WP eMember was designed in a way so you (as the admin) have some customization freedom as to how the membership registration/signup flows on your membership site.
It is a good idea to read this post first and make up you mind on how you want your registration process to flow before you start setting eMember up.
If you are not sure about the difference between a “Join Us” page and a “Registration” page then read this post first.
The member registration flow is the same for signing up for any type of membership except the free one (if you want to allow free membership). The registration process for the “Free Membership” is slightly different because this one doesn’t have any payment involved.
WP eMember uses one registration page for all types of membership registration (there is no need to create multiple pages for multiple different membership levels). Full details of how eMember does this is explained here.
1) Member Signup Scenario 1
The basic member registration flow is similar to the following:
- Visitors land on your site.
- Want to become a member after seeing some of the awesome content.
- Follows the “Join Us” link.
- The above mentioned link will take them to the “Membership Join Us” Page where you have explained all the different types of membership you offer. It may look similar to the one here.
- From this page they can decide which membership option they want to choose (eg. Free, Silver, Gold or whatever you are offering)
- If they choose the “Free Membership” then they just follow the link and sign up for a free membership. Remember, the free membership sign up is only possible if you (the admin) allow free membership on your site.
- If they choose a “Paid Membership” then they make a payment by clicking on the payment button for the appropriate membership.
- Once the Payment is confirmed (at this point the plugin knows what type of membership this member wants), the plugin will create the appropriate membership account for this visitor.
- The member will receive an email that contains a “unique” link to complete the registration.
- When the member clicks on that link in the email it will let them choose a “username” and “password” and complete the registration. At this point the member can log into the site.
Step 9 and 10 are additional steps that allows the member to choose their own “username” and “password”. Many membership plugin just randomly creates a “username” and “password” for the member and completes the process at step 8. From my experience I know that most people do not like to receive random “username” and “password” assigned to them so in WP eMember I made sure the members can choose the login credentials.
2) Member Signup Scenario 2
In this registration scenario, you make the visitor signup for a basic free account before they make any payment for premium membership. If the visitor already has an account on the site then he can just log into the existing account and continue.
In short, this registration scenario looks like the following:
Create a free account -> Log into the site -> Make a payment for a paid level
The detailed steps below gives you (the site admin) an idea of what is involved in this scenario:
- Visitors land on your site.
- Want to become a member after seeing some of the awesome content.
- Follows the “Join Us” link.
- The above mentioned link will take them to the “Membership Join Us” Page where you have explained what you offer and how they can become a member. You instruct them to create an account first before they can make payment for any premium memberships (the payment buttons for the premium content are protected so only logged in members can view the buttons).
- After they create a free account they can log into the site and pay for a premium level (to get access to premium content).
- Once the Payment is confirmed (at this point the plugin knows what premium membership this member paid for), the plugin will simply update/upgrade the basic free account to the appropriate premium account level.
This registration flow is different than the one explained in “scenario 1” in the way that everyone who makes a payment already has a basic membership account so there is no need to prompt them to complete the registration by choosing a “username” and “password” as they have already done it when they created the basic membership account.
The following video show how this scenario works:
3) Member Signup Scenario 3 Extended with WP eStore
This registration flow is more suited for sites where you want to sell products only to members (registered users) of the site and you will be using WP eStore plugin to sell the product(s). Basically a visitor must have an account on your site to be able to purchase products (similar to amazon, iTunes etc).
- Visitors land on your site.
- Want to purchase some of the awesome products you have for sale.
- Adds a few product to the shopping cart.
- When they click on the “checkout” button it redirects them to a page that tell them that they need to have an account to be able to checkout or they can log in as a user if they already have an account.
- Creating an account is free and it’s quick so they sign up for an account and then log in to the newly created account. You can even enable the auto login after account creation feature so the user gets logged in automatically after account creation.
- Now they can continue to checkout and pay for the items.
To make WP eStore not let anyone continue to checkout unless they are logged in you simply have to check the “Only Logged In Members Can Checkout” field in the “AddOn Settings” tab of the WP eStore plugin.
@Kari, The following page will help you:
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/wordpress-membership/how-to-re-create-the-mandatory-emember-pages-884
Augh…. let’s just say that a person may have deleted the html code of the registration page…. is there an easy copy & paste one that I can find or be led to? TIA
@Matt, You should be able to use eMember’s after login redirection feature to send the users to a desired page after they log into the site. Check the following documentation for more details:
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/wordpress-membership/automatically-redirect-your-members-to-a-page-after-they-login-663
I’m trying to pull off scenario 3.1 with WP eStore. My issue is that once I either successfully login (if redirecting to the sign in page) or register, I don’t proceed to the collect-details payment page. It basically is just stuck on the wp emember profile page. How can I get it to automatically redirect to the payment page upon successful login/registration?
Yes there is an option for you to approve members before they can view the content.
Can I give final authorization before they can be activated for a free membership?
