WP eMember Archives - Page 4 of 5 - WordPress Membership

How to Bulk Upload/Import Member Details from a CSV File

Update: You should use the bulk member data importer addon to import member data.

You can use the WP CSV to DB plugin to upload member details from a CSV file into the WP eMember’s database.

Before you use this method please note that if you want to import your WordPress users into eMember then there is an easier option for you. Simply browse to the “Import WP Users” tab from the “Members” menu and you will be able to import all your WordPress users into eMember.

Setup/Preparation

Install the WP CSV to DB plugin.
Download the members.csv template file and open it using Microsoft Excel.
Fill up the member details; One member per row (There are two example entries in that file so replace them with actual details).
Once you are done entering all your member details then save the file as a CSV file.

Specify the General Options

Enter 2 in the “Starting Row” field. This is the row number in the CSV file where you want the plugin to start reading from (the first row is the column titles so you want to read from the 2nd row)
Enter “wp_wp_eMember_members_tbl” in the “Database Table Name” field (this is the database table name for the WP eMember’s member table given you haven’t change the default database prefix of wordpress)
Enter the content of this text file in the “Column Names” field:

Specify the Input CSV file

Use the upload option to upload the CSV file created in the setup/preparation step.

Import into the Database

Hit the “Import to DB” button which will dump the member details from the CSV file into the database.

Now if you browse to the “Member” menu of WP eMember, you should see all the new members that you just added.

Note

This tool can’t handle importing of eMember custom fields. The primary purpose of this tool is to allow importing of some core member data.

WP eMember and MailChimp Integration

The WP eMember (membership plugin) can be easily integrated with MailChimp (Email marketing and Email list manager). This allows you to add members to your MailChimp list as they join your membership site.

To integrate MailChimp with eMember simply go to the “Autoresponder Settings” tab from the Settings menu of eMember and set it up.

Check the “Use MailChimp AutoResponder” field
Specify your list name in the “MailChimp List Name” field
Specify your MailChimp API Key that you can get from your MailChimp account
Save the settings by hitting the “Update Options” button at the bottom of the page.

emember-mailchimp-autoresponder-integration-settings

You can also signup members of different membership levels to different MailChimp lists. You can do this by editing a membership level then specifying the list name for that level.

Using MailChimp Interest Groups

You can add interest groups when a member is added to your MailChimp list too.

Add the interest group data in the “Autoresponder List/Campaign Name” field of a membership level like the following:

List Name | groupname1, groupname2

Lets say you have the following scenario:

List Name: my-list-1
Interest Group Names: groupname1, groupname2

Then you would enter the following in the list name field of the eMember plugin:

my-list-1 | groupname1, groupname2

How to Protect a Post or Page From the Editor

WP eMember allows you to protect a post or page while you are editing it. When you are editing or writing a new post simply scroll down to the “eMember Protection Options” section shown in the following screenshot and apply the protection you want (it will display all the membership levels you have configured on your site so you can easily pick which levels you want to give access to):

Protect Post or Page from the editor

Video Tutorial

How to Customize Which Fields Appear on the Registration and Edit Profile Page

WP eMember plugin allows you to customize the fields that appear on the registration and edit profile page. You can choose to not display some of the fields depending on your site’s need.

In order to customize which fields appear on the form, go to the following settings/configuration area:

WP eMember Settings -> Pages/Forms Settings

The “Registration Form Fields” section in this menu page (see screenshot below) allows you to turn on/off certain fields from the registration page. You can also make certain fields required.

emember-registration-form-field-configuration

The “Edit Profile Form Fields” settings section allows you to configure fields that you want to show in the edit profile page.

Adding Custom Fields

If the default fields offered in eMember is not enough then you can add custom fields to the registration and edit profile form to collect extra data required for your business.

Go to the “Custom Field Settings” tab (from eMember settings menu) and configure the extra fields that you want to add. After you hit the “update options” button the extra fields will show up in the “Registration” and “Edit Profile” form on your site.

