Hi, guys.

I've had a suggestion from a Classmate that there should be some way that he could search for someone on our website from the same admission year as him. Being a UK site we tend not to use 'graduation' and, instead, one of the questions I ask when members complete their Profile is 'School Years: When were you at Sloane?'

At the moment to search for someone who started the school at the same time as you is by trawling through the names on the Classmate Profiles list and hoping your memory's still good enough to recognise one.

Would it be possible to show the years someone was at the school alongside their name in the Classmate Profiles list in a way similar to something like Military Service is shown and would it also be possible to make that information searchable?

Incidentally, when looking for an answer to this among CC's FAQs, Question 13 under Questions About Building Your Site still refers to 'Edit School/Logos Link' which doesn't exist anymore.

Any suggestions as to a solution would be appreciated.

It sounds to me like you might want to convert to the multi year system. However, if you do, you cannot revert back. If you choose to do so, and you add a "graduation year" for each member, then the system would sort your members by year when you go to the classmate profiles page. Your only other option would be to add the year with the name... LastName (1970), so that people can easily scan the list for the year.

There is not another search built into the system for this option.

If you choose to switch to multi year, let me know as I need to make that switch for you.

If you do include their admission year in the last name, then you can do a search by that year as if it were a name and all those will be filtered into the selection displayed.

Thanks, Scott and thank you too, Mary.

I hadn't considered the option of adding their admission year to the name and searching that way. I like that idea in preference to changing to a multi-year site.

Presumably, I'm going to have to enter the year myself to ensure it's done for existing members but how will new members know they have to enter the year when completing their Profile when joining as the current set-up doesn't allow for it.

My school was an all boys school so we have no need for the box that says 'Married Last Name'. I notice that if a name is entered in that box it appears in brackets alongside the regular name in the Classmate Profiles list. Would it be possible for you to change the 'Married Last Name' box to read 'Year You Joined The School'so that I could use it for that purpose? That would solve the problem for anyone just looking down the list but it still wouldn't be searchable unless you know the surname.

Scott,

Further to my last post, would it be possible to view a multi-year site to see how the Classmate Profiles listing appears? It would give me a better idea if that would serve my purpose.

Here is a link to one of the larger multi year sites: http://www.acpasadenareunion.com/class_classmates.cfm

Many thanks, Scott. That was useful. Before I make up my mind, could you please clear up a few of points I'm not sure of -

1) After taking a look at one year I couldn't work out how you go back to the list of years so that you can choose another.

2) If I went down the multi-years option, are there any other differences I'd notice/experience between it and my current set-up?

3) You didn't answer my question about changing the heading on the Married Last Name profile question. Does that mean it can't be done?

To answer your "Married Last Name" question, no it is not possible. We don't customize for individual schools or our code would be a bunch of "If school = 'Sloane Grammar School' then do this...." type of code.

To answer your question about how would new classmates enter the year. They don't do that. You would decide which "John Smith" you were talking about and when you created the place holder for that classmate, you would assign the year to that classmate. For all of your current classmates, you would also assign a year for them.

To get back to the Classmate Profiles list of years, just click the Classmate Profiles button or use the "Back" button on the browser.

There are not any other differences, only adding the "Year" to all classmate. If you uploaded classmates again, the upload file would also include the YEAR column.

Thanks, Kyle.

Assigning a year to Classmates is not as simple as it sounds considering the school closed 45 years ago and some of the very old members just cannot remember when they joined the school. I don't have pupil lists for every year (51) the school was in existence and they're not yet obtainable under English law. I have just nine. One of my 'must answer' questions when completing a Profile to sign up is 'School Years: When were you at Sloane?' but even that is difficult for some.I'm leaning towards going multi-year and changing the wording of that question but I'll give it a little more thought.

Thanks again.