About IAS
The International Association of Sedimentologists was founded in 1952 to promote the study of sedimentology and bring together researchers from around the world. Its members include students, academics and senior researchers across 101 countries, and the organisation publishes three academic journals in partnership with Wiley.
IAS had a legacy platform built in the 2010s that combined their website and portal into a single system. Content changes required support from a webmaster, and the membership management tools no longer met the needs of the organisation. They came to us for a complete rebuild.
The Challenge
IAS had over a decade of membership data locked in a legacy system that treated the website and portal as a single product. That made both difficult to update and expensive to maintain. Content changes needed developer involvement. The membership management tools were basic. And the subscription model required manual invoicing and chasing for renewals.
The membership structure itself is complex. Students, ordinary members, lifetime members and honorary members all have different access levels and subscription arrangements. Members can subscribe to journals, make donations (one-off or recurring) and add items to their membership at any point during the year. The subscription year implementation is non-standard because memberships are not pro-rated.
On top of the functional complexity, the new system needed to import historic membership data going back to 2010 and provide a way to track how individual members evolve over time: a student in Costa Rica in 2020 who becomes an ordinary member in Hamburg in 2023 and a professor in China by 2028. The data model had to support that journey and record it for prosperity.
"The previous platform was a bit black box. Our interaction with AppCentric allows us to lift that veil. We feel we control it."
- João Trabucho Alexandre, Treasurer, IAS
What we built
We split the legacy system into two independent products: a public website and a membership portal. Both built on Umbraco, both manageable by the IAS team without developer support.
Public Website
A content-managed website for news, events, publications, conference information and organisational content. Editors can update everything themselves. Separated from the portal so each product can evolve independently without creating technical debt.
Membership Portal
A secure portal where members manage their account, pay subscriptions, access journals and books, contact regional correspondents, apply for travel grants, submit conference applications and connect with the global sedimentology community.
Subscription & Payment Management
Stripe integration handling memberships, journal subscriptions and custom donation amounts (one-off and recurring). Members can add items at any point during their membership year. Payments are collected automatically at renewal, replacing the old manual invoice and chase process.
Member Lifecycle Tracking
A system that snapshots each member for every membership year, building a complete history of their journey through the organisation. Membership type changes, institutional moves, regional correspondent roles, awards and honours are all tracked over time, giving IAS a longitudinal view of their community.
"The link with Stripe is the biggest time saver. It's saved two days of work every quarter. That's gone."
- João Trabucho Alexandre, Treasurer, IAS
Two products, not one
The first decision we made was to split the website and portal into separate products. The legacy system combined them, which meant every change to the website risked affecting the portal and vice versa. Separating them reduced technical debt, simplified maintenance and meant the IAS team could update their public content without worrying about breaking member functionality.
Bringing the data with them
We imported over a decade of historic membership data and built the snapshot system that gives IAS a view of how their community has evolved year by year. The Wiley integration connects members to their journal access, Mailjet handles communications, and the Stripe implementation automates subscription collection. The IAS team now manages applications, memberships, payments and content from the Umbraco backoffice without development support.
The Outcome
IAS now has a modern platform that their team manages independently. Members sign up, pay subscriptions and access resources without manual intervention from the organisation.
The annual renewal process that used to require invoicing and chasing is now automated. And the editorial team can publish content to both the website and portal without developer support.
2 Days
Saved per quarter chasing membership payments
600+
Automatic renewals in year 1
15 Years
of historic membership data imported
"Personalised, we feel listened to, and people know us. I think the feeling of trust is very important."
João Trabucho Alexandre, Treasurer, IAS
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