet the system sends out a notification that there is a new member which suggests everything is good to go. This has necessitated a multi-step process where we have to vet each membership transaction. To help alleviate this problem, we have requested the ability for automatic renewals which is not available at this time. Additionally, the back-end of SC is not very intuitive or user-friendly which means it's challenging to become proficient.

That it is customizable, I guess. I don't really have much else to say, but can't submit this until I type more characters.

I don't know how to use it. I am expected to do programming, code writing, design layout...I do not know how to do any of this. There is no one to call. I start a project, can't even figure out how to start it, send in a note, the next day someone gets back to me. I mean, it works in theory, but by that time I have moved onto other tasks and find it incredibly challenging to log back in, follow the prompts and get the result I need. Usually this leads to another question or something I cannot figure out how to do, and again, another help ticket, another day goes by. It would BE SO MUCH EASIER if your help team would just make the edit or change, instead of spending the time emails me how to do it. I am never going to remember how to do it 6 months from now, and will need to ask again. Your 'help desk' could be much 'helpier' if they just made the request happen. Done. We'd all be done. I am frustrated by not being able to call.

It provides all features/tasks in one software. Reports providing attendance, profits etc.

It's not user-friendly or intuitive as promoted. There's numerous steps to completing a task, revisions of different kinds are not in the same screens where things were created, all pages look the same no matter what category is being used (no color coding, no differentiation for easier learning), and a serious lack of graphics.