General Configuration

Hi, first of all, congratulations for this great extension!

After review several Joomla membership extensions, I decided pay the Membership PRO download few days ago. After that, I read all the documentation ( documentation.joomdonation.com/membership-pro.html ) and it has been very useful. But I still have some questions before be sure about the best way to configure this extension to fullfill my needs.

Any feedback will be greatly appreciated!

MY SCENARIO

I'm offering a support service related to a server's software. Depending on the number of installed servers on some enterprise, I offer a "Small", a "Medium" or a "Big" subscription plan. However, I want offer these plans in two modes:

1) Monthly payments (benefit for them: no big upfront cost neither long commitment with me)
2) Annual payment (benefit for them: the annual price is 25% cheaper than the sum of 12 monthly payments)

Also, I want offer a completely free trial period of 30 days.

I want offer discount coupons, but be able to use the same coupon (if they subscribe to a monthly plan) every month (not just the first paid month)

I also enabled the "Reminder" plugin to automatically send an email to subscribers few days before their subscription expire (but I have a question related to this feature below)

By the way, I use 2Checkout as my payments gateway, so I'm afraid that I can't use the "Recurring Subscriptions Plans" feature ( documentation.joomdonation.com/membershi...scription-plans.html ), which have a nice trial period feature built in.

MY (GOOD?) PLAN

So, since I have 7 plans, I will create 3 categories to organize them:

1) Trial Category: Will include just 1 plan, the "Trial" plan, renewal is disabled, price 0.

2) Monthly Category: Will include 3 plans, "Small", "Medium" and "Big" (using monthly prices, 30 days of duration, renewal allowed)

3) Annual Category: Will include the same 3 plans, "Small", "Medium" and "Big" (but using annual prices, 365 days of duration, renewal allowed)

QUESTIONS

1) I guess every user will subscribe to the trial plan first. As I said, I disabled the "renewal" option (no more than 30 days of trial allowed), but could be very useful if -when the trial is near to end- Membership PRO is able to send an email to encourage that user to sign up some of the paid subscriptions (monthly or annual). My question is: Should I configure the "Send First Reminder" and "Send Second Reminder" options? Since the renewal of that plan is not allowed, maybe the reminder emails could be confusing for the user. What is the best way of configure Membership Pro so it sends an automatic email to every user finalizing their trial period to basically say to them "Trial almost finished, to continue using our service, please subscribe to one of our paid plans <here>"?

2) If I send a discount coupon to a subscriber and he enters that coupon on their first paid subscription, should that user re-enter the same coupon code on each monthly renewal? Or Membership PRO can "remember" that code? I want apply the same discount (via the coupon) on every month (automatically if possible)

3) Regarding the invoices feature, when the system sends each invoice? Immediately after the user has signed up for a paid subscription? Or later? Is the invoice dispatch action recorded on any table on Membership PRO? I need "trigger" a data update on a different system (Vtiger CRM) every time that an invoice is sent to a user. If the information of a sent invoice is recorded on some Membership PRO table, I can use that information to perform the data update on some of the VTiger tables.

Thanks in advance!!!!!
Leandro

Hi Leandro

1. Right now, we don't have a way to solve this issue. It would be great if each plan can have it own reminder messages (same as other messages which you see in Emails & Messages tab when you edit the plan). If we could have that message customized by each plan, I think it will solve this issue. I will think about it and might add support for it in the core download package. Will give you final answer on Monday (it will take 2 or 3 days for me to make this feature in the extension)

2. Unfortunately, coupon will need to be entered each time. We can customize the code (and you have to pay for it to remember the code), but I don't think you should do that because it will prevent you to upgrade to future release of the extension

3. When the payment is completed. I guess you can edit the code in the invoice plugin come with the extension (plugins/osmembership/invoice folder) to process sending data to your CRM system. That would be the easiest way

Tuan

Hi Tuan, thank you very much for your fast reply.

A few comments related to my questions and your answers:

1. Great! If you can add that feature (create a special reminder message for some plan) that will be very useful. I don't think that we should need separated reminder messages for *all* plans, but, if we can have a "default* message (like now) but -at the same time- have the option of "override" that message on some plan, that feature will give a lot more of flexibility. I will be waiting your final answer next Monday.

2. Ok, thanks for your information. Although could be nice some option to "remind" the last used coupon code, this feature is not critical.

3. Thanks, will do in that way.

Thank you very much for your replies!

Best Regards,
Leandro