Looking for other Administrators who use the Subscription Mod..

[keyboard]

Hi

There must be more admins then me who use this Subscription feature.... It would be nice if we can share our experience....

For example, I have just went through an experience with Permissions..... Now with a better understanding, I am more comfortable with it.....

I still have a question or two.... So I will explain the best I could, how my site works :

1) A guest visits and looks around and can see all but cannot download....So he decides to register.
2) He has a successful Registration and is told that he needs to be approved by the administrator. He is automatically assigned the "Regular" Group which has very limited permissions...Cannot download, Cannot message, etc.....
3) Once I approve the Registration, the software automatically assigns him to a "Downloads" Group which will give him all the access he will need.
4) He will receive an email telling him that he has been approved.
5) The very next time he logs in, he is taken to a "Subscription Page" where he has to pick a Subscription Plan. ( Special coding )
6) He gets redirected to PayPal and all is well !!!!!

Now here is my question......

I am assuming that if the User picks a Months Plan and after the month is up, he will be auto moved from the "Downloads" group back to the "Regular Group" where he will have an option to subscribe again ??

Please advise

Ron

[Illori]

I am assuming that if the User picks a Months Plan and after the month is up, he will be auto moved from the "Downloads" group back to the "Regular Group" where he will have an option to subscribe again ??

http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Profile#Paid_Subscriptions

[br360]

The subscriptions part of the online manual is pretty vague actually when it comes to that question. I don't use subscriptions myself, but I was under the impression from what I have read in the past, that when a member pays for a subscription for say a month- they don't automatically go back to their original membergroup when their subscription expires. Isn't that something that has to be done manually?

[keyboard]

br360
yes, the online manual is very vague in some areas..... That is why I have started this thread, hopefully we could pick up some tips or a different way to accomplish some things.....

I have some users who have taken the monthly plan, in a month I will know and hopefully I will pass it on here.

I do wish there was more documentation on this subject although, I guess the answer is just a question away !!!!!

Ron

[Illori]

they don't automatically go back to their original membergroup when their subscription expires. Isn't that something that has to be done manually?

they do automatically go back to their former group when the sub expires.

[keyboard]

excellent !!  that is what I was hoping for .

[Kindred]

A few things to make clear...

1- the subscription feature is not a mod. There are mods to modify the subscription stuff, but if you are talking about the standard feature, please do not call it a mod - that will just confuse everyone.

2- In your steps above...

step 1 - can not download? what do you mean by that? download what?
Under normal circumstances, guests can browse forums and just can not post.

step 2 - nope...   under normal circumstances, if you have administrator approval required for registration - then the user's account is INACTIVE until approved - he technically does not belong to ANY group (actually, an inactive account has fewer permissions than guests)

step 3 - nope...  when a user registration is approved, the user is placed in the "regular member" group by default. You can alter this and manually place the user into any group that you want... but there is no automatic assignment of a member to any group other than the default "regular member" group

step 4 - yes.

step 5 - I THINK this is what you mean by "special coding" - there is no feature which will automatically redirect a user to the subscriptions page on their next login. You may have added a mod to do so, but that is not a standard feature in the software.

final question... although the user will be removed from the pay-only group at the end of the subscription and will be put back into the "regular members" group -- again, unless you have custom coding in place, he will not be automatically taken to the subscription page.  Also note, subscriptions CAN be set to auto-renew (depending on how you set them up)

[Steve]

Maybe someone on the Staff should change the OP title to 'Looking for other Administrators who use the Subscription Feature' or 'Looking for other Administrators who use the Subscription Function' so that anyone doing a search won't get confused as Kindred pointed out?