How to use our website
If you are having any difficulty using our site please read this page first - it may well answer your query. If not, contact Prospect's website team by email.
Contents
General information about our site, including our terms and conditions
Members-only and reps-only pages
Why do members have to register - why can't we just log in using our membership number?
Are the registration and login systems secure?
Problems registering to use the members-only area?
Already registered but forgotten your password?
Problems with the password reminder system?
Already registered and can remember your password but are unable to log in?
Downloading files from our library
Finding what you're looking for in the document library
General information about our site
Our site is optimised to work with a wide range of recent web browsers. Some pages may not display properly in older browsers, but we have tried to minimise any such problems. Please email our website team if you encounter any browser problems. Please read the full terms and conditions for use of our website.
Members-only and reps-only pages
Much of our content is restricted to Prospect members only. Members - you need to log in to get access to the restricted content. And you need to register before you can log in for the first time.
Why do members have to register - why can't we just log in using our membership number?
This is for your own security. Once you log into the members' area of the site you get access to your personal profile page - the key details from your membership record. We need to be sure that you are the only person who gets access to this information. Simply logging in with membership numbers wouldn't be secure, because they aren't necessarily private - they are printed on the Profile mailing label for example, so other members may have access to your number.
To register, you enter your surname, membership number and home postcode. Once we've confirmed your identity and your membership status, you set up a personal password which is associated with your membership number and your email address. This is used on future visits to the site. So nobody else could log in with your membership number, because they would also need to know your personal password.
Are the registration and login systems secure?
Yes. We use SSL technology certified by Thawte to ensure that all the details you submit are fully encrypted.
Logging in
We recommend that you log in as soon as you visit our site. Many of our pages contain both public and members-only content. If you visit a page before you log in then go back to it, your browser may have stored the public version in its memory or 'cache'. You can avoid this problem by logging in straight away.
If you're a rep, the website should recognise this when you log in, and will display the word 'representative' in the login status box. If you're a rep but you don't see this, your branch may not have notified our membership department that you're a rep - ask them to contact the membership department as soon as possible. Your rep status needs to be logged on your membership record - as well as controlling your level of access to the website, it ensures you receive key correspondence such as our reps' magazine, Report.
Connect (IT and telecoms) sector members only: you can log into the Prospect website as long as you've already registered on the Connect site. Use either your full membership number (including the 2 leading zeroes) or your home/work email address, and your Connect password.
Problems registering to use the members-only area?
Connect (IT and telecoms) sector members: you need to register on the Connect website rather than on the Prospect site. Within 3 hours, you will be able to log into the Prospect site.
ALAE members: you can't register to use the Prospect website yet. Our registration and login system is based on our membership records, and ALAE currently has a separate membership database. Please continue to use the ALAE site for now.
For all other Prospect members there are two stages to the registration ('first-time login') system.
Stage 1: enter your surname, membership number and home postcode. The website will look for a match for all three fields on our membership database.
If you get taken straight back to the registration screen, please check your browser preferences to make sure that cookies are enabled. Our site uses a temporary cookie which remembers your progress through the registration and login systems.
If you receive an error message saying your record could not be found, please try again, making sure you enter all the details correctly. The details you enter need to match those on your Prospect membership record.
- If you have a BFPO address, enter this in the 'postcode' box
- If you've moved house but not informed us, use your old postcode
- if you live overseas and don't have a postal or zip code, try leaving the postcode field blank.
If you still can't get beyond the first stage of the registration process and have checked that cookies are enabled in your browser preferences, please email webmaster@prospect.org.uk quoting your name, membership number and home postcode.
Stage 2: if the website successfully matches your details you will be taken to a second screen. This asks you to set up a website password (no more than 16 characters; it's not case-sensitive, ie it doesn't matter whether you use upper or lower case characters), plus a security question and answer.
Already registered but forgotten your password?
Our site has an automated reminder system. There are two password reminder links on the member login page, one for members outside the Connect (IT and telecoms) sector, the second for Connect sector members only. Make sure you select the correct link.
Members outside the Connect sector:
You'll be taken to a page where you enter your membership number and surname, or your registered email address. Then choose whether to be asked your security question on-screen or have your password emailed to you. If you have problems using the password reminder system, see below for further guidance.
Connect sector (IT and telecoms) members only:
Our link takes you to the password retrieval system on the Connect sector site.Problems with the Prospect password reminder system?
The password will be sent to whichever address you nominated as your 'preferred' address when you first registered, so make sure you're checking the correct mailbox. It should arrive within a few minutes. If it doesn't, we either have an incorrect email address for you, or our automated reminder has been blocked by a firewall or spam filter. This is outside our control, so please try again and use the security question option.
If the security Q&A system doesn't work, make sure you're submitting your answer in the exact format you used when you first registered, especially if the answer to your security question is a date. The website does not recognise the date itself, simply the string of characters. So if you originally recorded the answer as '28 February 2001', but enter 28/02/2001 in response to the reminder question, the website will not accept this. When you first register we encourage you to use the format dd/mm/yyyy, and we provide a note to this effect on the reminder page.
If you are absolutely sure that you're entering the correct answer to your security question but it's not being recognised, check that cookies are enabled in your browser preferences. When the system reveals your password on screen it will automatically log you into the site. It can't do this if you have cookies disabled (see below).
If you try all these options but still have problems, please email webmaster@prospect.org.uk quoting your name, membership number and home postcode.
Already registered and can remember your password but are unable to log in?
Check that cookies are enabled in your browser preferences. Our site uses a temporary cookie - this simply remembers that you've logged in, enabling you to move between members-only and public pages then back again without being challenged to log in for a second time. If cookies are disabled, you may get stuck in a loop where you constantly get taken back to the login screen.
Accessibility issues
Our site uses cascading style sheets. Users can override the style sheets by changing their browser preferences. All our text is scaleable, so users can increase or decrease the size to suit themselves. All our new and recent pages should comply with the Website Accessibility Initiative's Priority Level 1, and we are working towards Priority Level 2. But we are still working through our older content to correct a number of outstanding issues. Please email the website team if you have any accessibility problems with our site.
Downloading files from our document library
Our document library contains a range of files in PDF format. Some are restricted to members only, other to reps only.
You will need Adobe Reader software to view these files. Adobe Reader is free - it comes with most web browsers, and can also be downloaded from the Adobe website (www.adobe.co.uk/products/acrobat/readstep.html). If you click on a link to a PDF file in our document library, the document will open automatically in a new browser window. You can then save the file by clicking on the 'save a copy' button on the Adobe Reader toolbar. If you don't want to open the file you can save it to disk immediately, by right-clicking on its link in the document library and choosing the 'save' option.
Data protectionProspect's data protection notice sets out the terms on which we hold and process members' data.