Hi!
First a bit of context: I'm using SMF as a support forum for a software I'm selling. When people purchase my software on a third-party online store, they get an invoice Id that I use to validate them as legit customers so they can download files and receive premium support. The "product registration" process is currently very manual: they first have to register on my support forum, and then submit a group membership request to my "Customer" group. I ask them for their invoice ID in the "reason" field so I can approve or reject their request by doing a look-up in my own database.
I would like to automate this process as much as possible, so that I do not need to manually approve their requests. My idea was to modify the group membership request flow to include a new "Invoice#" numeric field, and automate the invoice lookup & validation so the membership is automatically granted/rejected for that user as soon as the request is sent. I already have a REST API that I can use to validate the invoice number, but I'm struggling with integrating it to SMF.
I'm using SMF v2.0.6 and have started looking around the sources and templates. I'm under rather tight time constraints, and I would really appreciate if someone could give me a few pointers to get me going in the right direction.
Thanks in advance!
It should be doable, but the way to do it might be more or less simple.
The problem is the Sources part of the thing. The layout in Profile.template.php should be easily managed.
My advice is to use the existing "Reason" field as you do now, just making it mandatory to fill and the member should add there the Invoice #. The text indicating that can be easily added.