Note: the custom fields you add will show up on your registration and edit profile page directly… you don’t need to configure these fields from the “Pages/Forms Settings” section.

membership-custom-field-configuration-steps

Need More Custom Field Control?

We have an advanced eMember addon that has more custom fields controlling options.

Using a Compact Login and Join Us Message

You can use a compact login form if you want to display an “one line login and join us” message anywhere on your membership site. When a member logs in, it will display the name of the logged-in member and an option to logout.

For example, I have placed this compact login form on the header of my theme and it looks like the following to an anonymous visitor:

Compact Login Form Display (when not logged-in)

When a member logs into the site, it looks like the following to that user:

Compact Login Form Display (when logged-in)

How to Use the Compact Login Form?

You can use the following shortcode if you are placing it on a post or page:

[wp_eMember_compact_login]

If you are placing this on your theme’s template file then use the following PHP fuction where you want it to appear (example: header.php, footer.php etc):

<?php echo eMember_compact_login_widget(); ?>

Adding the Compact Login Form to the Sidebar

Here is how you can add the compact login form to your site’s sidebar widget:

#1) Add a standard text widget to your sidebar (where you want to show the compact login form).
#2) Use the following shortcode in the text widget:

[wp_eMember_compact_login]

#3) Save the widget.

How to Use the Auto Upgrade Feature to Drip Content

What auto upgrade does is that it upgrades the member of any membership level to another membership level automatically in the background based on what you have scheduled (you as the admin can schedule and setup these upgrade paths).

How Auto Upgrade Works

Auto upgrade works based on the time duration that you set in the configuration. This time duration is specified by the admin in the “Auto Upgrade” tab under the “Members” menu.

Auto Upgrade Starts Date

The auto upgrade date is calculated from a date value called the “Auto Upgrade Starts” date.

By default, the auto upgrade starts date value is set to the date the member registers on your site.

You can edit a member’s record from the admin side and view the value of this field (you can edit this value also if needed).

membership-auto-upgrade-starts-date-value

When you see a reference like “auto upgrade level after 7 days”, it means the level will be upgraded 7 days from the date you see in the “auto upgrade starts” date field.

Auto Upgrade Configuration

So for example, let’s say you have three membership levels:

Basic Membership
Premium Membership
Ultimate Membership

Now let’s say you have set the auto upgrade so that a member will get automatically upgraded to premium membership (from basic member ) after 7 days. This same member will get upgraded to the ultimate membership after 14 days.

Basic Membership -> Premium Membership = after 7 days

Premium Membership -> Ultimate Membership = after 14 days

If Joe signs up to the “Basic membership” on 1st January 2016, then he will get upgraded to the premium level on the 8th and then he will get upgraded to the ultimate level on the 15th.

If someone joins the “Premium Membership” on 10th January 2016, then he will get upgraded to the ultimate level on the 24th.

Once a member gets upgraded to the next level he/she gets access to the new content based on this new membership level. This is why this feature is very handy when you are developing a membership site that will be used to deliver an online course and you want to drip the course content over a period of time.

So using the above example model, if you want a member to be upgraded to “Premium Membership” after a week and then to “Ultimate Membership” after another week, the corresponding “number of days” value for the auto upgrade settings will be 7 and 14.

Important Note

It is important to keep in mind that the “number of days” value that you use when configuring auto upgrade settings is an absolute value from the “Auto Upgrade Starts” date. This value is not based on when a member’s account got upgraded to the next level.

Where is the Auto Upgrade Configuration Menu?

You can find the auto upgrade menu at the following location:
WP eMember -> Members -> Auto Upgrade

Auto Upgrade Configuration Video Tutorial

How to Create Payment Buttons for Membership Upgrade or Renewal

If you have a membership site with multiple premium memberships then you probably want to offer your members an option to upgrade their account. Upgrading an account is very easy.

Creating Upgrade/Renewal Payment Buttons

1) Option A – PayPal Button for Membership Renewal/Upgrade

Step #1) Create a payment button the same way you created it for your membership joining page.

Step #2) Enter the URL of this newly created upgrade/renewal page in the “Membership renewal Page” settings field of the plugin and save the settings.

