Community Support Forums

My idea is to have a 4 week ecourse that's offered monthly. The curriculum would be the same each month, but obviously the members would be different. I'm trying to figure how to make this happen and suss out any issues before I get started. Here's the big question I have:

The course would start on the first Sunday of the month. Can I create a 'start date' for membership like that? ie, can someone buy membership today but not get access until the first Sunday next month (in this case December 5th)?

If the above can be done, then I should be good to go. I can sync an email autoresponder & use content-dripping to handle the course, and provide forum access.

My other question: how can I provide something like an automatic coupon to course members for an upgraded course? Or would I need to handle that manually? For example:

Course A: membership level 3, costs $20
Course B: membership level 4, costs $30

If someone takes course A, I would like to give them a $20 discount coupon that can be used for Course B (and only for Course B). That way, the repeat member can get Course B for $10 instead of $30. They would receive this coupon when Course A is completed.

Thank you - not just for answering previous questions but for making some amazing software! I look forward to taking my first membership earnings and upgrading to s2member pro

Look deeper into the "drip-feeding" concept in combination with the "conditionals" that are very well documented in the plugin's in-line documentation (see the "Quick-Start Guide" menu option). You can set content to be accessible (visible) according to a schedule, e.g. certain pages / posts can be accessed on or after a given date and only with a valid subscription, e.g. using the "unix time" variable.

The second question can probably also be handled well with conditionals: create a special custom capabilities (membership) package, to which only your existing (and current) Level 3 members have access, where you can set the price as you wish. Or, you can conditionally display a special discount coupon (to members meeting the appropriate criteria) for an "upgrade" to a regular Course B membership. To make it perfect, you can drip-feed that coupon or "special upgrade" so that they only can get it on or after a certain date. Edited to add: and you could even and in addition do a "get" for a custom user field, if you have one, that reflects (has data) whether that member has "completed" Course A, so that it becomes a second requirement for the discount.

The conditionals make sense - it's the logistics of doing this *every month* that I'm trying to solve. The problem that I am seeing is there would be new students with a new start dates, which would be different (like Dec 5, Jan 2, etc). Once a class begins, I guess I would change the start date for all new registrations - but how would that affect the current members?

After 4 weeks, the class will be over and I haven't decided if materials will still be accessible or not. Forum access beyond that will require payment, but that can be set up as a lower membership level.

I would also like to have this synced to a mailing list, with an email notification sent each day that a new page/post is available.

Thanks for the description on the coupon - the 'course completion' requirement takes care of that nicely.

Any further ideas on this? I have hopes Jason can weigh in

Still waiting to hear if I can do this. I'm ready to buy the pro version but if this can't be done at all I may have to consider another membership plugin.

Maybe it's simpler than I've been thinking - perhaps every month I can fix the start date of membership, rather than membership beginning the day someone joins. For example:

If someone joins in September, the 'start date' is fixed at October 1.
If someone joins in October, the 'start date' is fixed at November 1.

This must be doable - can someone point me in the right direction?

I could really use some help here - I may have to buy another membership plugin instead of using s2member if this cannot be done. I can't spend any time trying to suss this out if I can just buy something else that works. Thank you.

Oh well - I gotta go with another solution.

Not this is in time, but you sound more like you need a LMS like Moodle than WordPress with s2Member? I love WordPress, but I also run Moodle for courses. Just something to think about as you look at your other choices.

Thanks for your input. I'm familiar with Moodle but it's overkill for my needs. I could build what I need in Drupal, actually, but that would be overkill of a different sort