Questions about manually entering members

I have the opportunity  to get about 500 people to join my site and I don't want to miss it so I'm thinking that I will set up a form to collect the required data for registration and when the site is ready import it and send them an announcement.  On their end they'd not know that they didn't have an account the whole time.  My biggest concern is user names.  I have a couple questions though.

1 - can users change their user name after registration?  Because of the way I'll be collecting this data there's no way for me to verify whether there are duplicate user names or not.

2 - I would use a password generator to give them passwords and when I launch send them an email with their log-in information and suggest they change their PW.  Will this be difficult? 

3 - Can I manually enter people into the database without generating a notice to them as it's happening so they'll never know about the transition from one list to the other until I send out the launch announcement with password?

I really don't want to miss the chance to get this many users into my site and I don't mind putting in the labor of manually entering the account info but I want to make sure that it can all be done without the members having any idea that they weren't entered into the system immediately.

Thanks!

This procedure has been removed from this thread - if you want it, send me a PM.

I needed some luck today (I'm in the process of recovering 2.9G of digital products I accidentially deleted this morning) so thanks for that!

So I guess I really only need the Username and Email address and I can use fake info for the rest (DOB, etc.) that they can update at a later date.  Nice.  I'll let you know how it goes.  Can I PM you if I have a question or if I need more clarification?

Once I've tested this I'll post back with a write-up of the process.

Vagabondette, Here's a much simpler thing to do that actually makes sense.

1. Install a dolphin site in a subdirectory, or anywhere you want to.

2. Don't install any of the modules and remove just about everything from the navigation menu so that all that is left is a home page and a join button/form.  (you might want to remove the photo upload field from the join form)

3. Create whatever custom html blocks/ promo block on the home page you want, to promote your site (coming soon...etc) and encourage people to register.  This way you'll have all your members information in the right tables in the database, and it will be a simple matter to import the member registration info into the db of your final site.

4. Once you have the real site set up, just plant a redirect in this registration site that takes them to your real site, and they can log in with the username and pasword that they registered with.

Houston, that was actually my initial plan but I thought that there wasn't going to be migration support from the beta to the final so I figured it might not be a good idea.  But I guess even without direct support it'd be easier to migrate manually this way.  Hrm, this will take longer to set up now since I'll have to do more testing but oh well.  Thanks for the suggestion.

Vagabondette, just so there's no confusion here, I was talking about installing a D7 site.  If the only modifications your users are permitted is the profiles table and a few others, it's not going to be that difficult to import the members.  Once you allow them to upload meda, and everything else that modifies the DB, it's a different story.

Granted, if you do a full install of a beta version, and turn 500 members loose on the site, it may be a nightmare transferring the site to the final version of Dolphin.  If however, all you are doing is signing people up, and not permitting any interaction with the site, then it's not that difficult to bring in records from one or two DB tables.

Yeah, I figured that.  I'm struggling because I'd really rather they not see the site at all because an empty ghost town is much less enticing than a well worded pitch-page.  Is it possible to have the sign-up form be on a separate html or php splash page so that visitors never touch the site itself, just the sign-up form?

We know you can be a TOTAL DICK Houston - but don't expect me to let your insults slide anymore.  A real tough guy behind his keyboard, who gets off on attacking newbies, but when you called me a "crybaby" because I posted something you didn't like, and laced your post with "fucking" this and "fucking" that, I realized you are really a sissy.  I can assure you, you never would say that to my face.

Vagabondette, if you also think my procedure "makes no sense" then just don't use it - I was just trying to save you some time.

Caltrade, I appreciate your resonse, don't doubt that.  And it makes sense to me because it was what I had in mind, you'd just actually figured out the steps which is very helpful.  I'm just trying to decide now what is going to be the easiest option in the long run.  In looking at it there's the potential that this list could get into the high hundreds, low 1000s before I actually launch and doing all of that by hand could become very cumbersome.  Ugh.  I hate decisions like this one.  Anyway, thanks agian for your input.

Not installing any modules, and removing the navigation menu essentially turns your site into nothing more than a splash page, because there's nothing left of the site.

You can remove the navigation menu altogether by deleting these lines in /templates/base/_sub_header.html

<div class="sys_top_menu">

<bx_injection:injection_top_menu_before />

__top_menu__

<bx_injection:injection_top_menu_after />       

<div class="clear_both">&nbsp;</div>

</div>

In admin > Page Builder > Home Page   Remove all the blocks, or make custom ones, keep the promo block.. whatever you want to do.   All that will be left is a join button which leads to the join form.  Believe me, having members join like this and having all the join form data in the database in the right format, is going to be a lot easier than repeating an 8 step process 500 times.

If you want to see a demo  PM me and I'll send you a link.

I can assure you...... I would.

A coward like you?  No you wouldn't - you are only tough behind your keyboard.

Go back to your trailer and fry something.

Now boys, please play nice on my thread. :)

Houston, thanks for that info.  I think I've decided to go that route but rather than remove everything I will have all of the mods installed that I plan to launch with but set up a new member level called pre-launch and remove all permissions so while they can see what categories there will be they won't be able to actually see any content.  Then, as I get sections done I can "unlock" them for viewing.

Thanks for the help!

Vagabondette,  the procedure I posted works when you have a club or association where you already have members names, email addresses, and other information - or if you have some completely different system where people have already registered and you want to convert them to Dolphin.  What is nice about it is people still have to "opt-in" somewhat by clicking the generate password link in an email where you can explain to them what is going on.   If your group has to "register" anyway, then you might as well do the partial build out, as it is far less work.  This was for a situation where you don't want to have to talk people into registering.   If anyone else wants it let me know - it is tested for D6 but I'm pretty sure it will work with D7,