CCBill integration

Hello,

I have been using “Your Members” plugin for some time to run my membership site. But the plugin stopped working recently and the guys simply aren’t able to repair it for me. So to anyone interested I strongly recommend to stay away from Your Membes plugin!
So I have decided to search for its replacement, a plugin that wouldn’t be too different from Your Members so that the migration wouldn’t be too difficult. My site is setup up as a blog and the paid content is simply hidden using private tags so that only paid members could see it. So far I have seen that s2member could do that as well, right? Also, what are the options for importing my current members into s2member?
My question is, does your plugin support CCBill payment gateway? It was confusing for me not to find it in the list among the features and then read in the forum that it actually is supported… Would it work seamlessly – support all the features of s2member, etc.?

Also I am using http://sliiing.com for affiliate management and it has some other payment options as well, do you think that the s2member would allow me to use these payment options as well?

I would appreciate if you could answer my questions and be willing to work closely with me to implement your plugin on my site.

All the best from Michaela

Thank you for your inquiry.

I have been using “Your Members” plugin for some time to run my membership site. But the plugin stopped working recently and the guys simply aren’t able to repair it for me. So to anyone interested I strongly recommend to stay away from Your Membes plugin!

I’m very sorry to hear that. I’m not familiar with the Your Members plugin myself.

So I have decided to search for its replacement, a plugin that wouldn’t be too different from Your Members so that the migration wouldn’t be too difficult. My site is setup up as a blog and the paid content is simply hidden using private tags so that only paid members could see it. So far I have seen that s2member could do that as well, right? Also, what are the options for importing my current members into s2member?

s2Member does fully support restricting data by tags with Membership Levels. You can find this in your Dashboard here:
Dashboard -› s2Member® -› Restriction Options -› Tag Access Restrictions

As for importing your current members to s2Member, this really depends on how your members are set up. I’m unfamiliar with the way Your Members handles it’s Users, but if it adds Users to the default WordPress Users table, it shouldn’t be too difficult to move your current Users over to s2Member.

Are you currently signing up Users with a Subscription with Your Members? If so, what Payment Gateway is this set up with?

If you are not using a subscription, it makes this simpler. You should be able to simply Mass-Update your Users and make them s2Member Level 1 (or whatever level you’d like), and restrict your Tags based on this change. Mass update can be done directly through the WordPress Users panel in the Dashboard, or by Exporting your Users, and then Importing them with the changes made massively through the Exported CSV File.

See: Pre Sale FAQs » Can I import Users/Members from software I was using previously?
See Also: Knowledge Base » Import (or Mass Update) Users

My question is, does your plugin support CCBill payment gateway? It was confusing for me not to find it in the list among the features and then read in the forum that it actually is supported… Would it work seamlessly – support all the features of s2member, etc.?

s2Member Pro offers full support of CCBill through Payment Buttons (not Pro Forms). s2Member only supports a handful of payment gateways to ensure that all of it’s integrations are kept-up-with and seamless. For a full list of payment gateways that s2Member supports, see the following:

Pre Sale FAQs » What payment gateways does s2Member® support?

Also I am using http://sliiing.com for affiliate management and it has some other payment options as well, do you think that the s2member would allow me to use these payment options as well?

I am unfamiliar with Sliiing, but at first glance it appears that you could use this via s2Member’s API Notifications, as you might with iDevAffiliate and the like. s2Member allows you to open specific URLs with replacement values here, and you could possibly send the data Sliiing needs via these API Notifications to achieve what you need.

For advanced info on API Notifications, see the following:

Knowledge Base » Building An API Notification Handler

Let us know if you have any further questions/concerns. :-)

Hello Bruce,

thank you very much for your answer. I had a closer look at the links you gave me and I would like to ask you a few follow up questions. Regarding your questions your post:
“Are you currently signing up Users with a Subscription with Your Members? If so, what Payment Gateway is this set up with?”
I am using a sign up form for a subscription via Your Members plugin. This form then leads to CCBill for payment… I will install s2member free version to test the import options..

“s2Member Pro offers full support of CCBill through Payment Buttons (not Pro Forms)” – what does Pro Forms mean?

Regarding Sliiing, it not only manages my affiliates, it also has bunch of other payment options – http://sliiing.com/solutions.html and I would like to know whether you think that these might be integrated with s2member like a back up option if ccbill fails to bill the user? I would probably ask Marco from Sliiing to program the script for me…

I have read about the “Specific page/post access restriction” and I would like to know whether this works even with CCBill payment gateway? Can I sell specific posts? Would it work also only with section of the posts? For example I have a post, where text is available for free but the video is hidden using private tags and would be revealed either to members only or only upon payment. Can I use the specific post access restriction in this setup?

