The Membership Vault console, or MVault, is a vital tool in helping your members with their PBS Passport benefits. All station staff working with members should request access to the MVault console through their supervisors.
Below, you'll find advice on using the MVault console and common scenarios you may encounter.
Before You Scroll
The page below acts as a refresher on MVault functions and assumes you already have access to and familiarity with the MVault console.
Please see our introduction to the MVault console here before you refer to the information on this page.
The MVault Entry
Each MVault entry represents a member's PBS Passport benefit.
When a member first donates with your station, your station automatically creates a new entry for them in MVault that needs to be activated.
There are five important fields to check in MVault when working with members who report an issue with their Passport access.
1. Start & Expire Date
If the Start Date is in the future, the benefit has not begun and the member will not have access.
If the Expire Date has passed, the member will not have access - following a 90 day Grace Period.
3. Activation Date
If the Activation Date shows Not Yet Active, the member has not activated the benefit yet and will not be able to watch Passport videos.
2. Status
Status must be set to On or the member will not have access.
4. User Profile Email
The email address in the User Profile Email field is the account a member must sign in with to watch Passport videos.
If a member is not signed in with that email address, their benefit will not be recognized.
WHAT ARE THE OTHER ENTRY FIELDS FOR?
When working in MVault, other fields are available to edit by station staff. However, these fields do not affect a member's Passport access, and are reserved for the station to use for record-keeping and lookup purposes.
First and Last Name are for lookup and record-keeping purposes. This name appears to the member once - during Passport activation.
Email is for lookup and record-keeping purposes. It is not the email address members log in with to watch Passport videos. This email address is used for members to look up their own benefit info at pbs.org/passport/lookup
Phone is for record-keeping and in case you need to contact the member by phone.
Membership ID is a unique identifier for each member in MVault. It is only ever used by the station.
Offer is used by the station and is related to the station's original implementation of MVault.
Provisional is for stations to use to notate if a member is current or not with the station. It does not affect Passport access.
Expired, Disabled, and Missing MVault Entries
PBS Support will not be able to help members when their MVault entry is disabled, expired, or does not appear in MVault.
This typically happens when your station has encountered a problem with the member's donations or their donations have not qualified them for Passport. Since PBS Support does not have access to billing statements, these cases are referred to the station.
PBS Passport Activation Email Series
When a member is first added into MVault and does not immediately activate their Passport benefit, they'll receive an email from PBS with a link to activate at their convenience.
All unactivated entries in MVault have an option to send members an activation email instantly. Each email includes a link the member can click to immediately activate their benefit.
Activation code, token, or link?
You may hear any of the above terms when working with Passport activations. The code or token refers to the four words used by members to activate their benefit at pbs.org/passport
The PBS activation email includes a link where the code has already been included. When members follow this link, they will not see the prompt to enter the code.
A member did not receive an activation email or code.
You can give them their code from their MVault entry, which also has an option to send the member an email with a link to activate.
A member currently donates but is not in MVault.
We recommend speaking with your integrator if this is a reoccurring issue. For any one-off cases, you can manually create an entry for a member which they can immediately activate.
A member's activation code or link returns an error.
We have a list of error codes and the solutions on the Passport FAQ and Troubleshooting page.
A member donates and is active in MVault, but does not have Passport access.
This most often occurs when the member has multiple accounts with PBS and is signed into one they did not link to their benefit during activation. We have more advice on our Passport FAQ and Troubleshooting page.
Many members will want to change the email address they use for Passport at some point.
This can be done through the PBS Account's profile options - however, it requires members to sign into their current account, which isn't always possible. And often, members will create a new account with PBS using their new email address, which prevents them from updating the old account now that the new email address is in-use.
We have found that the easiest option is for staff to use the Passport Reset button in MVault, delinking the old account from a member's benefit and freeing up the benefit for a new account. This can be done anytime a member has another account they wish to use with Passport.
Follow the steps below to reset a member's Passport benefit.
The PBS Passport One Sheet can be used to troubleshoot questions and issues you have from your members. It focuses on the most common Passport questions and issues.