Site with free, APPROVED, membership

I love this plugin – you guys were very thorough in the documentation and the flexibility is awesome. I have one question – I am launching a site that is free for people to use, but they need to be approved before they are able to view any of the features. It’s an exclusive network for clinicians and medical professionals and we are being very picky about who can join.

With that being said, is this doable with S2Members? I have it set up and have played with several of the options, but im not sure how to approve the members before they are automatically given access.

We want it to work like this:

visitor goes to site, see’s the membership sign up page with the benefits of the network ect.
visitor clicks to register and fills out a registration form
visitor gets email telling them we are reviewing their registration form and once approved they will receive login instructions via email
if approved, visitor gets email with login instructions giving them access.

wp-members plugin will do this, but wp-members doesnt lock down the site – so the site is completely open and viewable – people just cant participate (from what i could gather- i tried it).

Is a free membership with approval possible with this plugin?

thanks for any help anyone can give me!

Hello Cameron,

Currently this is not possible with s2Member. However there is a workaround.

You can have the members register for free at level 0, that would be their form per say.

Then if you approve the user then you can just upgrade the user to level 1.

And you can just protect all your content to level 1 so that your users need to be “approved” before they can access it.

– Eduan

Ahhhhh that makes sense. Awesome Eduan – thanks so much for your help. Cheers

No problem, glad I was able to help. :)

Has there been any movement in regards to upgrades on s2member on this topic?

No Jade, we haven’t had anything related to this yet.

– Eduan

Hi Eduan,
Thanks for the reply. I am using the “work around” but it’s not ideal because it means anyone who finds the page can join, which is not what I want. All I want is to be able to “approve” the joining member before it sends them a password. Perhaps I am missing something, as I am very new to this :)
-Jade

Yeah I’m afraid that’s not possible without another plugin that accomplishes just this, and doesn’t cause conflicts with s2Member somewhere.

So you don’t want users to register at all if they’re not approved? Because using this method you can keep them away from the content until you approve them…

– Eduan

Thats right Eduan,
Its a site for family members only to join, by invite only.
the solution I have for now is that there is no “registration” page and I am creating a user with password and that gets emailed out. This is ok for now but when I encounter the situation where I don’t have a persons email address I am stuck.
Like I said, the “workaround” does work but in my opinion it’s not ideal :)
-Jade

Ah I see, well if it’s invite only there’s a better work-around.

You protect 1 page with a specific post/page access restriction. Then if you want to invite somebody you just email them a link you generate under Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Pro Forms -› Specific Post/Page Access Links, which allows them to access that page momentarily, without having to pay for it.

And inside that page you put a PayPal button.

So basically you’re approving/inviting them by sending the link and they’re paying for the access (already approved) in that page.

– Eduan

Hi Eduan,
I really appreciate the help.
I think I understand what you mean but would that mean that they would have to pay something via paypal?
As its not intended as a revenue source, just a site for my extended family members.
once again, thanks for your time and effort :)
-Jade

Indeed. With the free version they would have to pay for the membership, even if it’s only 1 cent.

With the pro version you can offer a pro-form which gives them free access to whatever level though…

– Eduan