Editorial

Address by Hon. Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka

Techno Sri Lanka 2015 ever so popular

Dear Member,

As per by-laws, if a member does not pay membership fees prior to the 1st of December of the current year, that membership will be removed automatically from the system at 00:00 hrs on Dec 1st.

As many of you may have experienced, we get an email in December of the previous year requesting us to pay the dues on or before January 1st of the following year. If we don't pay on time, while the membership is active, we get reminder emails as well over the next 10 months including a red noticed email in November of the current year. All this is automated as per prevailing by laws which you can read from our website.

December 1st is approaching fast and please pay your dues ahead of time and make life easier for you and our hard working IESL Cashiers who have to take the brunt of a last minute payment tsunami!

We have provided an online payment facility to all of you since the system went live. The process was articulated many a times over the last two years. Repeat is below. Please use it if you have a debit/credit card ( it must current and setup with your Bank to be used for online payments of any nature - check with your bank)

Are you using IESL Online Membership Payment facility?

Since its introduction in June 2013, in 2014 around 20% of payments were made through IESL secure online payment gateway. You need a debit card or a credit card. It takes less than 5 minutes and you can do it from anywhere in the world any time. Steps:   Login to MyIESL at www.iesl.lk. Go to your Member Profile ( if not taken automatically) by clicking Member Self Service link on MyIESL page. If your have dues, system will indicate.     Read payment instructions and click Membership Fees and you will be taken to the payment gateway.     Enter the requested information ( membership number, etc as per the exact format ) and select the correct membership level to transfer the right amount to the next step.     Next step will be to enter your credit/debit card information ( number, exp. date, etc) including the 3 digit security code on the back of your card. Also enter the alpha numeric code shown on the screen ( this is a security feature to ensure only a human who could see and understand is allowed to operate). Submit the data you entered. If you entered inaccurate data, system will keep requesting you to do the right thing without proceeding to the next stage     In the case of some banks ( which issue cards) you will be prompted to enter another security code (OPT code) normally sent to your mobile phone as an SMS or to your email ( what ever the method you have setup with your bank if this extra security step is activated). Enter the code to go to next step. You will see a message asking you to wait while input is being processed. In less than 1minute ( depending on your connection speed) you will receive an on screen success message and you can do a screen print or take a screen shot and save as a JPG file. (See the screen shot example)             Within 24 hours you will receive an email with an official receipt from IESL, generated through the membership management system ( the delay is due to prevailing manual checks IESL cashiers have to do with Sri Lankan banks online system before crediting your account in the membership management system). If you don't get this email confirmation, please send the file you saved in step 4/5 to IESL Cashier ( praneeth@iesl.lk)     How IESL Membership Management System Work

In 2014 and 2015 ( up to now), each year little more than Rs 10 million membership dues have been paid using our online feature. We roughly collect about Rs 45-50 million in membership dues / year. So, approximately 20% have opted for online payment using a debit/credit card. What is interesting is another 25% members have used debit/credit cards to pay membership dues! They come to IESL to pay!! They too can, use the online facility. If you are not doing for the fear of hacking, please be assured that should be the last reason to worry. If we can increase online payment by another 25% then more than 1/3 of the burden on your part and cashiers part is removed.

Those who don't use debit/credit cards, please consider getting at least a debit card so you don't have to worry about travel, anxiety of not paying, last minute payments, etc.

In Sri Lanka the Central Bank has still not authorized the use of internationally recognized de facto fund transferring tools such as Pay Pal that will further streamline the process. We are in the look out for that day. Currently IESL uses the Sampath Bank gateway to pay online using most debit/credit cards ( even from other banks in the world).

Another big issue is our lack of concern or discipline when registering for free or fee based events. The reason for registering online is to give data to plan the event. IESL spends lots of resources even when the event is free to get the event organized. If it's a fee based one, don't just decide to drop off without any indication because your account in the membership management system will show a balance as it should be. IESL Council took a decisions to charge such fees from those who don't personally take steps to contact the accounting department / CPDC well ahead of the scheduled dates to withdraw the registration. Please act professionally and accept your responsibility to register online but also pay online or otherwise, and, don't keep the payments owe dangling, because in the future it will not go away.

Arjuna Manamperi
MyIESL Profile: http://www.iesl.lk/Sys/PublicProfile/9957175

Follow IESL Mechanical Engineering Sectional Committee on Twitter: @IESL_MESC

(Author of this article is the first ICT Committee Chair at IESL and was the architect of IESL ICT-fication in 2012/2013)