I am a newbie to Oops (and yes, I search for these questions already)

Membership – bringing members in.
We (I) started to build a members only area with PHP Nuke for our professional Criminal Justice Statewide Association ( http://www.nyspoa.com ).

We (I) then realized that PHP Nuke would never meet our long term needs. It has a totally uncontrollable open enrollment. We need a closed members only Portal and so would all corporations.

I love the clean corporate look and feel of Oops. The ability to define groups is a very powerful feature and very necessary for us. We need to give specific privileges to members of the Executive Board, the Conference Committee, Membership, Treasurer etc. The ability to restrict access (and enrollment) is also something we really need.

Our problem (my problem) is how do we bring 500 hundred current members (and recently lapsed members) into the system? We do not have an e-mail address for our members. We are collecting them now but having them join the Oops Portal would solve that problem.

We actually have a drastic need to bring a whole subgroup (200 group members) before their group membership expires.

We need to be able to bring over names and User Names from our MS Access database and to generate random passwords. We cannot operate with a 10 character or less User Name for self-enrollment. Not having an e-mail address is also problematic. I guess we could generate a default invalid address? I am assuming there is no check for duplicate e-mail addresses or validity?

We need the Officer User Names to be LastName, FirstName for the User Name. Officers cannot be allowed to pick any name. Why is the user name limited to 10 characters for a self-enrolling? How can I change that? Users have to be identifiable from their UserNames.

Why would you allow individuals to pick their own username? All professional associations and corporations would want some reality in the username field.

I know the User Name = LastNamecomma FirstName works because I added most the NYSPOA Executive Board already. It works just fine.

Do you have any routines or systems to bring members in from an MS Access Database or other Databases? I know of some software to convert from MS Access to a MySQL input script but I was hoping you had a pre-built routine, for the minimum amount of data to register a user.

How about a system or routine to generate a random password? That could be loaded into the database. Then the Probation Officers could contact their Regional Vice-President for the password to let them in? It could be a simple four or five character one. Or we could print the password on a label and send a postcard to the whole membership and those that lapsed within the last two years.

We definitely do not need open enrollment. We need to limit enrollment to our current membership. Every corporation would have the same need. They would also have a need to populate the Ooops membership data. That is a very basic need.