When a member wishes to upgrade his/her account, all this member has to do is click on the payment button and make the payment. After the payment, the plugin will use the payment email address to identify the correct member account and upgrade or renew the account automatically.

2) Option B – Using an eStore Button for Membership Renewal/Upgrade

Step #1) Create an eStore payment button the same way you created it for your membership joining page.

Step #2) Enter the URL of this newly created upgrade/renewal page in the “Membership renewal Page” settings field of the plugin and save the settings.

When a member wishes to upgrade his/her account, all this member has to do is click on this button and make the payment. After the payment, the plugin will use the payment email address to identify the correct member account and upgrade or renew the account automatically.

WP eStore’s payment buttons are a little more advanced than a standard PayPal button in the sense that it can carry more data. So when using an eStore button it is also possible to upgrade the member account that is logged into the site at the time of making the payment (In this case it doesn’t matter which email address the payment is coming from).

When logged-in members make a payment, the plugin will apply the payment to their exiting account profile.

What if the Member Account is Expired?

What about the members whose account is expired? They can’t log into the site anymore. We have thought about that too. Simply go to the eMember settings menu and check the “Allow Expired Account login” field from the “Account upgrade and renewal settings” section.

Don’t worry, just because they can log into the system doesn’t mean they can view the restricted content. Expired member accounts will not be able to view any protected content. They will see a message that tells them to renew the membership. You are allowing them to log into the system so the plugin can recognize their account profile.

The following screenshot shows where you can configure the renewal page within the plugin’s settings.

Adding More Flavor to Your Upgrade/Renewal Buttons

If you want to add a little bit of flavor to your membership upgrade path then create special payment buttons that are just like the payment button for the normal premium membership but with a discounted price. Then place it on a page that only premium members have access to. You can create a special page with all these discounted prices.

Now, your members can make payment using these buttons to upgrade their accounts at a discounted price. Since this page (that contains the buttons) can only be viewed by a premium member, an anonymous visitor won’t be able to signup at this special discounted price.

WP eMember Plugin Features

Below is a list of the main features of the WP eMember Plugin:

Content Protection

Ability to selectively protect the posts, pages, categories and comments
Selectively protect full or section of a post or page.
Ability to set protection settings for posts and pages in bulk from eMember’s dashboard or set the protection of a particular WordPress post or page while editing/creating it in the editor
Ability to protect a section of a post or page for a specific member or for a membership level
Teaser content – Ability to use “more” tag protection to create teaser content
Secure RSS feeds – Secure RSS feeds allow your members to view their membership material in their RSS reader
Login restriction by IP Address – If the number of login attempts from different IP addresses exceed the specified limit then the member’s account will be locked
Ability to disable simultaneous member login using the same member account details (two users cannot log-in to the same account at the same time). Helpful when you want to prevent member login sharing
Domain Level/Sitewide Lockdown – ability to restrict anonymous visitor access to your site at a domain level (the site won’t even load unless the visitor logs in as a member). The only page the visitor will be able to access on the site when not logged in is the “Join Us” page.
Ability to use download folder protection option (users will need to provider their login credentials to download any file from the protected folder)
Google First Click Free (GFCF) – eMember lets you use Google First Click Free feature so your protected content can be indexed by Google search if you want (view full details).
You can make it to where only your members can comment on the site but everyone else can see the comments.

Membership Options

Unlimited membership levels – Your membership site can have as many “levels” as you need
Unlimited members. You can have an unlimited number of members with the eMember plugin
Multi-level access option – Give your members access to multiple levels within your membership site.
Flexible membership options- eMember gives you the flexibility to create different types of membership levels. Example, free, trial, and paid memberships
A member can buy multiple membership levels. In this scenerio the member will be able to access content from all the different membership levels that he/she purchased.
Subscription length control. You can control the length of each member’s access to your membership site. A membership will automatically expire when the set time has been reached (e.g. 7 days, 1 month, 1 year etc)
One time payment membership option – if you do not want to offer a subscription based membership then you can use the one time payment option (example, a once off payment of $49.95 for a full year membership)
Ability to configure membership level expiry using a few different options. For example, expire after XX number of days or expire on a fixed date or expire when subscription is cancelled etc.
Auto Upgrade – You can setup scheduled upgrade of member’s membership level (e.g a member of silver membership will be automatically upgraded to gold membership after 1 month). This model can be used to drip content or deliver course materials to students in a timely fashion
Ability to manually approve members after they register. Members will not be able to log in until you manually approve their account
There is also an option to send members an email when you approved their accounts.
Ability to schedule automatic renewal email notice to the members before their membership account gets expired
Ability to bulk send emails to your members

