Managing Products

From AMember Pro Manual

Contents 1 What is a Product? 2 Add a Product 3 Edit a Product 4 Delete a Product

[edit] What is a Product?

Understanding the concept of a 'product' or subscription type is central to understanding how the aMember script works.

Many membership management scripts limit you to having just one subscription type, protecting a single directory. This is not the case with aMember. You can have any number of subscription types, each relating to a protected directory or directories. Each subscription type is referred to as a 'Product'.

A product can have a number of predefined criteria. The easiest way to understand these is to add a test product to aMember now, you will be able to delete this product later.

[edit] Add a Product

To add a product

• Open the aMember Admin Control Panel
• From the left menu, click Manage Products
• The Manage Products screen opens
• Click Add New Product link

The Add Product screen allows you to define a number of parameters for each product. Although you may not need to use all of them it is important to understand what each of them means

Title 

the name of your product. This will be displayed to users on the main signup page and will also appear in the list of products that an existing member can add or renew. It is also used in various member and admin reports. It is best to keep the title short.

Description 

a brief description of the product, usually a description of the content to which the product gives access. This will be displayed alongside the product title on the main signup page. You can use HTML in this field.

Price 

the cost of the subscription for the given period. Enter only a number here, without any currency symbols. Example: 12.25

Duration 

the length of time for which a subscriber will be able to access the protected content, also referred to as the period of subscription or the subscription cycle. Duration can be defined in days, calendar months or years, or can be set to lifetime. Calendar month means that if the subscription starts on January 3rd, it must be renewed, or will expire, exactly on February 3rd.

Recurring Billing 

this defines if user should be charged automatically when subscription expires. This option is only visible if you have at least one payment processor supporting it, and it will not affect processors not supporting recurring billing.

Trial 1 Period/Price, Trial 2 Period/Price 

these settings have the same meaning as Duration and Price, but trials will be handled first, then regular subscription price and duration will be handled. These fields appears and used only if at least payment processor supports trial handling.

Fixed subscription start date 

you can set subscrption to start at specified date instead of default "today" date.

Add Tax 

if aMember CP -> Setup -> Use Tax is enabled, this field will appear. If field is checked, aMember will add calculated tax amount to product price when necessary (according to aMember CP -> Setup -> Tax ).

Trial Group 

this field appears only if payment processor supports it. This field allows you to make impossible ordering of the same product or a product group twice. For example, you set this field to 1, then user will be unable to order this product, if he has bought any products with Price Group set to 1 before. It is specially useful for trial products, that should be ordered only once.

Product URL 

this is the URL to the content to which you wish this product to give access. The purpose of this field is simply to create a link to the content in the list of their subscriptions which a member will see. If you leave this field blank the Title will appear as plain text rather than a link in the Member Page http://www.yoursite.com/amember/member.php

 Please Note: Entering a URL here does NOT protect content. For information about 
 protecting your content please see the section Setting-up Protection 

Additional URLs 

you may have multiple URLs for a product appearing on http://www.yoursite.com/amember/member.php page. Just add URLs to this field, each on separate line. By default link title will be equal to Product Title, to change it, add after URL pipe and link title, for example: /members-addons/|Add-ons for members

Scope

This determines where on your site information about this product will be displayed. You have 4 options:

• Visible to All : The product will be displayed on the main signup page AND will be available to existing members in the Add/Renew subscriptions list.
• Only Signup : The product be displayed on the signup page only, it will NOT be available to existing members.
• Only Members having paid subscriptions : The product will NOT be displayed on the main signup page, it will only be available to existing members.
• Disabled : The product will not appear for any users. It will still be available in the Admin Control Panel for manual signups.

Sorting Order 

this is a very useful field for those who have many products. It determines the order in which products will be listed on the signup page and in the list of products shown to members. Products are normally sorted alphabetically. By entering a number in this field you can override this alphabetical sorting. It also allows you to group products for display by entering the same number for each of them. Products will be sorted first by the number entered here, then alphabetically.

Price Group ID

Again, a useful field for those with many products. Its primary use is to create different signup pages for different groups of products. If you enter a negative value - for example -1 - the product will NOT be displayed on the default signup page. You can instead use the link http://www.yoursite.com/amember/signup.php?price_group=-1 for a signup page which displays products in this price group only. If you enter a positive value - for example 1 - the product will be displayed on the default signup page, but you will be also to outline this product by using url http://www.yoursite.com/amember/signup.php?price_group=1

Display Agreement 

tick this box if you wish users to indicate their agreement with your terms and conditions before their signup is completed. An individual user will see this agreement only once. You can add your terms and conditions by editing the file agreement.html in the amember/templates/ folder.

Require another subscription 

this option is advanced, don't set it without complete understanding. When user orders the product, aMember will check if he has one from the subscriptions listed in this box. If not, order will be denied, and error message will appear.

Disallow subscription to this product 

this option is advanced, don't set it without complete understanding. When user orders the product, aMember will check if he has no any subscriptions from listed in this box. If he has, order will be denied, and error message will appear.

Renewal Group 

defines how aMember will calculate subscription start date when user renews his membership or adds a new subscription via amember/member.php page. You can find more details here: Product Renewal Group Explained

PLUGIN_NAME Access 

these special fields appears only when you enable corresponding integration plugins.

E-Mail settings 

in these settings you may create a customized signup template specially for this product, and setup periodical autoresponder e-mails.

[edit] Edit a Product

To edit an existing product:

• Open the aMember Admin Control Panel
• From the left menu, click Edit Your Products
• The Products (Subscription Types) List opens
• Click the Edit link in the Actions column of the product you wish to edit.

Changing the details of a product usually will NOT affect existing customers. However, in case of "cc_core payment plugins" (described [List_of_implemented_payment_plugins#.22cc_core integration.22|here]], changing subscription terms will affect users subscribed to this product. In case of other payment plugins (for example PayPal, 2Checkout, WorldPay), changing of subscription terms will not affect existing subscribers.

[edit] Delete a Product

To delete a product:

• Open the aMember Admin Control Panel
• From the left menu, click Edit Your Products
• The Products (Subscription Types) List opens
• Click the Delete link in the Actions column of the product you wish to delete

  NOTE: You cannot delete a product to which there have already been subscribers. 
  If you wish to delete a product to which there are already subscribers, you must 
  first delete all subscriptions to the product.

See Managing Payments for details.