Questions and straight answers
Everything people ask before trusting us with the alumni list.
31 questions in six groups. Where the answer is a limitation, it is written as one, with the release that plans to fix it where there is one.
1 of 6 · Buying and the licence
What $49 buys, and what happens if you stop.
What does $49 a year include?
Every feature, unlimited members and admins, one live site, every new version released during your licence year, and email support from the people who build it. There are no tiers, no add-ons and no per-member charge.
Is there a free trial?
There is a live demo instead: a working alumni site with invented data, where you can sign in as an admin or a member and click anything. There is no download before buying, and every purchase has a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Can I buy it today?
Not yet. Checkout is not open, and we will not take a payment through a workaround. The pricing page can send you one email on the day it opens, and nothing else.
What happens if we stop paying?
Your public alumni site carries on exactly as it is, and keeps its place in search. After 21 days of grace, signing in pauses for admins and members until you renew. Nothing is deleted, and your database is never touched. Renewing turns sign-in back on within the hour.
Can we get our money back?
Yes, within 14 days of any payment, for any reason. Ask through the contact form with the email address you paid with. The terms of sale set out the details.
Is AlumDeck sold in our country?
AlumDeck is sold worldwide. The price is in US dollars; if tax applies where you are, it is shown on the checkout page before you pay, and your bank converts the currency.
Can one licence run several sites?
No. One licence covers one live site for one institution or association, plus one private staging copy of it. A second association, or a client site, needs its own licence.
- $49a year, one licence, every feature
- 14days to ask for your money back
- 21days of grace before sign-in pauses
- 1working day to a reply from a person
2 of 6 · Hosting and installing
Your hosting, and getting it on there.
What hosting do we need, and what will it cost?
Ordinary cPanel hosting with PHP 8.3 or newer and MySQL or MariaDB: very likely the plan your institution already pays for. Check two details first: the host must allow outbound HTTPS, and backups need PHP's exec(). Photo galleries are what grow, so budget disk for the archive rather than the software. The full requirements are on the download page.
Do we need a developer?
Not to install it or brand it: the installer is six screens in a browser, and the logo, colours, menus and homepage are settings. Someone comfortable in cPanel is useful for three jobs: a three-line edit to index.php on most hosts, the cron line, and applying updates.
How long does the install take?
About fifteen minutes on a healthy host, most of it uploading. The install guide has every step.
Can we test it before going live?
Yes. Install on the address you will use, with the sample content ticked, and start again from a clean database when you are ready; the key accepts a reinstall on the same address any number of times. The licence also allows one private staging copy, made by copying the live site's files and database.
Can we move to another host later?
Yes. Copy the files, export and import the database, and point the domain at the new server. If you run the installer again on a new address, ask us to release the old one, or wait: an address that has not checked in for 30 days is released automatically.
3 of 6 · Running it
Keeping it running without a developer on call.
Who is responsible for backups?
AlumDeck makes them: every night at 02:30 it writes your database, uploads and private documents to a folder outside the web root, with a checksum for each file, and every Sunday it test-restores the newest one into a scratch database. Fetching a backup and restoring it are manual jobs; the docs have the steps.
How do updates work?
New versions are downloads you apply while your licence is current. Nothing is pushed to your server. Applying one is a folder swap, plus one terminal command when a release changes the database.
A one-click updater is planned for release 1.1.
Is there anything we must set up by hand?
Two things. One cron line, added in cPanel, without which eleven scheduled jobs never run. And mail, on the Settings, Mail screen, because the shipped setting writes email to a log file. Cloudflare bot protection for your forms is optional and goes in .env.
Can the whole committee share the admin work?
Yes, with no limit on admins. Give each person only the areas they need, out of 13, and keep full administrators to two or three. Admin two-factor sign-in, session time-outs and an audit log are built in.
Can we bring in our existing member list?
Yes, from a CSV: map the columns, check a dry run, then commit. The email address is the match key.
Imported members are not emailed an invitation yet; they get in with forgotten password. Bulk invitations are planned for release 1.1.
4 of 6 · Your data and privacy
Who owns the list, and what leaves the server.
Who owns the alumni data, and can you see it?
You own it, and we cannot see it. The records live in your database on your hosting. We have no copy, no access and no dashboard of your members. The other side of that: if you lose the database, we cannot recover it, because we never had it.
What leaves our server?
No alumni data reaches us. A running install makes these outside calls: the licence check (your key and hostname, about twice a day); Cloudflare's bot check, if you set it up, which receives the visitor's IP address on your forms; one check of your own address during install; and whatever you switch on yourself, such as analytics tags or YouTube albums. Member pictures without a photo are drawn on your own server.
Is AlumDeck GDPR compliant?
No software can make an institution compliant, and we will not claim it. What AlumDeck gives you: data on your own server, four separate recorded consents at joining, ten privacy switches per member, a JSON export a member can download, deletion requests an admin acts on, and a cookie banner with equal Accept and Decline buttons. You remain the data controller for your members.
Can members control what classmates see?
Yes. Ten fields, including email, phone, city, employer, social links and photo, are each visible to signed-in members or hidden, and email and phone start hidden. Members also choose whether to be in the directory at all.
One limit: a hidden city, profession or employer still matches a directory search, even though it is not shown on the card.
Can a member leave, or take a copy of their data?
A member can download a JSON file of their record and ask for their account to be closed. An admin then chooses a reversible deactivation or an anonymisation that blanks their personal details and keeps their forum posts as "Former member".
5 of 6 · Features and limits
What it does not do, written down first.
Can it take donations or fees online?
No. AlumDeck records gifts that reach you by bank transfer, cheque, cash or a payment page you already use, shows appeal totals and emails numbered receipts. It has no payment gateway and no membership dues. Online giving is planned for release 1.2, and dues and paid events for release 1.3.
Is the interface available in other languages?
Not yet. The interface is English only, month names print in English, and there is no right-to-left support. Your timezone, date layout, clock and currency are settings. A multi-language interface is planned for release 2.0.
Is there a mobile app?
Members can install the site on a phone home screen, where it opens like an app; you switch that on in Branding. The public site, member area and admin all work at phone width.
There is no native app in the app stores and no push notifications; push to the installed site is planned for release 1.4.
Can it connect to our CRM or other tools?
Through CSV: exports of members, gifts, attendance and survey results, and imports of members and old registers. There is also an RSS feed of news.
There is no API, no webhooks and no direct CRM sync. An API and webhooks are planned for release 2.0.
How far can we change how it looks?
Logo, badge, favicon, four colours, menus, footer columns and seven homepage block types, all in the admin, with nothing to rebuild. Beyond that you have readable source, so a Laravel developer can change anything, with the usual warning that your changes are yours to carry through updates.
6 of 6 · Support and the company
Who answers, and what if we disappear.
What does support cover?
Installation on a host that meets the requirements, bugs, how a feature is meant to work, applying updates, and licence or download problems, by email, while your licence is current. The support page draws the line in detail.
Is there phone support?
No. Email only, through the contact form, with a reply within one working day, Monday to Friday. A written thread with your error message in it solves problems faster than a call.
Who makes AlumDeck?
Cerevonix FZ-LLC, a small software company in the United Arab Emirates. The people who build it answer the support email. More about us.
What happens if AlumDeck stops trading?
Your site keeps running. The code and database are already on your server, and the licence check fails open, so if our server never answers again, nothing locks. Updates and support would stop, and keeping it current would fall to you or a developer you hire.
Open the live demo. It puts itself back every night.
Sign in as an admin or a member and click anything. Nothing you do can break it.
Sign-in details on the demo pageResets every night