If I allow free membership on my site but I would like to review their information before allowing them access to contents. Can I do that?
Does it automatically share email address with mailchimp email newsletter or any other newsletter plugin so the visitor doesn’t have to subscribe to both the site and for newsletter?
Awesome. Thanks.
Hi, I believe what you are looking for is the “Free Members Must Confirm Their Email Address” option on this page: http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/wordpress-membership/wp-emember-miscellaneous-tweaks-248
Please let me know if this is not what you needed =)
Plugin seems to have everything I need. However, is there no ability for e-mail authentication to be added for free accounts, before user’s accounts become active?
Hi, You can use the eStore or PayPal buttons with the eMember.
You can read about both options here:
eStore:http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/wordpress-membership/wp-emember-and-wp-estore-integration-for-membership-payment-60
PayPal:http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/wordpress-membership/how-to-use-a-simple-paypal-payment-button-to-accept-membership-payment-146
Hi,
I have been reading through about this plugin.
If I want to setup a wordpress membership website, with paypal subscription/recurring payments, do I need wp-emember plugin? or wp-estore plugin? or both?
I thought that wp-estore is wordpress plugin if i want to setup online store, whereas wp-emember is to setup membership website, but I saw that wp-emember cant handle the paypal recurring payments, because of different API?
I am confuse…Please advise….
Thanks
@Ian, You can do the following with eMember:
1) User provides you with their email address and a username.
2) You create a member account for the user with a random password from the admin dashboard.
3) The member gets an email with the login details and link to where they can login.
4) The member can go to the “Edit Profile” page after they log in and change the password if they want.
There is no option to import the email address only but you can import member data into the database from a CSV file:
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/wordpress-membership/how-to-bulk-upload-member-details-from-a-csv-file-243
Hi,
I looking for the following functionality in the registration process:
1. User provides us with their email address at our physical store location.
2. Store creates an unactivated member with the email address given by user.
3. User is allowed to complete registration process online and choose username/password by first entering their email address which is checked against unactivated members. A member with that email address must exist before registration can be completed.
Also, can you import a csv of email addresses to the members table?
I am a developer so I can do some customization if necessary.
Thank you
Yep that makes sense. You can have as many free levels as you want without whatever name. If you use the WordPress integration option then you will be able to specify the “Role” of every member for a particular membership level.
So for one level you can specify the Role to be subscriber and for the other you can specify it to be author.
By default you only place one registration form but this page explains how you can place multiple registration forms:
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/wordpress-membership/wp-emember-miscellaneous-tweaks-248
Hi,
Possibly a real newbie question but I’m looking for a solution where a user can sign up for free as either a subscriber or an author.
I guess this would be like scenario 1 but they would have a basic package (subscriber) and a premium package (author) but author would still be free.
I suspect this is possible but I wouldn’t want them to have to go through a paypal transaction process or anything. This solution is for a company to use internally as a kind of document repository.
Hope that makes sense?
Many thanks
Hi Joe, Are you using just a Plain PayPal button? If so you can specify a return URL in your PayPal Profile.
If you are using the eStore then all you need to do is specify the return URL in the settings menu of the eStore. With the eStore you can also set a pre-product return URL for “Subscription or Buy Now Buttons”. This means you can have different return pages for each subscription.
If you are using a different third party payment processor (example: eCommerce ) then they should have an option to specify a return URL.
Question about scenario 1 with paypal. If a visitor does not have a membership and pays through paypal… How to customers get back to the site? Which page does paypal redirect buyers/subscribers to after the payment is complete?
I would want them to be taken to a page to thank them and to tell them to check their email for the log in link.
does that sound right?
@Laurie, yes the member can log in immediately when they register a free account (by default free account don’t require email verification) which is why I said that this scenerio is close to what you want.
Am I correct in understand that in scenario #2, users can register and immediately login, without requiring the email link to complete the registration process? My customer would prefer that option rather than sending them away to their email system where they can get distracted… thanks
Thanks Admin = it’s not quite what we wanted, so we’re ready to abandon pay to get in, since all they get for the nominal pay fee is a video that shows them what they’re going to be making when they buy the paid videos
We have a different problem today – none of the registration emails are getting sent. Any idea of what to ask the hosting company to verify or look at? They looked yesterday and said the email seemed to be working fine.
@Laurie, Isn’t scenerio 2 about 90% similar to what you want?
so your 3rd and 4th point will be modified with the following steps:
3. Register then login
4. Make a payment
As soon as the payment is complete their account will be upgraded to the appropriate premium account and they can view all the premium content.
We have a registration process that is different than all of the scenarios above.
1. see teaser of great info
2. click to join/register
3. register & pay
4. redirect to login page
5. copy of registration details and paypal receipt sent to user’s email
Is this possible? Right now we’re having people pay $.99 to keep spammers out and protect the content (the ‘secret’ of what they’ll be making) and having them pay first, get email, click to register, register, get another email, is way too laborious and time-consuming. How can we shorten the cycle?
