eMember – working with upgrade and subscription start and expiration dates

[DebraReed]

I am using eStore and eMember.

I have set up 4 membership levels:

1 Free (no expiry)

2 Lifetime (no expiry)

3 Lifetime w/one free year access to web-app (one year expiry for Level 3 content)

4 Lifetime w/monthly paid access to web-app (monthly expiry for Level 4 content)

Below is the flow I would like to happen, but cannot seem to figure out based on how subscription start dates/expirations work with upgrades and auto-upgrades.

For this entire flow, I want the member to have unexpired access to Level 1,2 content.

-Level 2 members have option to upgrade to Level 3 at any time via upgrade button on a protected Level 2 page.

-Upgrade to Level 3 is free and adds one year of access (so expiration should be one year from today’s upgrade date)

-Level 3 gives them one year free access to Level 3 web-app content.

-After 1 year, Level 3 expires (no renewal option) and member auto-upgrades to Level 4.

-Access to Level 4 shows member subscription button to pay for optional Level 4 continued access to web-app on monthly basis.

…So throughout all of this flow, I want member to remain active for Levels 1,2 content but they will additionally have either a Level 3 or 4 access depending on when they click the “upgrade” button to begin Level 3.

I hope this makes sense. I have tried various configurations with the upgrade shortcode and auto-upgrades. It seems my first problem is when member upgrades from Level 2 to Level 3 that the one year access is added to original subscription date that came from Level 1 or 2 signup instead of beginning a new year of access on the upgrade date.

Also, I know I could alternatively set up a subscription for our web-app with 1 year free trial and then monthly subscription cost, but this hasn’t worked out well for our customers in the past. They do not want the auto-renewal after the initial free trial. They want to start their free web-app trial at their convenience and then choose manually to begin monthly installments after free trial.

Other info:

WP 3.9.1

eMember 8.8.6

-used shortcode [wp_eMember_upgrade_membership_level_to level=3]

-set Members/Auto Upgrade/Level 3 to promote to Level 4 after 365 days

Thank you for any suggestions.

[admin]

Currently, the [wp_eMember_upgrade_membership_level_to level=3] shortcode only changes the level. It doesn’t modify the date. An option can be added to that shortcode so the date value is also changed. Will that help your situation?

[DebraReed]

Yes, I think adding a date value to the shortcode is quite possibly what I would need to make everything work as desired. I also believe I need to add an additional membership level to what I originally described.

Level 1 and 2 have downloadable content that should never expire to members of those levels. Our web developers will give/deny access to our web-app (hosted elsewhere) based on members’ access to Levels 3,4,or 5.

Member Levels

1- Free Downloadable Content (no expiry)

2- Lifetime Downloadable Content (no expiry)

3- One free year access to web-app (one year expiry)

4- No access to web-app (no expiry)

… this level is basically used to hide the Level 3 free upgrade button, show a subscription button for Level 5 access, and to show our web-app that members do not get access at this level

5- Monthly paid access to web-app (monthly expiry)

Let me see if understand correctly how this would work if you can add a modifying date option to the upgrade shortcode for Level 3.

1) Member signs up for Level 1 on 5/1/2014. Expiry would be “until cancelled”.

2) Member signs up for Level 2 on 6/1/2014. Expiry would be “until cancelled”.

3) Member does free upgrade to Level 3 using the new proposed upgrade shortcode (with a date value of one year) on 7/1/2014. Expiry would change to approx 7/1/2015. This expiry only pertains to Level 3 content; member still retains access to Level 1,2 content.

4) Member auto-upgrades to Level 4 on 7/1/2015 because Level 3 was set to auto-upgrade to Level 4 after 365 days. Member loses access to Level 3 content but retains access to Level 1,2 content.

5) At Level 4, members are shown a subscription button for same content access they had at Level 3 (web-app).

6) Member has two choices:

a) Member remains at Level 4 and retains access to Level 1,2,4 content until proceeding to step 6b.

b) Member purchases monthly subscription giving them access to Level 5 (web-app) on monthly basis and retains access to Level 1,2,4,5 content.

7) If member expires/cancels at Level 5, they need to return to Level 4 membership with access to Level 1,2,4 content.

Questions:

Q1) I do have Secondary Membership Level enabled. Do I also need to enable second option for the primary/secondary level? I do want Level 5 expired members to return to Level 4. However, I need to make sure that Level 3 expired members move up to Level 4 (not down to Level 2) so that I can use Level 4 to protect my free upgrade button shown at Level 2. I think I should check both options for the Secondary Membership as long as my Level 3 expired members are auto-upgraded to Level 4 with no lapse. Can you please advise how I should use these settings?

Q2) As described in my flow, I want members to always have access to Level 1,2 protected content regardless of what happens to their expiry date Both of these levels have no expiry. Will members retain this access regardless of changing expiry date?

Q3) The only point in our flow where a member would cancel is in Level 5. If they cancel at Level 5 via PayPal, is that going to cancel ALL of their membership levels? I would want this to only cancel their access to Level 5 membership level.

Q4) Is it possible to use the auto-upgrade set to promote on day zero? I tried that in one of my testing configurations and it didn’t seem to work. Just curious.

Thanks for your time and consideration of my needed configuration. I am trying to make the switch to eMember/eStore/WP Affiliate after 4 years with DAP/eStore plugin. I have nearly 40,000 members, so this switch is a very scary step for me. However, you have done an outstanding job with the features you offer, the ease of use, and support information. I hope to make this all work!

[Author]

Posts