Roster system FAQ

Before adding memberships, you need to know what data points both national and state require. If you attempt to add a membership without the required data, the system will prompt you to enter the required data. You will find a message at the top of the screen, listing the missing data points.

• National-required data
  • First Name and Last Name
  • Address with City, State and Zip
  • High School Graduation Month and Year (Students)
• State-required data (Students)
  • Varies by state
  • View your state’s required data on your chapter profile under Chapter Requirements

Memberships can be submitted for state approval from either the Approve Pending Memberships or Manage Memberships sections. To only view memberships awaiting your approval, submit your membership(s) from the Approve Pending Memberships. If you are comfortable using Advanced Search, submit your membership(s) from the Manage Memberships.

A canceled membership will no longer exist. A disapproved membership will return to a local submission level status.

To disapprove or cancel a membership, the membership must not be past your authorization level. For example, a local chapter leader can disapprove or cancel a membership if the membership has not been approved at the state level (i.e., submission level status is either local or state). A state leader can disapprove or cancel a membership if the membership has not been approved at the national level (i.e., submission level status is either local, state or national). Once a membership has been nationally approved, only national FFA staff can disapprove or cancel a membership due to potential financial implications.

Memberships with a local submission level status can be canceled from either the Approve Pending Memberships or Manage Memberships sections. Memberships awaiting state or national approval can only be canceled from the Manage Memberships section.

An FFA ID is a unique identification number assigned to an individual profile in the National FFA database. An FFA ID can be associated with one or more roles (e.g., student, alumni, teacher/advisor, alumni leader, state staff, national staff, sponsor, etc.) and/or an FFA.org login.

Some FFA applications require a membership verification check, which must be met to proceed. American FFA Degree and State FFA Degree applications require consecutive years of membership for the associated FFA ID.

Chapter leaders can find the FFA.org username of a student or alumni member by following instructions found in the Find Username tutorial.

Chapter leaders can find invite codes for student or alumni members by following instructions found in the Find an Invite Code tutorial.

Chapter leaders can generate temporary passwords to help members login to FFA.org using the instructions found on the Generate Temporary Password tutorial.

Chapter leaders can fix a problem where a member has multiple FFA IDs by using the instructions in the Merge Multiple FFA IDs tutorial.

To change membership type, the memberships must not be past your authorization level. For example, a local chapter leader can change a membership type if the membership has not been approved at the state level (i.e., Submission Level Status is either Local or State). A state leader can change a membership type if the membership has not been approved at the national level (i.e., Submission Level Status is either Local, State or National). Once a membership has been nationally approved, only national FFA staff can change a membership type due to potential financial implications. To change a membership type, follow the steps in the Change a Membership Type tutorial.

Occasionally members are inadvertently left off the membership roster. It happens. Many times, the oversight is not discovered until the member starts his or her state degree or American degree application. For that reason, past memberships can be renewed retroactively and submitted through the approval process. Chapter leaders can renew memberships for the past two years and state leaders can renew memberships for the past four years. To add a past year, follow the steps in the Renew Memberships tutorial.

By late June or mid-July, you may already know which members are returning for the upcoming membership year. So, why not get a jump start on your roster? Chapter leaders and state leaders can proactively renew memberships for one future membership year. Memberships renewed for the future cannot be submitted for state approval until that membership year officially begins (August 1). To add future memberships, follow the steps in the Renew Memberships tutorial.

View the Membership Year(s) column in the Manage Memberships grid to see when a lifetime membership began. Click the Membership Year(s) column header to sort the column from oldest to newest. Lifetime memberships that began prior to January 1997 may be eligible for a memorial scholarship.

Active memberships can only be transferred if they have a Local, State or Approved submission level status. Expired memberships can only be transferred if they do not have active memberships in any chapter and if you have authorization over the receiving chapter (e.g., you manage both the middle school and high school chapters).

An outbound transfer is the transfer of a membership from your chapter (depart) to another chapter. An inbound transfer is the transfer of a membership to your chapter (receive) from another chapter.

For the transfer to be completed, the inbound (receiving) chapter leader must approve the transfer request. The membership will continue to appear on the outbound (departing) roster until the request is approved.

The official National FFA Organization invoice is sent to and paid by the state FFA association and/or state FFA alumni association. However, there are two exceptions:

1. For student chapters, three states (Alabama, Utah and West Virginia) are currently participating in a pilot program for invoice services. For those states, the official National FFA Organization invoice is sent to and paid by the chapter.
2. For alumni chapters, the state FFA alumni association can choose to have their chapter leaders pay for membership batches using PayPal. States utilizing PayPal will not receive an official invoice from the National FFA Organization.

To disapprove a membership batch, the batch must not be past your authorization level. For example, a local chapter leader can disapprove a membership batch if it has not been approved at the state level (i.e., submission level status is State). A state leader can disapprove a batch if it has not been approved at the national level (i.e., submission level status is either State or National). Once a batch has been nationally approved, only national FFA staff can disapprove specific memberships associated with the batch (not the entire batch), due to potential financial implications.

For a membership to appear on your roster, it must have an associated member profile and assigned FFA ID. For brand new members, the registration process creates the members’ profiles and assigns each profile a unique FFA ID. For returning members, the registration process updates the members’ profiles with the new information provided when added/imported.

Only memberships that are imported or manually entered in the Add Memberships section will appear in Register Added Memberships. Self-registered and renewed memberships do not appear in Register Added Memberships. Those memberships do not need to be registered, as they already have an existing member profile and assigned FFA ID.

The Analyze Added Membership(s) action reviews your added/imported memberships and determines if national and/or state-required data is missing. In addition, the analyze action attempts to find potential matches by comparing your added/imported memberships to existing member profiles in your chapter only. To find a potential match, one of the following conditions must be met:

• Exact spelling of First Name and Last Name and Chapter ID match
• Exact spelling of First Name and Last Name, ZIP Code and Chapter ID match
• Exact spelling of First Name and Last Name transposed (i.e., first name in last name field, last name in first name field) and Chapter ID match

The analyze action:

• Does not perform a nation-wide search due to security restrictions
• Does not compare one added/imported membership to other added/imported membership
• Cannot determine if two members with similar names are the same individual (g., Abby vs. Abbigail, Jon vs. Jonathan, Drew vs. Andrew, Lee Anne vs. Leanne, La’Tasha vs. Latasha, William L. Vs William, etc.)

Unlike the blank national roster template, an exported roster will contain all your memberships for the selected membership year. As a result, you do not have to manually enter all your returning members from the previous year. However, this export does not have drop-down menus with the national-defined format for the following data points: Membership Type, Prefix, Mobile Carrier Type, State, Grade, High School Graduation Year, High School Graduation Month, Gender and Race/Ethnicity. National FFA requires High School Graduation Year and High School Graduation Month for student memberships. Your state may require Email, Gender and Race/Ethnicity for student memberships. For a successful import, be sure to use the national-defined format when entering these data points.

Exported memberships are downloaded in a Microsoft Excel format. Where you locate the file will depend on your internet browser.