Testing expiration functionality

Hi

I have a few questions on s2member. This is my first time using it and we are going live in a week, so it is crucial that things function smoothly. We are using Paypal. Thanks for assisting with the following questions:

1) In general, I am wondering how to test s2member expiration functionality – do I set a membership option to 1 day and test that way?

2) For one time payment, how does s2member track expiration?

3) For the multiple option Paypal dropdown menu, I did sandbox testing using instructions at:

http://www.primothemes.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=17088

and it seems to work fine. Are there any gotchas to be aware of before using this option? Should I use multiple s2member-generated buttons instead?

The reason I am asking about (2) and (3) is because I need to know whether to use Paypal or s2Member buttons. I prefer Paypal because of the multiple-option dropdown attached to a single button. However, s2Member seems to have better support for expiration with the BuyNow buttons – unless I can copy and paste the variables from the s2Member generated buttons into the Advanced section in paypal?

4) Is there a way to customize the formatting (layout) for the “click here to register” page that appears once the user has paid in paypal?

Thanks so much for the help
Colin

• This topic was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by  Colin Gajraj.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by  Colin Gajraj.

Hi Colin.

1) In general, I am wondering how to test s2member expiration functionality – do I set a membership option to 1 day and test that way?

You can enter an EOT time to the test user’s profile. To make it quicker, set it at some time in the past.

The Auto EOT Behavior is set from here: [hilite path]Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Options -› Automatic EOT Behavior[/hilite]

2) For one time payment, how does s2member track expiration?

For one-time payment, if it’s a buy-now transaction, the EOT time is set immediately after purchase, so you should see an EOT time in the user’s profile.

Subscriptions, even if they’re non-recurring (used when you want to give a trial period, which buy-now transactions don’t have), would not set the EOT time immediately, instead s2Member would wait for PayPal to notify that the subscription has ended.

3) For the multiple option Paypal dropdown menu, I did sandbox testing using instructions at:

http://www.primothemes.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=17088

and it seems to work fine. Are there any gotchas to be aware of before using this option? Should I use multiple s2member-generated buttons instead?

First gotcha would be the sandbox itself, since it may have problems of its own that aren’t present in the live transactions. If you can avoid the sandbox, it’s much better to test with live, 1 cent transactions.

About the PayPal dropdown menu, what do you mean? s2Member’s PayPal buttons don’t have that. Do you mean a button created over at PayPal’s side? If so, please read this: Knowledge Base » Using PayPal created buttons

4) Is there a way to customize the formatting (layout) for the “click here to register” page that appears once the user has paid in paypal?

s2Member Pro lets you set your own custom page for the users that return from PayPal, using the [hilite mono]success[/hilite] attribute for the shortcode. [hilite path]Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Buttons -› Shortcode Attributes -> success[/hilite]

Additional Shortcode Attributes ( enabled by s2Member Pro )

[hilite mono]success=""[/hilite] Success Return URL ( optional ). s2Member handles this automatically for you. However, if you would prefer to take control over the landing page after checkout ( i.e. your own custom Thank-You Page ), you can. If supplied, this must be a full URL, starting with http://. Note, s2Member will NOT use this value if an existing account holder is being modified. s2Member handles account updates ( i.e. billing modification ) in a more dynamic way. Your Success Return URL is only applied to (new) Customers.

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I hope that helps. :)

• This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by  Cristián Lávaque.

It certainly helps. I will do as you suggest – test with a live site right now!

You can enter an EOT time to the test user’s profile. To make it quicker, set it at some time in the past.

Where do I set that?

Also, what I am not clear on is the following: I just spoke to my client and they want to have a buy-now button WITH AN EXPIRY DATE of 1 year. I have 2 questions on this. First, does this mean that s2member will allow them access for a year, then demote them after that? I want to make sure that this option is possible with the Buy Now button (and not just the subscription buttons).

Secondly, as I said above, Paypal has the option of the dropdown for a single button (e.g. Canada- $30, USA – $40…), but when I look at the s2Member button code there are a ton of other variables — including expiration date for buy now buttons — that paypal doesn’t seem to have. Is it safer then to go with s2Member buttons, creating a separate button for each option? Or can we also set those variables in the paypal button in the Advanced variables section?

Finally, one more question – the client wants the expiry date set in our WordPress database. Is there a way I can achieve that?

I truly appreciate your help. Trying to get this site up and running today if possible.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by  Colin Gajraj.

Okay, you can forget my question about testing the EOT functionality – I figured that out and tested it and it seems to work fine. If you can respond to the rest of my questions that would be great.

Also, what I am not clear on is the following: I just spoke to my client and they want to have a buy-now button WITH AN EXPIRY DATE of 1 year. I have 2 questions on this. First, does this mean that s2member will allow them access for a year, then demote them after that? I want to make sure that this option is possible with the Buy Now button (and not just the subscription buttons).

Yes, it means they will have access for 1 year and then their account will be demoted/deleted (what happens depends on your configuration in Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Options -› Automatic EOT Behavior). However, this is only relevant for scenarios where the customer actually gets an account on your site. If you’re using a Specific Post/Page Buy Now button, the customer doesn’t get an account — they only get a URL to access the post/page they bought and that link expires after the period you selected when you generated the button.

Secondly, as I said above, Paypal has the option of the dropdown for a single button (e.g. Canada- $30, USA – $40…), but when I look at the s2Member button code there are a ton of other variables — including expiration date for buy now buttons — that paypal doesn’t seem to have. Is it safer then to go with s2Member buttons, creating a separate button for each option? Or can we also set those variables in the paypal button in the Advanced variables section?

Yes, it’s safest to go with the s2Member-generated buttons. You may be able to set some of the advanced variables on PayPal’s site when generating a button on PayPal.com, but I’m not sure if you have all the options you have when generating buttons with s2Member. To learn more about using PayPal-hosted buttons, please see Using PayPal created buttons.

Finally, one more question – the client wants the expiry date set in our WordPress database. Is there a way I can achieve that?

If you sell something that is non-recurring and expires at a specific time (e.g., 1 year from now), s2Member sets the expiration date on their profile in the Automatic EOT Time field. That date is already stored in the WordPress database because s2Member is a WordPress plugin. You should be able to use the WordPress get_user_field() function to retrieve that, if it has actually been set (for accounts with recurring subscriptions, the EOT time does not get set until the payment gateway notifies s2Member that the subscription has expired):

get_user_field ("s2member_auto_eot_time", $user->ID)

Thanks for the comprehensive response guys! We go live soon. I hope that the experience will be smooth :-) Relying on your continued support!