Is S2 Right for my Purposes?

[Rosemary]

Hi Everyone

Im a newbie here.

S2 has been suggested to me as a free plugin I could use for my particular purpose but Im not sure.

I would like your feedback please.

Essentially, I have a blog and Im going to monetize it by selling the services of consultants.

The steps will look something like this:

. Clients will type in a question

. They will directed to make a Paypal payment

. Then redirected back to a confirmation/thank you page

. The question will be sent to a small band of consultants

. Replies will be sent to me and up to three replies will be fed back to the client

Currently, all material on the site is open to everyone. There is no login required.

Im no good at visualising how S2 would work, could work in this instance.

Down the track, I may set up a membership site.

Can S2 be used for this purpose?

Cheers

Rosemary

[Cristián Lávaque]

Hi Rosemary. Thanks for your interest in s2Member.

You could probably use s2Member for this with a bit of customization. After payment, you could have the person taken to a page with a private contact form he'd use to send the question, then you handle the replies part manually. You'd need the customization if you want the form to expire after a certain number of uses, for example.

You could also customize the PayPal button's HTML so it includes a text input for the question, which could go in the custom attribute for s2Member to pick up later after payment.
WP Admini -> s2Member -> PayPal Buttons -> Shortcode Attributes -> custom
viewtopic.php?f=36&t=1604

If you need help to get this working the way you want, there are freelance developer you can hire to assist you. viewforum.php?f=37

I hope that helps.

[Rosemary]

Thank you Cristian for replying.

Im going to re-read this and try and understand what you are saying.

I felt I needed to know if this could work for my purposes, before I really dived into the videos.

So, now Im going to proceed and re-read your note.

Im trying to avoid paying for help at this stage. I just want something that I can test the market with and an IT guy suggested S2.

Cheers

Rosemary

[Rosemary]

Cristian,

Is there an overview video that shows me how S2 looks/works on a site as a Membership function? that will help me picture/see the S2 potential, even if it isnt as I would use it.

Cheers

Rosemary

[Eduan]

Try these videos:
http://www.s2member.com/video-intro/
http://www.s2member.com/general-options-overview-video/

[Rosemary]

Thank you Eduan.

Ive downloaded those links.

Hopefully they will give me insight into S2.

Certainly impressed with the S2 forum.

Here's hoping the product is as helpful

Cheers

Rosemary

[Eduan]

Glad to be able to help!
Anything else you need just ask.

[Cristián Lávaque]

Thank you for the kudos, Rosemary.

Those videos should help you start familiarizing with s2Member. Installing the free version of s2Member and going through it's admin areas would also help you a lot. You can watch the videos and then go see those areas of the plugin for yourself, too.

And there are more videos if you want to review specific areas of the plugin. http://www.s2member.com/videos/

[Rosemary]

Ive now followed these two videos and have installed as instructed.

However, not being a techie I find Im lacking visual representations in my head (and on my computer) as to how others have/are using S2 member in modified forms.

I guess no one is using it for the purposes I describe but can anyone give me some links to sites that have lightly customised S2, so I can see how it is working elsewhere?

I hope you can see the gap Im trying to bridge. I'm not even able to visualise how S2 will work for me as yet, but maybe if you could point out some sites that are using it - with a twist - I will begin to see what is in it for my site.

Sorry to be so basic.

Cheers

Rosemary

[Bruce C]

s2Member's approach is fairly simplistic.

Here's my little explanation:

In your setup, you would like to have a specific page (the page the user will submit the question to) guarded by s2Member. To do this, you will need to set your page up with s2Member Level 1 Access Permissions (screenshot below)

10-30-2011 3-19-13 PM.png (24.24 KiB) Viewed 259 times

The User (if not level1 or higher) will be redirected to your Membership Options Page which you will need to set up in your s2Member® General Options. This page should contain a PayPal® Button or Pro Form that you set up.

After the customer pays for the subscription, they will be able to create an account, and allowed access to the page again. The customer will enter their question once more, the question will be sent, and therefore completing your process.

---

s2Member does not keep a record of the websites that use it, therefore it is not really possible to direct you to a site that you are looking for.

If you feel as though you cannot set up s2Member on your own, you can submit a request for a Professional Installation by Private Messaging me.

Hope that helps!

[Rosemary]

Thanks Ace.

Im a DIY kind of girl as my blog is not monetized.

I can see what you are saying.

Two questions: in the beta phase I need the registrations/questions to be free. Is that as simple as putting the protected page code in Level zero?

And,

when this is installed and operating beyond beta, I need people to ask a question and then pay each time. Is this what needs to be customized or will this happen as a matter of course/

Thanks for explanation about other websites too.

Cheers

Rosemary

[Bruce C]

Okay, I understand.

