David Welch

hm… maybe…

But a paying member would be added as s2member Level 1 right?

can I see how you are using the shortcode?

Dave

See, I knew they would correct me… lol!

Argh… I can’t believe I forgot that you can add that info to the shortcode!

I guess you can’t put every option in the shortcode creation form, especially since in order to make it work the way you want, you would still need to alter some other settings and even add your own script.

Thanks for the clarification Cristian!

Dave

Sorry, I actually started answering that way but several of your questions kind of build on each other more toward topics so that’s what I used. I apologize if it seemed convoluted. I’m not a moderator, and don’t work for s2member but I’ll do my best to help out as another user of this product. Hopefully, if I’m incorrect on anything one of the staff will set me straight.

CAN WE ACCOMPLISH WHAT WE ARE TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH (a module based membership site with automatic monthly drafts that will automatically cancel drafts after the final draft for module 8) WITH THE s2member Pro PLUGIN?? If Not please say so and we will go look for a plugin that will

Quick Answer: Out of the box – No, recurring billing products in s2member are designed to run continuously until they are cancelled by the end user.

As you already stated it works great if the user is manually upgrading but there is no setting on recurring billing Pro options to make it stop after a certain number of payments in s2member.

You probably CAN use this plugin but, in order to do it the way you want with the recurring billing automation, it would take some extra thought and programming to do it. You could probably use the content dripping feature to space out the modules to match the monthly payments, but you would still need to program a way to make the payments stop and still give the user access to the content since that’s not a native feature of s2member.

If you want something that will work just that way out of the box then no, s2member won’t do it, it’s just not quite designed for that type of payment processing.

As far as the number points go, I’ll try to give better answers as much as I know them.

1. I’ve not had this issue so I would have to dig deeper.

2. No. This is not the way s2member recurring billing works. It simply charges the same amount every month for the exact same product. It doesn’t have any way of knowing that it should upgrade the user’s account type because in s2member’s “mind” the next module is a different product than what the user is paying for.

3. You are correct that the module 8 would continue to process payments until it was stopped by you or the user. I think part of the issue may be how you understand the forms to work. Each form is designed to pay for 1 “product” which I’m sure you understand because you already set it up great, outside the recurring billing (and the gmail issue).

However, they don’t build on each other or even communicate with each other in any way. So if you set up a recurring billing for module 3, it’s not going to notify another form to process a payment for module 4, it just keeps processing the same payment for module 3 (in s2member’s mind). So, no, that’s not how you would set up your recurring payments forms.

4. If you are using the Billing Modification forms for upgrading members who want to “fast track”, then yes, a user could do that. When they clicked on it, the system would cancel their old recurring billing agreement and set up a new one based on the new time and give them access to that next module. However, that still doesn’t solve your issue of needing to stop the payments after module 8, which s2member currently doesn’t provide an option for on recurring billing products.

5. This was answered in 4, but just to be clear, if you use the Billing Modification forms for upgrading, then the system will automatically cancel their old billing agreement and payment cycle and start a new one based on this new time and give acces to the new product (module).

While the answers may not be what you want, hopefully that gives you a more accurate look at s2member and how you can or can’t use it (easily).

Let me know if something was unclear and I’ll try to clarify. As a programmer, I look at this and say, it’s just something I need to code a work-around for, but I also understand that not everyone can or wants to do that. So while there probably is a solution to make this work, as far as I know there is nothing natively accessible to handle all aspects of what you want in s2member easily.

I feel your pain about being ready to launch and just getting frustrating results… my frustrations are with my bank and payment processor. Thankfully s2 works for what I need otherwise I might join you on the skyscraper…

Dave

Not sure how “manual” you want this process to be. However, this might work:

Add this to your theme’s functions.php file:

add_shortcode('dw-post-more','dw_post_more');

function dw_post_more($atts,$content){
	explode(shortcode_atts(array("level" => 0),$atts));
	
	if(is_user_logged_in() && S2MEMBER_CURRENT_USER_ACCESS_LEVEL === $level){
		return do_shortcode($content);
	}
	else {
		return '<a href="'.S2MEMBER_MEMBERSHIP_OPTIONS_PAGE_URL.'">Get Access To More Of This Content</a>';
	}
}

Then wrap your “hidden” part with this shortcode.. like this:

This is the public content.
[dw-post-more level="0"]
This is the private content. You can change the level to match whatever level should have access to the info.
[/dw-post-more]
This is public info after the private info.

This is not fully tested so let me know if something doesn’t work.

Dave

You can find my e-mail in my forum profile. Shoot me an e-mail with what you are trying to do and if I can help, I’ll send my contact details.

Dave

ah, I’ve had this happen before. Sometimes copied code that has quotes in it will copy the quotes incorrectly so php can’t read it. Well done sir! This is a “why didn’t I think of that!” moment… lol!

Do you have all the other Pro Options available to you?

Dave

This is the URL that is used when someone tries to access a protected page. If that’s the only URL issue it had, I would say you are probably pretty good.

Just my 2 cents.

Dave

Yeah it’s a quick job and definately needs some shoring up, but maybe it will give others some ideas as well.

Also, I forgot to mention that the menu link is at the bottom of the s2member menu.

Here are som screenshots I took:
Admin Menu Link:

Admin CCaps Options Per Level Form:

CCaps as addon’s selection:

Final Form / Button (form in this case) with CC list and total price:

Hopefully that gives you a better idea of what it currently does. Again, still needs a lot of work but could be useful to someone…

Dave

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by  David Welch.

I believe that is correct, yes.

Dave

I believe this can all be done fairly simply. S2 member doesn’t currently have a shopping cart type feature, so you would have to build something yourself if you want it all to work in one shot.

However, the way s2 is set up to do this, you can use “modify” forms for members to upgrade their account. Then you can offer each item as an upgrade “buy now”.

A third option that I just thought of, that is more in line with my first point is to create a way for them to select the add-ons they want in a form. Then use those selections to add the correct custom capabilities and updated pricing to the paypal button or s2member paypal shortcode.

But natively there is no way to currently do that.

Dave

Yes they are locked in, unless you cancel the old and they start the new manually.

Hope that helps,

Dave