Raam Dev

Thanks for the update and for sharing the solution, Marko! :)

If the page is redirecting to the Membership Options Page, there are only two reasons for that:

1) The test user does not have access to Level 1
2) or the page is restricted by something other than Level 1 (such as a category restriction, tag restriction, or Custom Capability restriction). I recommend checking Dashboard -› s2Member® -› Restriction Options.

The most simple method would be to use the success=”” attribute in your Pro-Form shortcode (see Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Pro Forms -› Shortcode Attributes (Explained)) to redirect the registration form to a Thank You page.

In that URL, you’d include the voucher used, for example:

success="http://example.com/thank-you/?voucher=<?php echo $_GET['voucher']; ?>"

Then on the Thank You page you’d use some PHP to quietly read that value ($_GET[‘voucher’]) and mark it as used in your database.

When someone successfully accesses the Free Registration form, the success URL will contain the voucher code in the query string and when they successfully register and get redirected to the thank you page, the voucher code will be passed along.

That error message is coming from PayPal, not s2Member.

Pease download this Server Check Tool, upload the PHP file to your WordPress directory, and then load the URL to the file in your browser. It will run a bunch of tests to determine if there’s anything amiss on the server-side that might be causing problems with s2Member.

All of our courses are free. Clearly S2Member is designed for paid membership sites. Will we be able to set up different levels of unpaid access, such as for students and teachers without needing custom programming?

Yes, most definitely. Please see this video: Free Registration On Multiple Levels?

It looks like S2Member Pro Version would be able to help us with 2 levels of viewers (teachers and students) in one course. Would we be able to have separate access for multiple courses? For example, we will have a Microscopy course, and a Biology 101 course, and each will need to have hierarchical access for teachers and students. We could eventually have many courses. Could each course have separate hierarchical access for its teachers and students? And would we be able to see in the user lists on WordPress that a particular user had signed up as a teacher to the Microscopy course vs. the Biology 101 course?

Using a combination of Levels and Custom Capabilities, you can certainly create “separate access for multiple courses”. For example, each course could gets its own Custom Capability and all content for that course would be restricted to that Custom Capability. Then, only students and teachers who have that Custom Capability would get access to that content.

I’m not entirely clear what you mean by “hierarchical access for teachers and students”. Could you give me an example?

In the user list, you’ll be able to see the users Level and their Custom Capabilities. If Level 1 is for students and Level 2 is for teachers, and Custom Capabilities identify which course each user is signed up for, then you’ll be able to view a list of all Level 2 users (teachers) and then see which course they signed up for by looking at the Custom Capabilities.

Hello,

While s2Member does support multiple currencies, registration is only one user at a time. There are no options for selling bundles of memberships.

Update:

I spoke to a colleague and he agreed that AWeber subscriptions should be triggered if the PayPal-hosted button is properly integrated with s2Member (i.e., the notify_url attribute is correctly pointing to s2Member’s notify URL).

When someone uses the button to make a payment, PayPal will notify s2Member through that URL and s2Member will then process it like any other payment, triggering whatever List Servers you have configured in (Dashboard -› s2Member® -› API / List Servers when someone completes the registration (List Servers are only triggered upon registration, not payment, so it’s important that the person uses the registration link in the email they are sent).

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.

Rick,

These buttons have been thoroughly tested and are being used on hundreds of websites, including my own. I’m not sure what’s wrong with the buttons you’re generating, but I can tell you that if you’re testing the buttons, you need be logged out of WordPress. You should also clear your browser cache so that there’s no confusion on s2Member’s side.

Have you double-checked all your PayPal configuration in s2Member?

Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Options -› Account Details
Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Options -› PayPal® IPN Integration
Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Options -› PayPal® PDT Integration

Hi Kim,

It sounds like you might not have all the advanced variables configured properly. Can you please double-check your button and make sure the advanced variables described here are all present in your button?

Also, I’m not sure that PayPal-hosted buttons will trigger the s2Member AWeber integration, but I’ll have to double-check on that and get back to you.

Thank you for the update, William! Glad to hear you solved this. :)

Note that changes to that file will be overwritten during upgrades to s2Member, so you’ll want to make sure you create a backup copy and remember to replace it after upgrades.

Malin,

The Buy Now forms/buttons cannot be used to purchase Membership, as they are designed for one-time purchases by non-members who don’t need an account. Instead, they simply receive an email with a time-sensitive link to receive access to the content they just purchased.

If you want to offer membership (i.e., an account on your site), you must use one of the Level Forms (Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Pro Forms -› Membership Level # Forms). If you want to charge one-time for membership access, you can certainly do that. Simply change the payment dropdown to “I want to charge One-Time” and select the period of access you’re selling.