1. Yes. In the 'beta phase' all you will need to do is keep the page protected at level 0, and allow 'Open Registration' (Dashboard->s2Member->General Options->Open Registration)

2. In order to have to pay for 1-time access it would take a bit of custom coding to get it done. However, I would be glad to help you out with the code for this (I would suggest a demotation through code after sending a question)with no charge, as a sort of project to further my PHP knowledge, as at least one other person has asked for this, and it could be added to future versions of s2Member.

I hope all of that makes sense.

Cheers!

[Rosemary]

Wow, that is very kind of you to offer Ace. Thank you. I may just take you up on that step. First perhaps, I need to go further into S2 to see what else is needed.

Ill PM you when Im there if that's OK.

Cheers

Rosemary

[Bruce C]

Okay, cool!

[Bruce C]

For anyone else who is looking for some kind of one-time-access permissions, I would suggest adding code of this style to demote users on viewing the page.

Code: Select all


    global $current_user;
    get_currentuserinfo();
    $user = new WP_User($current_user->ID);
    $user->set_role('subscriber'); 
 

Then, set a PayPal button to modify the User Level to level 1 to allow access.

Alternatively, you can get the current role, and demote based on the current role (http://wordpress.org/support/topic/get- ... by-user-id will show you how to get the current user role.)

Code: Select all


<?php
global $current_user;
get_currentuserinfo ();
$user = new WP_User ($current_user->ID);
if ($user->roles[0] == 's2member_level1')
    {
        $user->set_role ('subscriber');
    }
else if ($user->roles[0] == 's2member_level2')
    {
        $user->set_role ('s2member_level1');
    }
//Etc...
else if ($user->roles[0] == 'subscriber')
    {
        exit ('Not allowed access to this Content.');
    }
?>
Content goes here.


If you need help with setting this up, you can contact me via PM or reply to this post.

Hopefully this sort of functionality will be added to the s2Member code soon.

Please note that these code snippets are not finished, and may cause errors when an administrator views them.

Cheers!

[Cristián Lávaque]

Ace, you should explain where to put that too.

I think the best place would be the script the question is submitted to (the URL in the contact form's action) or the page the user is taken to after submitting.

And the form to ask should only be shown to those with Level 1 access, either using one of the access restrictions or a conditional.

[Rosemary]

Quick Question

Is it possible to remove the Username field from the Registration Page?

Cheers

Rosemary

[Eduan]

@Rosemary
I'm not aware of that but you can remove the first and last name, you can do it under WP Admin -> s2Member -> General Options -> Registration/Profile Fields & Options.

[Rosemary]

Thanks Eduan. Im all for the first and last name - kind of gives an air of authenticity which Im aiming for.

Cheers

Rosemary

[Cristián Lávaque]

Here's a hack Jason suggested to have WordPress use the email address as the username, so the user doesn't have to input one. viewtopic.php?f=36&t=14806

I hope that helps.

[Rosemary]

Well, I guess it was inevitable. Im locked out of my site.

I decided to register to watch the flow of the pages.

Now I cant login as the administrator.

And, I dont know how to log out as the user.

What a conundrum. Can anyone solve this for me please?

Im sure Im not the first amateur to meet this impasse (am I???).

Cheers

Rosemary

[Cristián Lávaque]

You can log out from http://yoursite.com/wp-login.php?action=logout (change the domain name to yours). The go to http://yoursite.com/wp-login.php to login with your admin account.

I hope that helps.

[Rosemary]

YAH!! Thank you. Im out and back in again.

Cheers

Rosemary

[Rosemary]

OK. The good news is Im into S2 more

The bad news is, I have more questions.

I think the Specific Posts options will work for my purposes but I'd like your input please.

Step 1: land on what is called Membership Options Page

Step 2: click Paypal button

Step 3: redirected to Specific Post #1

Step 4: fill in Contact form

Questions:

Once the initial 'ask a question' cycle has been completed, I want to give people the option to sign up for a full consultation and get a discount equivalent to the fee they paid for the 'ask a question' round. Is there an easy way to do this with S2?

When I click on the Paypal link (per video Specific Posts/Pages 2) to see that the button works it takes me to Paypal but I dont see anything about "Dont have a Paypal Account?" Is this because Im automatically taken to my Paypal account? Just want to be sure that credit card is an option.

I think that's enough for one post.

Cheers

Rosemary

[Cristián Lávaque]

Well, if the upgrade option for a full consultation is show in the page to ask the question from, the one with the specific protection, then you know what they paid and can adjust the price when you create the button.

So, if you sell Page A at $10 and the full consulation is $100, you can have in Page A a button to get the full consultation for $90.

Would something like that work?

Make sure you're logged out of your PayPal account when you try the purchase, you should be given the option to pay without logging in to your account. If not, make sure in your PayPal settings that you didn't require the customer to have an account to pay you, there's a setting for that if I remember correctly.

I hope that helps.