Jun 132016
 

WordPress Simple Membership Manage Members post helps you set up and manage all your members in one location using this plugin.

Last Updated: November 1, 2024

Latest News: Updated the information.

The following instructions shows you how to add and manage your members. You can control all aspects of the members from the following plugin settings. Note when you first install the plugin you will see no members. From this point on, you can decide to add new members manually, import members from your WordPress Users list, import members from a csv file or simply let new members sign up.

WordPress Simple Membership Manage Members

Step 1 ) Go to WP Membership -> Members -> Members to view and manage your members lists. The following image shows you the Members tags. You can click on each tag to display the members based on your selection . You can also search for members using some fields as filters.

Members Search Tags

  • All
  • Active
  • Inactive
  • Activation Required
  • Pending
  • Incomplete
  • Expired

Members Search Filters

  • Account State
  • Membership Level

wordpress-simple-membership-members-searching-options

Step 2 ) The following image allows you to carry out Bulk Actions with all your members. From the dropdown list you can select from the following options.

Bulk Actions

  • Delete
  • Set Status to Active
  • Set Status To Active and Notify
  • Set Status to Inactive
  • Set Status to Pending
  • Set Status to Expired

wordpress-simple-membership-add-members-bulk-actions

Step 3 )  The following information shows you a list of members fields. These are the default members fields you see when you install the plugin and create or add new members in your site. All the fields are hyperlink, which allows you to click the field to sort your members by that field.

Note: By default the plugin will paginate the members list after 50 user entries. So if you have more than 50 members, you will see page 2, 3 etc.

The following filter hook exists that can be used to override that number to a custom value. Click the following link forum post to learn more.

swpm_members_menu_items_per_page

Members Displayed Fields And Search Options

  • ID = You can search using this Field.
  • Username
  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Email = You can search using this Field.
  • Membership Level = You can search using this Field.
  • Access Starts
  • Account State = You can search using this Field.
  • Last Login Date

Add Members Manually

Step 4 ) Note: Click on the following URL Add Members Manually to learn more about adding members manually.

Importing Members

Import members from a CSV file:

Step 5 ) If you want you can also import members from a CSV file. Click on the following URL simple-membership-bulk-import-member-data-csv-file to learn more.

Bulk Import Email Question

Note: The CSV import is not going to send any emails. The import simply inserts the data into the database. The following feature will ONLY work with the standard registration form where the user is filling in the registration form (it becomes too complicated to handle this otherwise). https://simple-membership-plugin.com/email-activation-for-members/. Click the following link forum post to learn more.

Import existing WordPress Users into simple membership plugin:

Step 5-a ) The following documentation import-existing-wordpress-users-simple-membership-plugin/ shows you how to import WP Users into your members area.

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Bulk Operation

Step 6 ) The following images Bulk Operation allows you to carry out bulk operations to update the members level. You can carry out the following actions.

Bulk Update Membership Level of Members

  • Membership Level:
  • Level to Change to:
  • Click on Bulk Change Membership Level button when you are ready to perform the task.

wordpress-simple-membership-add-members-bulk-operation-tab

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Bulk Update Access Starts Date of Members

  • Membership Level:
  • Access Starts Date:
  • Click on Bulk Change Access Starts Date button when you are ready to perform the task.

wordpress-simple-membership-add-members-bulk-access-starts-date

Bulk Update Account Status of Members

  • Membership Level:
  • Account Status to Change to:
  • Click on Bulk Change Account Status button when you are ready to perform the task.

wordpress-simple-membership-add-members-bulk-update-status

Bulk Delete Member Accounts

  • Membership Level:
  • Click on Bulk Delete Member Accounts button when you are ready to perform the task.

wordpress-simple-membership-delete-members-bulk-operation-tab

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Step 7 ) You can now delete the members records by clicking on the Delete User Profile link illustrated in the image below. The admin can achieve this while viewing or editing a member’s records.

wordpress-simple-membership-delete-user-profile-new

Send Direct Email

Step 8 ) The following image Send Direct Email allows you to to send an email to a member or a group of members belonging to a membership level. You can configure the following options.

Send Direct Email Options Part 1

  • Target Recipients
    • Send to Membership Level & Account Status
    • Send to Member IDs
  • Also Send Me a Copy
  • Email Subject

wordpress-simple-membership-send-direct-email-part1

Step 8-a ) The following image allows you to configure the following options.

Send Direct Email Options Part 2

  • Allow HTML
  • Email Body
  • Click on Send Direct Email button when you are ready to send an email.

wp-simple-membership-send-direct-email-part2

Interesting Tutorials

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Troubleshooting Tips

Q1 I manually created users, but now some of the users are expired and they want to extend their membership.  When changing the status from “expired” to “active” and the user visits the protected content their status changes back to “expired” and they can see the content. What do I need to do to avoid this issue?

Solution: You need to make sure you change the “Access Starts” date of the member to current date. When you manually change an expired member’s account to active you also need to update the “Access Starts” date to the current date so the plugin doesn’t think that the account has run its course and revert it back to expired.

You might like to read the following documentation manually-activating-expired-members-account/.

