A prospective user is someone on your community platform who does not yet have an active account — for example after guest registration, a manual attendee add, or a chapter import. They appear in Members with the role Prospective User until they complete sign-up or SSO with the same email.
Use this article when you need to explain why someone appears in Members before they have logged in, why password reset does nothing for them, or how guest registration and imports create accounts.
| Status | What it means | What they can do |
|---|---|---|
| Prospective User | On the platform with an email, but sign-up or SSO is not finished. | Receive most event and list emails for that email. Cannot sign in with a password or reset a password yet. |
| User (active) | Completed Bevy sign-up or SSO with that email. | Sign in, manage profile, and use member features your community allows. |
Note: Being a prospective user is not the same as being an inactive or banned member. Inactive means an account that already existed and was turned off. Prospective means the person has not finished creating an active account yet. See View site member details for the Role field values.
What a prospective user is
A Prospective User is a platform role for someone who was added with an email address but has not yet registered or signed in to Bevy. The person may have been added by an organizer, an import, an integration, or by completing guest registration themselves.
Until they finish onboarding with that same email:
- They cannot sign in with email and password.
- They do not receive password reset emails.
- Their Role in the Admin Dashboard shows Prospective User.
The two ways someone creates a full account on Bevy are:
- Bevy sign-up — they register directly on your community site (see Create a new account)
- Single sign-on (SSO) — they sign in through your identity provider when SSO is enabled (see Sign-in with single sign-on (SSO))
Any other action that adds a new email to the platform creates a prospective user instead of an active account.
How prospective users are created
Bevy creates a prospective user when someone is added with an email that does not already belong to an existing user. If the email already matches an active member, Bevy uses that account — it does not create a second prospective user.
Common actions that create a prospective user:
- Guest registration — a visitor RSVPs with a name and email when the event type allows guests (see What guest registration does on your event)
- Manual attendee addition — an organizer adds someone to an event by email
- Bulk attendee import — an attendee CSV import that creates users for new emails
- Chapter import or manual member addition — adding or importing chapter members by email
- Chapter team invitation by email — adding a team member with an email that is not already a user
- Event waitlist — when a new email joins a waitlist on an RSVP event
- Chapter application acceptance — accepting an application that includes a new email
- Meetup integration sync — new RSVP emails pulled from Meetup
- Splash That integration sync
- Newsletter or contact list subscribe / import — including paths that sync contacts into Bevy
Tip: Guest registration creates a registration on the event. It does not automatically join the person to the chapter. Optional newsletter opt-in during RSVP still follows your community’s usual rules.
Find a prospective user in Members
To confirm someone is a prospective user:
- Go to the Admin Dashboard and select Members.
- Open the person’s detail page.
- In the Role section, check for Prospective user (Prospective User).
On that same page, admins can edit personal information fields for prospective users. After the person activates their account, many of those fields become member-editable. Full field reference: View site member details.
Activate a prospective user
You do not flip the role manually for a normal conversion. The person must complete sign-up or SSO using the same email address already on their prospective record.
- Ask them to open your community’s sign-up or SSO sign-in page.
- Have them use the same email that appears on their Members detail page.
- After they finish, their account becomes active and their Role updates from Prospective User to a standard User role.
SSO communities follow the same email match: signing in with SSO using that email can activate the prospective account. Details: Sign-in with single sign-on (SSO).
Important: Do not tell prospective users to use Reset a password first. They do not have a password yet, so reset emails are not sent. They must complete sign-up (or SSO) before password tools apply. If they already tried to log in and failed, see I have an account, why can't I log in?.
Emails prospective users receive
Prospective users can still receive most platform emails tied to their email address. Two important exceptions:
| Email type | Prospective users |
|---|---|
| Welcome (sign-up) email | Not sent — they have not completed the sign-up flow. |
| Password reset | Not sent — they do not have a usable password yet. Public reset and Admin Dashboard reset both skip inactive prospective accounts. |
| Event and registration emails | Still sent when they are registered for an event (for example Ticket Confirmation). They can use links in those emails to return to the event. |
| Newsletters and contact-list mail | Can still be sent when that email is on a list your community uses. |
For virtual events that use Join Magic Links, a prospective attendee may still be able to join from the emailed link when your community’s join flow supports it — see About Join Magic Links.
If someone cannot activate their account
- Confirm the email on the Members detail page matches the address they are using to sign up or sign in.
- Confirm they are completing sign-up or SSO, not only requesting a password reset.
- If the email already belongs to an active User, they should sign in to that account instead — Bevy will not create a second prospective user for the same email.
- For SSO-only communities, contact Bevy Support if the provider sign-in succeeds but the Bevy account stays stuck.