You don’t even need to use a plugin… simply use the following format in your “From email address” field
Your Name <[email protected]>
found the answer: used this plugin, worked like a charm
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/mail-from/
My email notifications are coming from WordPress, my subject line is working but they are still showing on my inbox as From: WordPress
To me it sounds like you haven’t filled out the “From email address” field in the settings menu (see the “Email Settings” tab).
Ok, I figured out that the problem was a plugin I was running “Super Cache”. When I disabled it, the registration stopped giving me a 500 server error. The only issue now is that I’m getting a line above the success note:
Member Registration
No recipient addresses found in header
Registration Complete! Please Login
What could be causing that? I’ve disabled all of the plugins except eMember, eStore, and Affiliate.
I’m having a small issue in the registration flow. Everything works perfectly until the new member clicks the register button. When they click the register button, they are redirected to a 500 server error page, but the registration goes through and I can see the new registration in the back end. Could you tell me what could be causing this error? Thanks!
If it’s a subscription then a member can cancel it rom PayPal. When a member cancels a subscription payment the plugin will get notified and it will automatically deactivate the member’s account.
If it’s a once of payment (e.g. a payment made using a “Buy Now” button) then there is no need to stop the payment… the member can delete their account from the “Edit Profile” page.
Hello,
How do members cancel their account?
Looks like using special instructions will work. Thanks for your help. Looking forward to using your product.
-tracy
Coupon is ony option but it sounds like you just want to get some special instructuion from the member at purchase time. If this is the case then you can just use the “Collect Special Instruction” option on the payment button which will let the customer enter some text. Checkout the 3rd product (Demo Engraving) on this demo page and you will what I mean:
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/wordpress-estore-plugin-demo-175
Thanks for your response, yes it makes sense.
I did leave out one piece from the flow by mistake. At step 5: User pays for workshop, they will need to enter a workshop code. Similar to entering a coupon or discount code on some shopping sites.
Is “coupon code” an option?
If not is it something that I can program into it?
Thanks again,
-tracy
Yep very simple, you just let them become a free member when they land on your site (so on your usual join us page only have free membership option).
Once they become a free member, they can view the workshop pages which have membership payment buttons for particular membership level. when they make a payment for a particular workshop their account will be automatically upgraded to the membership level that the payment button was setup for.
Let me know if it makes sense.
The site that I am designing for my customer has a twist to your membership flow.
1. User is directed to the site via a brochure or counselor
2. User visits the site and registers with site (becomes a subscriber)
3. User is then able to access a workshop page/menu
4. User selects the workshop they are associated with
5. User pays for the workshop
6. At this point they will need to be upgraded to a different permission level with access to pages/functionality designed for their access level.
Is this scenario possible with your plugin?
Thanks,
-tracy
@Jessica, When a member is logged in and makes a payment for membership then his/her membership level will be upgraded accordingly.
The best way is to make the customer agree to the Terms and Conditons before the payment. If you are using eStore’s shopping cart then this should be taken care of for you. The other option is to state something similar to the following on your Member Sign Up/ Registration Page:
“By Signing up you automatically agree to the “Terms and Condtions” -> Link to your T&C here
One more question: Is there a way to add a checkbox that says the potential members has read and agrees with my terms and conditions for membership?
I have another question, what can I do to allow members who signed up for a free membership to upgrade to the next level (which in my case is a one-month membership)?
Thanks!
@Gabriel, Nope, you can always delete or block a memeber account if you don’t want someone.
Is there a way that I can approve a member before he is able to enter the site. I might want NOT to allow someone to subscribe to my free membership.
Nope, You will actually have to update the eMember database for that.
I don’t have that knowledge, however I found a plugin that adds fields to the wordpress registration form, will that work?
All the member information is saved in the Database. So adding custom fields to collect additonal information from members and storing them require database changes. So these changes are possible if you have PHP and HTML knowledge. If you do and would like to customize it then I can tell you which files to modify.
How can I add custom fields to the register form, for example, phone number. And can I customize a different one depending on the membership that person is buying?
For each memebership level you can specify a default WordPress Role. So when a member signs up under that membership level he/she will be assigned to that role.
what about assigning a role to a particular membership signup. example – end user is going to purchase platinum membership, to have the role of author on my site. How do I pull this off?
Yep, you can specify a membership duration for each membership level so when a member signs up he/she will have a membership expiration date based on the sign up date.
Can the memberships have an expiration date on them?
You can handle this with a subscription payment button:
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/how-to-add-a-subscription-button-for-recurring-payment-400
If it is a paid membership, what would be and effective way to handle recurring billing?
Yes, you can create a member through the Admin dashboard and give the user their username and password (no activation is necessary when this path is followed).
Hi can I manually add in members, assigning them user name and password without them activating from the email link?