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FAQ

Q1 Most of our users have registered using a PayPal or Stripe subscription button. The subscription time period is set for a full year. We know the system will try to automatically renew (pay) the subscription on a date, but we want to also allow our users to be able to update (pay) their subscription in advance. How will that affect their current subscription?

Solution: Read the following forum post to learn more about the answer provided by the support staff.

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Q2 How do upgrade the members user meta after the members have upgraded their membership level from free to premium level?

Solution: Check the following solution posted in the support forum by one of the developers.

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Q3 How do I cancel a PayPal subscription as a merchant? And how do I add a shortcode in my site to allow the members to cancel their subscription from their PayPal account?

Solution: Check the following documentation cancelling-a-paypal-subscription-as-a-merchant to learn more.

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Q4 We don’t want to import users. There will be some patients who will be referred to the members area which is password protected itself. These members will then need to sign up to the given members area. It needs to be a sign up so that we can get them to accept a policy by signing up.

Solution: Normally, a user who already has an existing WP user account can’t create a new one. Importing them into SWPM is the best option. Once you import them, they can then log into the site as a member and then make payments. Or they can use the password reset functionality to log into the site.

They already have a user account (so making them agree to some terms now doesn’t really change anything since you already created their user account before they agreed to anything). In your terms and conditions you can say something like “By having a user account on our website you agree to all terms that is outlined in our terms and conditions”.

If you need them to agree to some terms the very first time they create a user profile on the site, then you can delete their existing user account and then tell them to go through the process (like a new normal user). Click to the following link forum post to learn more.

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Q5 A paid membership status expires even though it was before the expiration date. The expiration period is set to one month. How do I fix this issue?

Solution: The cronjob starts counting from the time the plugin was activated. The accuracy can’t be less than 1 day. So when you find this situation it is best to add a little buffer to your membership level’s expiry. Set the expiry condition to something like 31 days (just to be safe). Check the following forum post to learn more.

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Q6 How to check if the logged-in user has an active account status?

Solution: Check the following forum post to learn about a solution provided by one of the users. The following link https://simple-membership-plugin.com/simple-membership-miscellaneous-php-tweaks/ has more PHP tweaks.

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Q7 I deleted the WP User account and kept the membership account inactive. I did this so that they can’t log into my site using WP Users account. However now when they register again the WP Users account is not created. Why is that?

Solution: Our plugin does not work like that. What you are doing is going to cause unexpected behavior so I don’t recommend doing that. If you are worried and want to delete a user account, simply delete the user from the Simple Membership plugin (it will delete the corresponding WP user entry also). Then the user can register again in the future (if he wants to come back and be a member).

The wp user entries are going to have a role of “subscriber” so that should not be any security concern (unless you are doing something on this site to give some membership levels a higher permission). You can review each of your membership level configuration and make sure you are setting the role to what you really want/need (normally it should be a “contributor” or “subscriber” role). Check the following link forum post to learn more.

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Q8 Is there a way to disable Simple Membership from creating a WP User account?

Answer: No. It uses the WP user records for integration with plugins like WooCommerce, bbPress etc. The WP user won’t cause any issue since your users won’t really know about it. It is just there in the background. You can read more about it from the following link forum post.

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Q9 Is there a function to create a membership from a user ID?

Answer: With our plugin the concept of membership level needs to be taken into account. So the best way to create accounts programmatically is to use the following API (which offers appropriate function):. You can read more about it from the following link forum post.

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Q10 How does SWPM update a user status?

Answer: There is a daily cronjob that checks and deactivates accounts. You can read more about it from the following link forum post.

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Q11 Is  it possible to export a list of all users and password?

Answer: The passwords are kept using a ONE WAY hash. So you can’t look at the database and get passwords (this is the best security practice for storing passwords).

The following documentation of WordPress has an explanation on how passwords are hashed in the WP system. We use that same functionality in our Simple Membership plugin also:
https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/wp_hash_password/

The best practice is to request your users to reset their password. You (the site admin) can also go to the admin interface and set a new password for the members then tell them whatever password you set.

You can read more about it from the following link forum post.

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Q12 Is there a cookie used when a member logs into the site?

Answer: Yes, the following cookie is set when a member successfully logs into the site.

swpm_in_use

You can read more about it from the following link forum post.

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That is how simple it is to add new members to your website. I hope the above information helps you manage your members. More information and instructions will be added when new features are added to the plugin.

Click on the following URL Membership Levels to continue with the settings.

If you have any questions please let me know. I will be updating this tutorial from time to time.

Enjoy.

Simple Membership Plugin Tutorial List:

I have been working in IT since 1999 and I enjoy the challenges it brings me. I love developing websites with WordPress. I spend a lot of time helping out in wordpress.org forums. I have been writing tutorials since 2011. Now I am learning how to manage my own VPS "Virtual Private Server.

  2 Responses to “WordPress Simple Membership Manage Members”

  1. what is difference between inactive and expired?

    • Hi, the following message was posted in the forum by one of the developers.

      If an account expires naturally then the account is set to expired. If an account is deactivated for other reasons such as someone cancelling an ongoing subscription or taking a refund etc then it is set to inactive.

      The member is not going to be able to see any protected content if their account status is expired or inactive.

      Let me know if you need more information or help.

      Kind regards

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