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Hi All!

I am thinking about using s2member. Can it do the following?

1) bulk-disable all current users / members

2) import received paypal payments through a CSV file and use the from email addresses and date of purchase to enable member accounts - their account would be enabled for 12 months beginning from the date of purchase (paypal integration not required)

3) manually enable specific member accounts if necessary

4) compatibility with download monitor plugin or the ability to store downloads using secret direct URLs to the downloads stored somewhere else online (we don't want to upload files via the WP backend and want to keep them seperate from our WP installation)

Thanks,
B

bschiett wrote:1) bulk-disable all current users / members

s2Member utilizes the WordPress userbase and there is not an option to "disable" a user, however you could achieve something similar by changing their role to Free Subscriber and simply not providing any content for that role (you could even send Free Subscribers to a specific page when they login, telling them their account is disabled).

bschiett wrote:2) import received paypal payments through a CSV file and use the from email addresses and date of purchase to enable member accounts - their account would be enabled for 12 months beginning from the date of purchase (paypal integration not required)

Yes, you can import a CSV-formatted file constructed with the fields necessary to import users into s2Member to automatically create those users. One of the fields you can fill in is the Auto EOT field. You can specify an Auto EOT of 1 year from now and that users account will expire (i.e., they will be demoted or deleted depending on your s2Member configuration after 1 year).

Here's a list of what fields this CSV file can include:

"ID","Username","Password","First Name","Last Name","Display Name","Email","Website","Role","Custom Capabilities","Registration Date","First Payment Date","Last Payment Date","Auto-EOT Date","Custom Value","Paid Subscr. ID","Paid Subscr. Gateway"

There's lots of inline documentation inside s2Member (this feature is a Pro feature, so you'll need to have s2Member Pro): WP Admin -> s2Member -> Import/Export

bschiett wrote:3) manually enable specific member accounts if necessary

As I explained earlier, enabling/disabling accounts is done by changing their role. You can manually change the role of any user, increasing or decreasing their level. You can also manually specify their Automatic EOT Time (the time their account expires).

bschiett wrote:4) compatibility with download monitor plugin or the ability to store downloads using secret direct URLs to the downloads stored somewhere else online (we don't want to upload files via the WP backend and want to keep them seperate from our WP installation)

Are you wanting to store download URLs with each users account? This could be done using Custom Fields, which you can create in s2Member. After creating a Custom Field, your CSV import file can include fields for these custom fields to include those URLs in the Custom Fields on each users account.

Raam Dev wrote:

bschiett wrote:1) bulk-disable all current users / members

s2Member utilizes the WordPress userbase and there is not an option to "disable" a user, however you could achieve something similar by changing their role to Free Subscriber and simply not providing any content for that role (you could even send Free Subscribers to a specific page when they login, telling them their account is disabled).

bschiett wrote:2) import received paypal payments through a CSV file and use the from email addresses and date of purchase to enable member accounts - their account would be enabled for 12 months beginning from the date of purchase (paypal integration not required)

Yes, you can import a CSV-formatted file constructed with the fields necessary to import users into s2Member to automatically create those users. One of the fields you can fill in is the Auto EOT field. You can specify an Auto EOT of 1 year from now and that users account will expire (i.e., they will be demoted or deleted depending on your s2Member configuration after 1 year).

Here's a list of what fields this CSV file can include:

"ID","Username","Password","First Name","Last Name","Display Name","Email","Website","Role","Custom Capabilities","Registration Date","First Payment Date","Last Payment Date","Auto-EOT Date","Custom Value","Paid Subscr. ID","Paid Subscr. Gateway"

There's lots of inline documentation inside s2Member (this feature is a Pro feature, so you'll need to have s2Member Pro): WP Admin -> s2Member -> Import/Export

bschiett wrote:3) manually enable specific member accounts if necessary

As I explained earlier, enabling/disabling accounts is done by changing their role. You can manually change the role of any user, increasing or decreasing their level. You can also manually specify their Automatic EOT Time (the time their account expires).

bschiett wrote:4) compatibility with download monitor plugin or the ability to store downloads using secret direct URLs to the downloads stored somewhere else online (we don't want to upload files via the WP backend and want to keep them seperate from our WP installation)

Are you wanting to store download URLs with each users account? This could be done using Custom Fields, which you can create in s2Member. After creating a Custom Field, your CSV import file can include fields for these custom fields to include those URLs in the Custom Fields on each users account.

thanks - we just need to be able to store our downloads on dropbox for example and then add the direct URL to the file (which is secret) in the backend of s2member... is this possible?

