Member Guide Org Admin Guide Site Admin Guide

Planning Your Setup

Before you start configuring fellos, gather the information you'll need. A little planning now saves hours of rework later.

Setting up fellos involves making decisions about your organization's structure, membership categories, administrative roles, and communication tools. Having clear answers to these questions before you begin will make the configuration process smooth and efficient.

1 Hierarchy Levels & naming conventions 2 Member Types Active, inactive, deactivation types 3 Admin Roles Who manages what 4 Permissions Profile visibility & access 5 Content Branding, pages, legal Planning Checklist ☐ Organization hierarchy mapped out ☐ Member types listed (active & inactive) ☐ Admin roles assigned to officers ☐ Naming conventions decided ☐ Communication plan outlined ☐ Logo and branding assets ready ☐ Legal pages drafted ☐ Custom fields identified ☐ Workflow approvers chosen ☐ Integration credentials gathered
Plan your setup in order — each decision builds on the previous one.

Your Organization's Hierarchy

fellos supports multi-level organizational hierarchies. Before configuring, you need to decide:

  • How many levels? Most organizations have 2-3 levels. Examples:
    • Club → Chapter
    • Association → Region → Chapter
    • Club → Division → Committee
    • Order → District → Lodge
  • What do you call each level? fellos lets you customize the names. Instead of "Organization Level 1" and "Organization Level 2," you can use your actual terminology — Chapters, Lodges, Posts, Councils, etc.
  • How many of each? You don't need exact numbers yet, but a rough count helps you plan. 5 regions with 40 chapters is different from 2 divisions with 3 committees.
Tip

If your organization has a simple flat structure (just one club, no sub-organizations), that's perfectly fine. fellos works great with a single level too — you can skip the hierarchy planning and just set up your one organization.

Member Types

List every type of member your organization has. Think about:

  • Active member types — people who are currently participating. Examples: Full Member, Associate Member, Prospect, Probationary Member, Junior Member.
  • Inactive/special types — people who are still in the system but with limited access. Examples: Honorary Member, Retired, Life Member, Suspended.
  • Deactivation types — reasons why someone leaves. Examples: Resigned, Expelled, Deceased, Lapsed. These aren't really "member types" but fellos tracks them as deactivation categories.

For each active member type, also think about:

  • Can they post in the feed?
  • Can they create events?
  • Can they see other members' contact details?
  • Can they view the full org chart?

Admin Delegation

Decide who will have administrative access and at what level:

  • Site Admins — typically your national/top-level officers or IT staff. They have full control over everything. Keep this group small (2-5 people).
  • Org Admins — your chapter presidents, regional directors, or equivalent. They manage their specific organization within the structure you define. Map these to your existing officer roles.
  • Local Admins — optional. Some organizations need a third tier for chapter-level officers who can manage certain things but not everything an org admin can.
Important

Every organization should have at least two site admins. If one person is unavailable, you need someone else who can manage the platform. Don't create a single point of failure.

Naming Conventions

fellos uses configurable terminology throughout the platform. Decide on your preferred terms for:

  • Organization levels — "Chapter," "Lodge," "Post," "Council," "Region," "District," etc.
  • Member types — use your organization's actual terminology
  • Roles and titles — "President," "Master," "Commander," "Chair," etc.

Consistency matters. Once you pick a naming convention, use it everywhere. If your chapters are called "Lodges," make sure every configuration screen, notification, and label uses "Lodge" — not sometimes "Chapter" and sometimes "Lodge."

Communication Plan

Think about how your organization communicates and plan these accordingly:

  • Discussion groups — What groups do you need? Examples: General Discussion, Officers Only, Event Planning, New Members. Which should be chapter-specific vs. organization-wide?
  • Event categories — What types of events does your org run? Meetings, social events, fundraisers, community service, training?
  • Notification preferences — How aggressively should fellos notify members? Email for everything, or just critical updates? Push notifications for time-sensitive items only?

Planning Checklist

Before you proceed to configuration, make sure you can answer these questions:

Organization Structure

  • ☐ How many hierarchy levels does your organization have?
  • ☐ What is each level called?
  • ☐ How many organizations exist at each level?

Members

  • ☐ What are all your active member types?
  • ☐ What are your inactive/special member types?
  • ☐ What deactivation reasons do you need?
  • ☐ What permissions does each type get?

Administration

  • ☐ Who are your site admins? (Names and emails)
  • ☐ Who are your org admins at each level?
  • ☐ What governance roles exist? (President, Secretary, etc.)

Branding & Content

  • ☐ Do you have a logo file ready? (PNG, JPEG, or WebP)
  • ☐ Do you have a favicon?
  • ☐ What are your brand colors?
  • ☐ Do you have Terms of Service and Privacy Policy text?

Integrations

  • ☐ Do you have an email service provider? (SMTP credentials or API key)
  • ☐ Do you want push notifications? (Firebase credentials)
  • ☐ Do you want social login? (OAuth client IDs and secrets)
Good to know

You don't need to have everything figured out before you start. fellos is designed to be configured incrementally — you can always add member types, adjust permissions, or create new groups later. But having a plan prevents the "I wish I'd done it differently" moments.