Question About Multisite & Subsites Creation

Hi there,

I’ve done some research and s2Member Pro would seem to be the perfect solution for a new client projetc I’ll be quoting on soon but I would need clarification on this one issue.

The use case is that my client would run a multisite network and new users would sign up for a monthly fee (from a sign up form on the main site or blog 1). There would be only one level of paid access and one price.

On sign up, what I hope s2Member can do is automatically create a new sub site on the network for the new subscribing user and grant that new user access to their subsite. These users would not create the new site themselves or have the ability to do so. Their paid subscription gives them access to that one site period.

All these sub sites would share the same configuration: 1 page, same theme and plugins installed and configured the same way. The new user should be able to log into their subsite and edit the content of special CPTs or create new custom posts which the theme would then agreggate in the one existing page. They would not be able to edit the page or create new ones. I’m not fixed on the exact details of how this would work right now as I neew to know if s2Member can create the new sub site on new user signup and assign that user a predefined role in the new site.

Thank you very much in advance for any help or info you can provide with this!

Hi Stéphane,

s2Member does not handle the creation of sub-sites, this is handled by WordPress itself.

While s2Member is compatible with WordPress Multisite Networking, the sites within a WordPress network are separate and not interconnected. That means you cannot share users, logins, or other data across the sites (including access control).

Please see the following from WordPress.org:

The sites in a multisite network are separate, very like the separate blogs at WordPress.com. They are not interconnected like things in other kinds of networks (even though plugins can create various kinds of interconnections between the sites). If you plan on creating sites that are strongly interconnected, that share data, or share users, then a multisite network might not be the best solution.

The s2Member Multisite feature allows you to offer the s2Member plugin to sub-sites, giving your sub-sites the ability to setup and use s2Member on their own. When you upgrade s2Member on the primary site, the s2Member plugin is automatically updated for all your sub-sites. However, things like access restrictions on one WP installation are not shared across WP installations (again, the WordPress Multisite feature itself isn’t designed to work like that).

There are plugins that allow you to get around these WordPress Multisite limitations, however they may or may not work with s2Member.

If you wanted to automatically create a sub-site upon the completion of a new s2Member membership on your primary site, you could certainly add that functionality by hooking into s2Member (you’d probably use one of the s2Member PayPal hooks).

Just to clarify: the s2Member Multisite integration extends usage of the s2Member plugin to your sub-sites, giving those sub-sites the opportunity to set up a membership site of their own. The s2Member Multisite integration does not handle the configuration or creation of your sub-sites in a multisite installation.