Users can choose which chapters to join righ on the sign-up form, instead of creating an account first and finding chapters afterward. This is off by default, and an admin can turn it on for their community at any time.
About chapter selection at sign up
When this is turned on, a chapter picker appears on the sign-up form. Users can select one or more chapters to join as part of creating their account, instead of joining chapters separately afterward.
Only chapters that anyone could join on their own appear in the picker. This is by design: picking a chapter on the sign-up form joins it right away, so the picker only offers chapters a user could have joined without needing approval.
Chapters that appear in the picker:
- Public chapters — open for anyone to join.
- Active chapters — not hidden, deleted, or used for testing.
Chapters that do not appear in the picker:
- Private or invite-only chapters.
- Chapters that require an application to be approved.
If a user doesn't see a chapter they expected, it likely falls into one of the categories above. The sign-up form lets users know they can join more chapters anytime after their account is created, so nothing is lost — chapters that don't appear in the picker are still joinable afterward, through the normal process.
Prerequisites
You'll need admin access to your community dashboard to change this setting.
Turn on chapter selection for your community
This setting takes effect immediately for all new sign-ups once saved.
- Settings > General > User Accounts in your community dashboard.
- Set Let users pick chapters on the signup form to Yes.
- Leave Minimum chapters to pick on signup at 0, unless you have a specific reason to change it.
- Set Maximum chapters to pick on signup to the number of chapters a user can join at once during sign up. This can't be set higher than 25.
- Save your changes.
We recommend keeping the minimum at 0. Requiring users to pick a chapter to finish signing up would tie account creation to joining a chapter, which isn't supported.
Check the sign-up page
After turning on the setting, confirm it's working as expected:
- Open your community's sign-up page in a private or incognito browser window.
- Look for the chapter picker below the Time zone field.
- Confirm that the chapters you expect to see are listed, and that any chapters you don't want visible are not there.
What users see
Users see a dropdown list with a checkbox next to each available chapter, and a small tag appears for each chapter they select. If your community has more than eight chapters available, a search box appears at the top of the list so users can filter by typing.
This works the same way for users who sign in through your organization's single sign-on. They land on the same sign-up form, chapter picker included.
If your community has welcome emails turned on, each chapter a user picks sends its own welcome email. A user who picks five chapters gets five separate emails, arriving shortly after their account confirmation email — not all at once.
If the picker doesn't look right
The picker doesn't appear after you turn on the setting
Settings can take a few minutes to update. Try a hard refresh of the page. If it still doesn't appear after a few minutes, contact Bevy Support.
The picker appears but is empty
This means all of your community's chapters are private, invite-only, or require an application. This is expected behavior — review the list of which chapters appear above and decide whether any should be opened up.
A chapter you expected is missing
Check that chapter's settings against the list of chapters that don't appear in the picker. It's almost always because the chapter is private or requires approval to join.