How do you keep track of your members?

[dtgriscom]

We've been keeping track of our members and parents using a Google Docs spreadsheet for the past few years. It works, is easily shared, and is very flexible, but if you don't know the conventions we've chosen (and which aren't well documented) then it's confusing and easy to completely mess up.

I'd like to upgrade to a real web-enabled membership database that keeps the data consistent and up-to-date. I've been looking at standardized web membership database companies (e.g. GroupSpaces.com and WildApricot.com), and at customizable web database companies (e.g. zoho.com), but haven't found one that really fills the bill.

Here's what we're currently storing in the spreadsheet:

• First and last name
• Role in the team (e.g. software, electronics, mechanical, PR, mentor)
• Graduating year
• Email, address, home phone, cell phone
• Parent information (names, phones, cell phones, companies)
• T-shirt size
• Whether they're planning on attending various events
• Interests

This all works well if only one person uses it, but when we have multiple people then we get different data, different formats, the sorting gets broken, the headers are changed. etc. etc. etc. It would be wonderful to have a reliable, shared system that's easy to use but doesn't let anyone mess up the data.

So, what do y'all use for your teams?