A candidate petitions, gets balloted on, begins his degrees — and then life intervenes. He misses a night. Then another. The Secretary means to follow up, but Stated Meeting preparations take over, and by the time anyone thinks of him again, months have passed. There is no list anyone can glance at to see who is still waiting, what degree each man is on, or when he last appeared. The information exists somewhere — in a notebook, an old email, a spreadsheet the previous Secretary started — but none of it is in one place, and nothing surfaces a name unless someone already knows to look for it.

New members present a different version of the same problem. A man is raised, his name should move from candidate to member, but the update is manual. If it does not happen promptly, his record drifts. On the other side, a member demits or falls off the roster, but his name lingers because removing it is also a manual step that depends on someone remembering. The roll starts to reflect a lodge that no longer quite exists. This guide explains what Daviah does address here — and, plainly, what it does not yet solve.

Where candidate records actually live in Daviah

Daviah is built for six kinds of organisations, and lodges are one of them. Because of that, the office gives lodges screens that no other kind of organisation sees — and those screens include degree records. Each candidate's progression through the degrees is kept as part of his record in the office, not in a separate spreadsheet or a binder that travels home with the Secretary.

That means anyone with the right role in the office can open a member record and see where that man stands in his degree work, as a dated entry rather than a note in the margin of something. The record sits alongside his contact details, his dues history and any other information the lodge keeps, all in one place.

A single record for each person, with a history behind it

The office keeps a record for every person in the lodge — candidates and members alike — with a dated history of every change made to that record. When a candidate's degree status is updated, the change is written to his record with a date. When a new member is added, his entry exists in the office from that point forward. The Secretary, the Administrator, or anyone else with access does not need to cross-reference a spreadsheet against an email thread to find out what the current position is.

Because the history is dated, the record itself shows when something was last touched. That is not the same as a notification or an alert — Daviah does not automatically flag a candidate who has not progressed in some number of months, and it does not send a reminder to a mentor. But a Secretary who opens the office and works through the candidate list will find the information in one place rather than assembled from several.

What the officer rollover does for the membership list

Each lodge year, the office supports a start-of-year officer rollover — a step built specifically for lodges, not available to other kinds of organisations on the platform. This gives the Secretary a defined moment to review what is current: which officers are serving, and by extension which records need attention as the year turns.

This is not an automated roster update. Daviah does not detect when a member has demitted and remove him from the roll on its own. Updating a member's status when he demits is still a manual step. If that step is not taken, his record will remain as it is. The office makes it easier to find and update records, but it does not close that gap on its own.

Bringing in records that already exist elsewhere

If the lodge already keeps member information in a spreadsheet, that data can be brought into the office from a CSV file. Column matching is handled automatically, and any problems or duplicates are shown before anything is saved. This means a lodge does not have to choose between its existing records and the office — it can move what it has into the system and carry on from there.

Once the records are in the office, they are held separately from every other organisation on the platform. Another lodge cannot see your membership list, and your lodge cannot see theirs.

What Daviah does not yet do here

Some parts of the pain this guide starts from are not answered by anything in the office today, and it would be wrong to imply otherwise.

Mentor assignments are not tracked. There is no field in a candidate record for who his mentor is, and no way to assign or record that relationship in the office. If mentor tracking matters to the lodge, it will need to be managed outside the system.

Automated alerts and notifications are not part of the degree record. Daviah does not watch for a candidate who has not progressed in a given period and send a message to the Secretary. Surfacing stalled candidates still requires the Secretary to look at the records and notice.

Demitted members do not leave the roster automatically. When a member demits, someone in the office needs to update his record. The system records the change once it is made, but it does not initiate the update, detect the demit from an external source, or prompt anyone that the change is overdue. This is a real gap, and this guide does not pretend otherwise.

Reports and exports for the full picture

The office produces membership reports counted live from the records, and members can be exported to CSV. If a District officer or a Grand Lodge return requires a count of candidates at each degree, the Secretary can draw on the records in the office rather than tallying from a spreadsheet. The numbers reflect what is actually in the system at the time the report is run.

Questions

Does Daviah track who a candidate's mentor is?

No. There is no field in the office for mentor assignments, and no way to record or display that relationship. If the lodge needs to track mentors, that will need to be done outside the system.

Will the office tell me when a candidate has not progressed for several months?

No. Daviah does not send automated alerts or notifications when a candidate's degree record has not been updated. The Secretary can review the records and see when each entry was last changed, but nothing proactively flags a stalled candidate.

When a member demits, is he removed from the roster automatically?

No. Updating a member's status on demit is a manual step. The office keeps a dated history once a change is made, but it does not detect or initiate the update on its own.

Are degree records a standard feature or something lodges pay extra for?

Degree records are part of the lodge-specific screens included on the Website and Members plan. They are not available on the free plan or the Website plan, and they are not shown to other kinds of organisations on the platform.

Can more than one officer access the candidate records?

Yes. An administrator can invite other people into the office, each with their own login and their own role. The records are not tied to a single person's account.

What happens to our records if we bring in a new Secretary who has no handover from the previous one?

Because each member record holds a dated history of changes, and degree records are kept in the office rather than in a personal file, a new Secretary can open the system and see what is there. The records do not belong to the previous Secretary's account — they belong to the lodge. The guide on officer handover covers this in more detail.

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