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Membership from external link

PostPosted: November 17th, 2011, 6:41 am
by virtuallight
This query maybe answered somewhere on the forum but I haven't been able to find it.

I need to set up free membership - which is easy enough in Pro - but what I need to do is have referrals from a third party site as the only ones able to gain the free membership.

The visitors from this site will be members and will have access to unique pages, which will have a discount for them only.

I do not want to offer that free membership publicly on the site - I can get it all working but only by having the free membership sign in form visible to all - if I make that page private I cannot link it to my Membership Options page in Configuration, and the same with the Log In Welcome page.

So - in summary. Fred is a customer of XYZ and from their website they have a link to mine - to the Membership Options page.

Here they fill out the PayPal Pro forms and gain free registration and access to specific pages and products.

Everything I have tried places the Membership Page on the website for all visitors to gain access, which is not what I want.

Is there a work around, or am I missing somethin obvious (which is more than likely!

Re: Membership from external link

PostPosted: November 17th, 2011, 11:10 am
by cassel
Maybe you can make a separate Membership Option page and NOT have it available through any navigation or link from your own site. For example, you can have a page called "options", that anyone on your site can access, but have a page called "option-partners" that is hidden from visitors` view, but only accessible through a link.

I have set up a few test pages like that. They are only accessible with a direct link that is not available to anyone casually visiting the site.

Hope it helps.

Re: Membership from external link

PostPosted: November 17th, 2011, 12:15 pm
by virtuallight
Hi cassel

I have tried that, or at least similar, but the page will always appear on a tap or under a parent page - if i make it private and add a link that's fine but the Membership Options Page with the PayPal Pro Form is always public - hence my dilemma.

Re: Membership from external link

PostPosted: November 17th, 2011, 12:23 pm
by cassel
Hum. i see. I never really used the Pro-form, so, i didn`t know it was always public. Maybe that is the part that can be arranged. Hopefully Jason or Cristian or Eduan could give you some ideas. In a way, i guess i am looking into a similar situation, and i was planning on using Pro-form. I just had not gotten to that point yet. I also posted a few minutes ago with the request. Maybe the big s2M gurus can help us.

Re: Membership from external link

PostPosted: November 17th, 2011, 12:33 pm
by Eduan
Did you think of implementing something like this:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=15918

To make the page not appear you could make the special members a level higher than normal and put the link to that page, and the page itself visible only to them.

So there's level 1 and level 2, you can give free access to level 2 with this video:
http://www.s2member.com/free-registrati ... vel-video/

And to hide level 2 links to level 1 users you can use alternative views restrictions (see below) and use conditionals:
http://www.s2member.com/advanced-conditionals-video/

Try the alternative views restrictions, you can find them under WP Admin -> s2Member -> Restriction Options -> Alternative View Protection ( please read ).
http://www.s2member.com/content-restric ... ble-video/

Hope this helps. :)
Also remember to report back.
Otherwise you leave me worrying. ;)

Re: Membership from external link

PostPosted: November 17th, 2011, 5:08 pm
by virtuallight
Hi thanks again Eduan - you helped me the other day.

The first suggestion I do not think will work in this case, as they are likely going to come in form varied ip addresses.
The other suggestion(s) look as if they will work and I will try them tomorrow.

Excellent as allows - you are a star.

Re: Membership from external link

PostPosted: November 18th, 2011, 5:17 pm
by cassel
As i am leading toward something similar, i just re-read this thread. I realize now that when I was mentioning creating a hidden page, it was understood as a private page, and obviously, the Membership Option page cannot be protected. So, i think i might need to re-explain myself: the Membership Option page, the one you have set to be the one a visitor is redirected to in case they try to access a private section, but you can have another page, that would have the same thing as the Membership Option page, but that one would not be "public" as it would be a different page altogether, and if you simply do not add it to the navigation, it will be accessible by anyone who has the direct link (so it is public, in a way), but not reachable by a random visitor since there would be no link in the site to lead to it. Do you think that would work?

Re: Membership from external link

PostPosted: November 21st, 2011, 3:19 am
by Cristián Lávaque
Maybe you can create the special page for these visitors from the other website, add the free registration pro-form to it and then protect with Specific Page access restriction. WP Admin -> s2Member -> Restriction Options -> Specific Post/Page

Then generate a link for it and give it to the other site owner to share with his members. WP Admin -> s2Member -> PayPal Buttons -> Specific Post/Page Access Links

And make sure you have Alt Views restricted so the protected page won't show in the navigation, but even if it did, someone trying to view it without the special link will be sent to the Membership Options Page.

I hope this helps. :)

Re: Membership from external link

PostPosted: November 23rd, 2011, 6:01 am
by virtuallight
Still struggling with this.

To clarify, I wish to have the third party website link to a membership form that will allow them, and them only, access to certain pages - the problem is to keep that membership sign-up page invisible to everyone else.