Setup and Design

Simple installation with new and existing WordPress blog – Turn your existing or new WordPress blog into a membership site by simply installing the WP eMember and configuring a few basic settings.
Fully automated membership system.
Source code is non-encrypted – If you are a developer and would like to make customizations for your install then you are welcome to do so.
Ability to customize what fields show up on the registration and edit profile forms
Easy member management. You can easily view your members, their registration status, membership level etc.
Bookmarking feature – your members can bookmark their favourite posts and pages then view their bookmarks later.
Login redirection – Control the first page your members view when they login. You can specify a different redirection page for each membership level. This is very useful for adding welcome messages, information for that membership level, updates, news and events etc.
Membership login can be placed in a post, page, or sidebar.
Ability to show your member profiles to other users of the site.
Ability to display various details of the logged in member using shortcodes.
You can save hidden admin notes for each member that is only visible to admin of the site.
Ability to configure auto “account expiry” reminder notification email.
It can automatically send emails to your members whose accounts are about to expire.
It can automatically send emails to your members whose accounts have expired.
Compatible with the current version of WordPress.
Lightweight – WP eMember is a lightweight and easy to use membership plugin.
WP eMember is compatible with all properly coded (valid xHTML code) themes.
Ability to display a list of all the membership level(s) that belong to a user (very handy if you use the multiple membership levels per user feature).
Shortcodes to display your members list to other users.

Admin Dashboard

You can set which user roles can access the admin dashboard side of eMember. The user with “admin” permission can access the admin dashboard by default.
The members menu shows you all the members who have signed up.
You can quickly view a list of all members or just your active members.
You can view a list of soon to expire member accounts of your site.
Ability to export all your members profile data to a CSV file.
You can filter the list by membership level and search member records from this interface.
Ability to edit any member’s information by clicking the “edit” link.
Ability to manually add member data via the “Add Member” interface.
You can generate a comma separated email list of your members (for email marketing purpose)
The members interface also lets you manage user blacklisting.
The membership level interface lets you configure membership levels and allows you to apply content protection for each levels you have.
There is an Admin Functions interface that has various little utility type functionality. These functionalities can be handy when running a big membership site.
The settings interface lets you enabled/disable various features of the plugin.

Member Login Related

Ability to place the member login widget anywhere on your site
Ability to use a compact login option (view more details)
Ability to use a Fancy login option (a login window pops up when the login link is clicked). There are two different fancy login options for you to choose from
Ability to setup an after login redirection page (this allows you to set the first page your members see when they login). You can also customize this on a per membership level basis so that members from different membership levels can have different after login landing page
Option to automatically log your member into the site right after the registration
Ability to force your members to re-authenticate after XX minutes of browsing. When you enable this feature the members will get logged out after XX minutes from their sign in time and they will need to re-login
User login restriction by IP address
Disable simultaneous user/member login
WordPress shows an admin toolbar at the top of the site to the users that are logged in (this can be confusing for some members). Our plugin has an option to hide that admin toolbar in the front-end of your site.

