How do existing members start paying with Pay

Hi people
We have only just started accepting Paypal payments for our membership and therefore the majority of our members have paid offline. So I have two issues:

1. New members – At the moment my Treasurer notifies me of a new member payment (offline) and I add them manually. I would like to just send them a link to a “special” registration page that is not part of the Paypal system but still allows them to fill in all their details themselves – like choosing their username. At the moment because I am adding them I have to chose their username – which I think disenfranchises them.

2. All of our memberships are due at the same time so notifying our members of renewal is easy BUT how can they start using Paypal as a payment system without becoming a new member again?

Cheers
Soosie

Hi Soosie,

1. New members – At the moment my Treasurer notifies me of a new member payment (offline) and I add them manually. I would like to just send them a link to a “special” registration page that is not part of the Paypal system but still allows them to fill in all their details themselves – like choosing their username. At the moment because I am adding them I have to chose their username – which I think disenfranchises them.

There are two ways you can do this:

1) Generate and send them a special Registration Access Link: Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Pro Forms -› Registration Access Links

2) Create your own registration page using a Free Registration Pro-Form (Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Pro Forms -› Free Registration Forms), which would be configured with the appropriate level and/or Custom Capabilities, and then place that Pro-Form on a WordPress Page. Then, you can send an email to people with a link to that registration page where they can fill out their details, including their username (you may also want to enable Custom Passwords in Dashboard -› s2Member® -› General Options -› Registration/Profile Fields).

2. All of our memberships are due at the same time so notifying our members of renewal is easy BUT how can they start using Paypal as a payment system without becoming a new member again?

For this you would simply supply the existing member with a link to an “Upgrade” page, which would contain a Billing Modification form (Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Pro Forms -› Billing Modification Forms). When an existing user completes a payment through the billing modification form, their account will automatically be upgraded to the appropriate level and linked with the PayPal subscription.

Note that for these upgrades to work, the existing member must be logged in. If they try to use the upgrade form without being logged in, s2Member won’t be able to identify their existing account.

Hi Raam
Thanks for that. Sorry but I am still a bit fuzzy on:

Point 1
Generate and send them a special Registration Access Link: Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Pro Forms -› Registration Access Links

Don’t they have to have a Paypal ID for this?

So I have create the other form:
Create your own registration page using a Free Registration Pro-Form (Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Pro Forms -› Free Registration Forms),

But how do I “hide” it from everyone else if I publish it? – sorry this is probably a really basic question.

Point 2
The members aren’t upgrading they are already say Level3 they just haven’t paid online before. Will that matter? And same as above I would like to hide it after publishing.

Again sorry to be so dense.
Soosie :)

Don’t they have to have a Paypal ID for this?

No. If they didn’t pay via PayPal you can simply make up any unique number and put it in the Paid Subscr. ID field. The Registration Access Link simply gives the user access to your registration form (which would not be publicly available if you disabled Open Registration in Dashboard -› s2Member® -› General Options -› Open Registration) and automatically adds them to the Level you selected and the Custom Capabilities you entered when generating the access link. You would need to generate a separate access link for each person — you cannot bulk-mail one access link to several people.

But how do I “hide” it from everyone else if I publish it? – sorry this is probably a really basic question.

WordPress Pages are not like WordPress Posts, in that they don’t show up in your main blog feed on your home page (or any RSS feeds). The only way someone will know a new page was published is if your WordPress Theme automatically lists all published Pages. Older themes that don’t support the WordPress Menus system (Dashboard -> Appearance -> Menus) will automatically list all your published pages. However, if you have a theme that has been coded to support the Menus system, then you can create your own Menus and simply exclude pages you don’t want people to know about.

It’s true that once someone has the link to a page, they’ll be able to come back to it whenever they want, but general visitors won’t find it (unless they intentionally try guessing the URL).

There are other ways of protecting pages, but they would require custom programming. For example, you could require that accessing your registration page requires entering a special access code. Then you could email the link to the page, along with the access code, to specific people. This would be outside of s2Member’s functionality, but I’m mentioning it because it’s a possible solution for what you’re trying to do.

Hi Raam
Thanks again for being so patient but what about Point 2 – the Upgrade Page:

Point 2
The members aren’t upgrading they are already say Level3 they just haven’t paid online before. Will that matter?

Will it make any difference or will they just continue at that same Level?
Cheers Soosie

Hi Soosie,

That should not matter. If someone uses a Level 3 upgrade form when they’re already a Level 3 member, they will simply remain a Level 3 member and have the new subscription attached to their account.

Thank you :)

PS I found a neat little plug in to exclude pages.
Cheers
Soosie

Glad I could help! :)