Yes, you could store that in a Custom Field on the user's profile.

Raam Dev wrote:Yes, you could store that in a Custom Field on the user's profile.

this is not what I want - the downloads should be accessible to a certain membership level
and some users will have this level

Thanks for the great question.

bschiett wrote:

Raam Dev wrote:Yes, you could store that in a Custom Field on the user's profile.

this is not what I want - the downloads should be accessible to a certain membership level
and some users will have this level

For downloads that should be accessible only at certain Membership Levels, you can use s2Member's built-in functionality for this, via sub-folders. For further details on this, please check the documentation in your Dashboard, under: s2Member -> API Scripting -> Custom Capability & Member Level Files.

Jason Caldwell wrote:Thanks for the great question.

bschiett wrote:

Raam Dev wrote:Yes, you could store that in a Custom Field on the user's profile.

this is not what I want - the downloads should be accessible to a certain membership level
and some users will have this level

For downloads that should be accessible only at certain Membership Levels, you can use s2Member's built-in functionality for this, via sub-folders. For further details on this, please check the documentation in your Dashboard, under: s2Member -> API Scripting -> Custom Capability & Member Level Files.

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Thanks. So how do I add the downloads ? I just have to place them in specific folders of the s2member plugin, and then they will show up automatically for members who have certain membership levels?

Can these files be located in a folder outside of the WP installation and perhaps on a different server?
We like to store all our files on dropbox.

Thanks. So how do I add the downloads ? I just have to place them in specific folders of the s2member plugin, and then they will show up automatically for members who have certain membership levels?

Yes, that is correct. You just upload files to your server via FTP, and place them inside /wp-content/plugins/s2member-files/. You can create sub-directories even, and organize things however you like.

You can then provide access to these files through Shortcodes made available by s2Member.

Code: Select all

[s2File download="example-file.zip" /]

Code: Select all

[s2File download="sub-directory/example-file.zip" /]

This directory /s2member-files/ could also be changed if you prefer, by adding this hack file to your WordPress installation.

Please create this directory and file.
/wp-content/mu-plugins/s2-hacks.php
( these are MUST USE plugins, see: http://codex.wordpress.org/Must_Use_Plugins )

Code: Select all

<?php
add_filter("ws_plugin__s2member_files_dir", "my_s2_files_dir");
function my_s2_files_dir(){ return "/absolute/server/path/to/s2member-files"; }
?>

s2Member supports local file storage inside the /s2member-files/ directory, or alternatively through Amazon S3 and/or Amazon CloudFront. Sorry, it's not possible to host protected files with another 3rd-party service at this time, other than with Amazon S3.

Jason Caldwell wrote:

Thanks. So how do I add the downloads ? I just have to place them in specific folders of the s2member plugin, and then they will show up automatically for members who have certain membership levels?

Yes, that is correct. You just upload files to your server via FTP, and place them inside /wp-content/plugins/s2member-files/. You can create sub-directories even, and organize things however you like.

You can then provide access to these files through Shortcodes made available by s2Member.

Code: Select all

[s2File download="example-file.zip" /]

Code: Select all

[s2File download="sub-directory/example-file.zip" /]

This directory /s2member-files/ could also be changed if you prefer, by adding this hack file to your WordPress installation.

Please create this directory and file.
/wp-content/mu-plugins/s2-hacks.php
( these are MUST USE plugins, see: http://codex.wordpress.org/Must_Use_Plugins )

Code: Select all

<?php
add_filter("ws_plugin__s2member_files_dir", "my_s2_files_dir");
function my_s2_files_dir(){ return "/absolute/server/path/to/s2member-files"; }
?>

s2Member supports local file storage inside the /s2member-files/ directory, or alternatively through Amazon S3 and/or Amazon CloudFront. Sorry, it's not possible to host protected files with another 3rd-party service at this time, other than with Amazon S3.

OK, and it's possible to set different directories for different levels?

Yes, that is correct. You can have different sub-directories that require access to certain Membership Levels, as documented in your Dashboard under: s2Member -> API Scripting -> Custom Capability & Member Level Files. As the title of this section implies, it's possible to restrict by Level, AND also by Custom Capability, should the need for that flexibility arise.

See: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=16865&p=60989#p60973

I just wanted to add that if you really need to use another service to host the files, such as DropBox, you could show the links to the files to a particular member level using conditionals in your post. WP Admin -> s2Member -> API / Scripting -> Simple/Shortcode Conditionals

But this won't prevent the URLs from being shared and non-members using them and downloading the files, so using s2Member's download protection is the best approach, in my opinion.