Member Registration Form

Ability to customize what fields are included in the member registration form
Ability to add custom registration fields to the member registration form (view more details)
Real time registration form field validation
Single registration form for all types of membership to help you keep a clean and simple setup.
Ability to show a terms and conditions checkbox in the registration form. Users have to agree to your terms before they can become a member.
Ability to setup an automatic after registration redirection (can be used to redirect the user to a specific page just after they complete the registration)

Integration Option

Pre-integrated with the WP eStore plugin. This allows you to accept membership payment via any payment gateway supported by eStore. You can also display a member’s purchase history when they make purchases using eStore.
Simple PayPal button integration. You can use the eMember with a simple PayPal button for one time payments and recurring payments
Braintree payment gateway integration to accept membership payment via Braintree.
ClickBank Integration.
Integrates easily with BBPress 2.0+ forum plugin. View details here.
Can be integrated with AWeber, MailChimp, GetResponse to automatically sign up the members to your Autoresponder list when they register for a member account
Can be integrated with the MailPoet Newsletter plugin to signup your members to that plugin’s list.
Can be integrated with WooCommerce so you can sell membership access via WooCommerce products.
Can be integrated with any plugin that uses WordPress user role/capability feature. View detail here.

Miscellaneous

Free technical support – please see our support options here
Free lifetime plugin updates

Check the following video for a feature tour of WP eMember:

Visit the WP eMember (WordPress Membership) plugin page.

How to Display a Member’s Purchase History

You can create a WordPress page and use the following shortcode on it. This shortcode will display all the membership levels (both primary any secondary levels) that a member has in his/her profile.
[wp_eMember_my_membership_levels]
Here is an example of what it will show:

You can also show the welcome page of each membership level using this shortcode (if you have one for your membership levels). Use the following shortcode to list the membership levels a user purchased with a link to the respecting welcome page of that level:
[wp_eMember_my_membership_levels show_welcome_page="1"]
The above shortcode will produce an output like the following example:

show-members-purchased-levels-with-welcom-page

Using a Purchase History for WP eStore Products

When a member makes a purchase through eStore while logged in, it will be recorded. The member can then view his/her purchase history.

You can use the following shortcode on a post or page to display a member’s purchase history:
[wp_eStore_members_purchase_history]
It will display the purchase history of the member who is logged in and viewing that post or page. Please note that the purchase history only works for purchases done via the eStore plugin so you will need to have both eMember and eStore installed on your server (the above shortocode is actually an eStore shortcode).

The purchase history looks similar to the following screenshot:

Screenshot of a Member’s Purchase History

So, ideally you will create a page called “Purchase History” and place the above shortcode on the page then protect the page from the “General Protection”. Now, give the other membership levels access to this page which will allow the logged in members to view their purchase history.

Display Member’s Purchase History With an Option to Download

You can use the following shortcode on a post or page to display a member’s purchase history with an option to download the purchased files
[wp_eStore_members_purchase_history_with_download]
This will let your members see their purchase history and download any item they previously purchased.

How to Integrate WP eMember with AWeber

The WP eMember membership plugin can be easily integrated with AWeber (Email marketing and Autoresponder service) so that your members get signed up to your AWeber list when they register for an account.

AWeber recently added the capability to add subscribers to a list via their API. We have updated the eMember plugin to use this new API for AWeber integration.

AWeber Integration Steps

Step 1) Make a Connection to the AWeber API

First, you need to connect with the AWeber API. In order to connect eMember with the AWeber API, go to the eMember Settings -> Autoresponder Settings menu and authorize the “Tips and Tricks HQ” app.

Click on the “Make Connection” button to start the process (see the following screenshots).

After you hit the “Make Connection” button you should see a message saying “AWeber Authorization Success” given you provided the correct authorization code. Save the settings.

Step 2) Enable the Integration

Make sure you have checked the “Enable AWeber Signup” option in the settings to enable the AWeber integration.

Step 3) Specify the AWeber List Name/ID

Next, you need to specify the AWeber list name/ID so the plugin knows which list it should signup the members.

Below is an example of how an AWeber list name/ID looks like (you get the list ID value from your AWeber account):

awlist1234567

You can specify a Global list name in the “AWeber List Name” settings field so all members get added to that list. Remember to save the settings after you make changes.

Alternatively, you can signup your members to different AWeber lists based on their membership level also. For membership level specific signup, specify the list name in the “Autoresponder List/Campaign Name” section of the membership level in question.