I have seen somebody commenting about s2member blocking video content and recommending only Amazon s3. I would like to offer videos for download to my members. They can either download the videos or stream them in their browser. Would s2member allow this?

My last questions is about Cloudflare and cache plugins – can I use them in any way so that they wouldn’t cause conflict with s2member?

Thank you very much for your answer, I am looking forward to future cooperation!

have a nice day,
Misha

Thanks for the follow-up.

“Are you currently signing up Users with a Subscription with Your Members? If so, what Payment Gateway is this set up with?”
I am using a sign up form for a subscription via Your Members plugin. This form then leads to CCBill for payment… I will install s2member free version to test the import options..

The s2Member Framework (or the “free version”) does not support CCBill, or Import/Export or Users. These are features of s2Member Pro.

Features

Regarding Sliiing, it not only manages my affiliates, it also has bunch of other payment options – http://sliiing.com/solutions.html and I would like to know whether you think that these might be integrated with s2member like a back up option if ccbill fails to bill the user? I would probably ask Marco from Sliiing to program the script for me…

I’m unsure how Sliiing could back you up in this way, but I suppose if it is possible, you could possible manage this.

See: Pre Sale FAQs » Can I add support for other payment gateways?
See Also: Knowledge Base » Building An API Notification Handler

I have read about the “Specific page/post access restriction” and I would like to know whether this works even with CCBill payment gateway? Can I sell specific posts? Would it work also only with section of the posts? For example I have a post, where text is available for free but the video is hidden using private tags and would be revealed either to members only or only upon payment. Can I use the specific post access restriction in this setup?

Yes, CCBill does fully support Specific Post/Page Access. However, in the case that you’d like Users to be able to only see part of a Post, and pay to see the rest, I’d recommend using Custom Capabilities. You can restrict content with Custom Capabilities via Shortcode Conditionals with s2Member, without blocking access to a Post entirely (which is what s2Member does).

See: Dashboard -› s2Member® -› API / Scripting -› Custom Capabilities
See Also: Knowledge Base » Simple Shortcode Conditionals

I have seen somebody commenting about s2member blocking video content and recommending only Amazon s3. I would like to offer videos for download to my members. They can either download the videos or stream them in their browser. Would s2member allow this?

Yes, s2Member provides both file downloads, and streaming through JWPlayer. You can find the info on this in your Dashboard here:

Dashboard -› s2Member® -› Download Options

My last questions is about Cloudflare and cache plugins – can I use them in any way so that they wouldn’t cause conflict with s2member?

I’ve never heard of any problems with s2Member and Cloudflare. However, I do know that Object caching with caching plugins such as W3 Total Cache can cause problems with s2Member. We recommend Quick Cache, which was made by WebSharks, Inc. (the creators of s2Member), and offers full compatibility with s2Member.

See: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/quick-cache/

Hello Bruce,

thank you very much for your answers, things seem much clearer to me now. I am still a bit unsure about the additional payment options though. From your answer it looks like it might be possible if I would hire a developer, right? The documentation you have now would be sufficient for the developer to program the additional payment options for me?

Basically I would need answers to these two questions:
– Can I also use my own payment solutions or will I be allowed to use the built-in s2member payment solutions only?
– Will it be possible for a tier party (Sliiing) to add active members to the s2member database?

Thanks a lot!

– Can I also use my own payment solutions or will I be allowed to use the built-in s2member payment solutions only?

s2Member provides the tools to integrate another payment gateway with PayPal IPN w/ Proxy Key. This allows you to process an IPN response from an alternative Payment Gateway, and send data to s2Member for s2Member to use the same way it would as if it had gotten the information from PayPal. The only difference here is that s2Member validates the information with PayPal normally. If you pass your special Proxy Key, s2Member will validate the information it receives with this Proxy Key, and skip the normal validation.

Find info on this here: Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Options -› PayPal® IPN Integration -› IPN w/ Proxy Key

– Will it be possible for a tier party (Sliiing) to add active members to the s2member database?

It is possible to add/remove/modify members remotely with s2Member. You can find information on doing so here:

Dashboard -› s2Member® -› API / Scripting -› Remote Operations API