Raam Dev

Hi there,

Please see my replies below:

Membership:

Authorize.net gateway support with subscribed billing. Monthly, quarterly, semi-anually, annual payments possible.
We want to avoid having to use Paypal…for anything.
Multiple membership/login/sign-up/payment pathways.
A free intro. package or limited trial period (with automated followup and billing).
Members can opt into one of several packages/levels that may or may not contain content that overlaps with other packages/levels.
Members can be assigned to distinct sub-groups (sub-groups might all be on same package .
Login and usage stats for members and sub-groups and packages.
Email integration w/AWeber (preferred) or MailChimp.
Upselling/coupon code/discounting options.
Videos (primarily) are the protected content.
Compatible with videos hosted at Amazon CloudFront and/or S3.
Capability to import members from a standard database file.
Some restrictions to discourage members from sharing their membership login credentials with others.

We support almost everything described here, so I will simply mention the things we don’t support (or which may not be what you need):

“Members can be assigned to distinct sub-groups (sub-groups might all be on same package).”

We don’t have a concept of “groups”, but rather Membership Levels and Custom Capabilities. You can obtain a high level of customization using Custom Capabilities, so I recommend watching this video to learn more about that feature and see if it would suit your needs.

“Login and usage stats for members and sub-groups and packages.”

We do not currently have a stats feature built-in, however this plugin written by a 3rd party for s2Member provides stats features.

I recommend reading the Pre Sale FAQs to learn more about what we do and do not support.

Affiliate:

Concurrently run a cash payment affiliate program, and a membership credit/coupon affiliate program.
Affiliates paid out by check/or by membership or otherwise. But never by Paypal.
Can set up multiple affiliate levels.
Automatically or optionally add members to the affiliate program.
Affiliated do not necessarily have to be members.
Generate and send (via 3rd party, preferrably) member emails that are specific to sub-groups and/or “package” members.
Members can be in more than one sub-group

s2Member does not have any affiliate tools built-in, however we integrate with iDevAffiliate and ShareASale.

Generally compatible with most other WP plug-ins.

Yes.

Able to protect files/folders existing on the site, but OUTSIDE the WP installation (as well as those inside).

No, not currently. We support storage within wp-content/s2member-files/ or in an Amazon S3 bucket.

Optional, but would be a strong plus:
Easily create package feature and pricing comparison tables.

No. We do not currently generate any pricing or package feature comparison tables.

Hi Jeff,

Yes, you can disable visitor registration by turning off Open Registration (see Dashboard -› s2Member® -› General Options -› Open Registration). Then, you can have an administrator manually add accounts after you’ve confirmed their payment (see Pre Sale FAQs » Can I create new Membership accounts manually with s2Member?).

s2Member Pro includes the Pro-Forms feature and that is designed to allow the creation of custom forms for registration purposes. You can create Custom Registration/Profile fields (see Dashboard -› s2Member® -› General Options -› Registration/Profile Fields) with the free version and then use the [s2Member-Profile /] shortcode to display a profile editing form after the user has logged in (see Dashboard -› s2Member® -› General Options -› Member Profile Modifications). That will allow you to collect additional information from the user.

Hi William,

Yes, this is possible. Please see this thread for more information.

Clifford,

You would need to write your own PHP code to check for such a conditional. s2Member does not have any concept of “practice” in the way that you’re using it. However you’re grouping those users to define a “practice” would be part of the conditional that you create.

Once you’ve defined what constitutes a “practice”, you’d then need to check the roles of the members within that practice and determine if any of them have the role of s2member_level1 and only then allow registration for s2Member Level 2.

Such a customization is outside the scope of our support policy. If you’re not comfortable with PHP programming, we recommend posting your job on jobs.wordpress.net.

Hi Susan,

Have you seen the documentation in Dashboard -› s2Member® -› Download Options -› JW Player® & RTMP Protocol Examples? Also there’s a video that may provide more information for your scenario.

Another s2Member user created a shortcode that makes inserting protected videos easier that you may want to try: Video Shortcode. He reported that it’s working with the “HD Player” plugin, so you might need to test with the JW Player Plugin that you’re using.

Also, I imagine having protected and unprotected videos in the same playlist should be fine, but you’d need to try it out to be sure.

You’re most welcome, Cheryl! :)

Hi Jeffrey,

If you’re creating a Custom Registration field and you want to include that in an email, you’ll simply do something like this:

%%country%% would be valid; if you have a Custom Registration/Profile Field with the ID country.

Hi Cheryl,

That is correct. Extending a recurring profile would be entirely up to the payment gateway. s2Member only provides an interface between the gateway and your content management system, automatically updating user’s accounts with whatever the payment gateway says (e.g., if the payment gateway says the user cancelled their recurring subscription, then s2Member will receive an IPN message from the payment gateway saying as much and then s2Member will demote/delete the users account according to your settings in Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Options -› Automatic EOT Behavior). s2Member itself has no control over the recurring subscriptions once they’ve been created.

That said, you can certainly do things like offer an upgrade form (see Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Pro Forms -› Billing Modification Forms) and s2Member will then process that accordingly, canceling the member’s previous recurring profile and replacing it with the new one.

Hi Kristopher,

If you want to hide the fields during registration, then you need to set the Allow Profile Edits option for the field to “Yes ( editable after registration / invisible during registration )“.

When I have upgraded a subscriber by hand (as they are showing as paid at paypal but not on system) to a level member they are not assigned a Paid Subscr. ID, Does this matter?

If they are not assigned a Paid Subscr. ID, then s2Member will not be able to process cancellations or payment failures from PayPal. Normally s2Member receives IPN messages from PayPal indicating that someone’s payment failed or they canceled their recurring subscription.

When this happens, s2Member receives the IPN message from PayPal, searches the users for the matching Paid Subscr. ID, and then processes that s2Member account based on your settings in Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Options -› Automatic EOT Behavior.

So, if you want that integration, you will need to make sure the user’s account has the matching Paid Subscr. ID and the payment gateway (e.g., PayPal) selected on their account.

Hi Charles,

I did a few more tests and I realized that you’re probably using the “Checkboxes ( multi-option )”, instead of creating multiple “Checkboxes ( single )”. I tested with multiple “Checkboxes ( single )” and each checkbox appeared on its own line.

After recreating what you were seeing using the “Checkboxes ( multi-option )”, I played around with the CSS code a bit and it appears there is no easy way to format those one on top of another — doing this would require modifying the PHP that generates those checkboxes.

If you must have the options listed on on top of another, I suggest using the “Select Menu ( multi-option )”. This is what I would do in your case. Your users will be able to select multiple options with the mouse while holding down the CTRL key.

Hi James,

Yes, this is possible. You’ll want to turn off Open Registration (Dashboard -› s2Member® -› General Options -› Open Registration) and then protect the pages where you place your registration forms. What method you use to protect them will be up to you.

You could write some simple PHP code that requires the URL to the page be called with a special code, or you could get elaborate and maintain a database of codes that give access to the registration pages. The point is, how you restrict access to the registation pages is entirely up to you.

If you protect all your site content with Level 0 or higher, then all visitors will need to be logged in to view the content. If non-members attempt to access restricted content, they will be redirected to the Membership Options Page (Dashboard -› s2Member® -› General Options -› Membership Options Page). On that page you can either place your registration form, or a simple message that indicates the site is invitation-only.

Hi Nicholas,

I’m sorry to hear you’re having trouble with your account. I will forward this to the billing department right away so we can get this fixed and resend your account details. Thank you for your patience.

With regards to the PayPal buttons: When you say the button generator is “broken”, how do you mean? Do you get an error message? What exactly is “no longer working”?