There are many pages in the public-facing part of your HarmonySite that show the message Enter a valid position ID.  Each of these instances is a placeholder for the contact details of one of your members that holds an official position within your group, something like John Smith, 444-555-6666, treasurer@mygroup.com  The idea is that you edit the page, enter a position ID, and the system displays the contact details.


Why bother?  Why not just enter their contact details directly into the page?


It is certainly more complex to have to worry about position IDs, instead of simply entering the contact details of the member directly into the page.  The idea behind doing it this way is that the people that hold positions within your group change regularly.  For example, this year your president might be Mary Thompson, while next year it might be Tom Brown.  The position itself doesn't change (it still has the same name and email address), but the person holding that position changes regularly.  When those changes happen, what are the chances that you'll remember to visit every page in your website that references that position and change the contact details to match the new member?


This "position ID" mechanism is designed to save you work in the future, when position-holders change.  Ideally, you can set it up once, at the outset, and never need to worry about it again.


How to Change these Messages

  1. Ensure that all members have been entered into the member database
  2. Ensure that all positions have been set up on  the Officers page (which could be called the Management Team page). This may include position records for any or all of the following:
    • President, Chairperson, Team Leader, etc
    • Treasurer
    • Secretary
    • Music Director
    • Section leaders
    • A general contact point for enquiries (the position may have the email address info@mygroup.com or enquiries@mygroup.com)
    • Taking bookings for your group
    • Helping people visit your rehearsals
    • Helping people become a member of your group
    • Helping people sponsor your group
    • Your webmaster
  3. If any of the responsibilities listed above are not relevant to your group, then don’t bother creating a position for them.  You can also delete the corresponding rows from the Contact Points page
  4. Ensure that a member is assigned to each of the positions above
  5. For each of the positions above, make a note of the position ID.  This ID can be found on the Officers (or Management Team) page next to the name of the position.  The position ID looks like this...

    The position ID in the example above is 10564
  6. Visit the page that contains the Enter a valid position ID message
  7. To make changes to this page, click the edit button in the bottom-right corner, then click the Content tab
  8. Where you saw the Enter a valid position ID message, you will now see [officer id="9999"] or perhaps [officer_field id="9999"]. Replace the 9999 with the ID you made a note of earlier
  9. Click the Save button at the bottom when you're done.


The same technique applies to the Contact section at the bottom of the home page.  In this instance, click the Edit this text button, then proceed as above.  Ensure that you click the little “save” icon (the first icon on the pop-up toolbar) when you’re done, or your changes will not be saved.


If you like, you can then experiment by changing the member that holds the position.