eMember – bulk importing users and PayPal subscriptions

[markyards]

I am setting up a site that has 2 membership levels (monthly and yearly). I am using eMember with eStore to create the buttons. All seems to be working fine for new customers.

However, I need to bring across members from another system (not WordPress). I can get a CSV file and import into eMember no problem but my question is in relation to the PayPal payment side. How do I ‘link’ the current subscriptions in PayPal to the imported members on the new website I am working on? I’m assuming my website needs to be able to get that information so that it can charge, enable upgrades etc.

Sorry for the newbie question, just trying to get my head around the process.

Thanks.

[wzp]

There are no clean and seamless ways to import PayPal subscriptions. That’s not to say it’s impossible, as shown by this thread:

https://support.tipsandtricks-hq.com/forums/topic/moving-existing-members-into-emember

And that was only because the user was able to obtain the subscription ID information from the “old system.”

Another approach, involves a manual “transition period” between the old and new systems:

https://support.tipsandtricks-hq.com/forums/topic/emember-how-to-add-paypal-subscribers-into-emember

A big factor of course, is the whether the number of subscribers from the old system makes it worth the effort to try an “elegant” over a “get it done” solution.

How exactly does the existing subscription setup work? What system/setup are you using?

[markyards]

Thanks for the quick reply.

I don’t know what the old system is, nothing sophisticated. Just a basic member solution for Joomla. All I’ve really been given access to is the exported database of users. Thankfully alot of what is in the bulk uploader skeleton CSV matches up.

There isn’t a lot of subscribers, 200 at most but probably half that. I think the approach in the second link might work. ie bring in all members into eMember and manually set expiration dates. Then as each expires they will be prompted to renew/create new subscription. As soon as its live I’ll send out an email prompting them to login and reset password.

I like the clean slate feeling this will have.

Once an existing member is prompted to renew, will the auto recurring option change. ie from a ‘set expiration date’ to ‘until cancelled’? Or do I have to manually change that as they renew?

How do I go about cancels all existing subscriptions with PayPal? Is that something each individual has to do or can I do a bulk unsubscribe?

Thanks.

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