The Membership product representation is designed to allow website users to buy a membership. You will typically use it to let users access paid premium content or other restricted website sections, or let them perform actions that are normally not allowed.

 

Memberships can be defined in CMS Desk / Site Manager -> Administration -> Membership. They are defined as a set of roles, while users who have the membership have the same privileges as if they were direct members of all the roles. Detailed information can be found in Developer's Guide -> Development -> Membership, permissions and security -> Memberships.

 

Defining a membership product

 

When creating a new product or editing an existing one (on the General tab), you need to choose Membership in the Representing drop-down list. After doing so, the Membership section appears below, allowing you to enter the following properties specific for this product representation:

 

•Membership group - membership defined in CMS Desk / Site Manager -> Administration -> Membership that a customer will get for purchasing the product.

•Membership validity - indicates how long the membership will be valid after being purchased. Can be set either for a limited period of time (Days, Weeks, Months, Years, Until a given date) or for an unlimited period. To set membership validity for an unlimited period of time, choose Until and leave the text box below empty.

 

 

Granting a membership

 

From the customer's point of view, there is no difference in the way memberships and any other representations of product are bought. However, the membership is granted to the customer only if the order is marked as paid. This can be done either automatically when the order changes its status to one with the Mark order as paid property enabled (available in CMS Desk -> E-commerce -> Configuration -> Order status -> Edit () order status) ...

 

 

... or manually by a store administrator by enabling the Order is paid property in CMS Desk -> E-commerce -> Orders -> Edit () order on the Billing tab of the order's editing interface.

 

 

Marking a memberships order as paid, both automatically and manually, results either in renewing the existing memberships or assigning new ones (depending on if a new membership or a renewal was ordered). In both cases, users are notified by means of a notification e-mail based on the E-commerce - Order payment notification to customer e-mail template.

 

 

Notifying about membership expiration

 

The system can be configured to send customers an automatic e-mail notification when their membership is close to expiration. This can be configured by means of the Send membership reminder (days) setting in Site Manager -> Settings -> Security & Membership. For more details, please refer to the Memberships -> Managing memberships topic in the Developer's Guide, specifically to its Membership expiration reminders section.

 

Renewing membership

 

To have an expired membership renewed, the customer can either ask the administrator to perform the renewal or they can buy a new membership using the My account web part on the live site. On the Memberships tab, the customer can view a list of their memberships. By clicking the Buy membership button, they are redirected to a page allowing them to buy new memberships or renew their existing ones.