Some CBSubs usage questions

CB needs to have a full list of our members (migrated from our older version of CB) with custom fields that we have built. I have already started to put some into our new CB. These fields are important to our registration process and to exporting lists of names/information. Exporting to .xls is important (I assuming we have to use CB Juice?).

We would like a page on our site listing our different types of memberships. We have 6 that we advertise on our site but 7 in total (the other one we do not like to advertise but they still exist- they are free memberships we give to certain people). We would need to manually enter them in CB as this type of membership.

Under each listing of membership, would need an application button. This application form is to APPLY to be a member. Certain memberships have to go through approval processes before they can become a member. It is a 4 step approval process (some are only 3 and some require no approval). On the platform that we have right now, we have a custom back end view of all of the applicants and a green light sort of system. When there are 4 green lights, they are a full member. However, after 2 green lights- they have to pay. Some of these approvals are automated emails to certain people who check off an approved button. Our CBSubs needs to have some sort of approval process similar to this.

Payment- We currently use Moneris. I have already seen that CBSubs can also use Moneris. That is great. Applicants need to be able to pay by Visa, Mastercard or American Express. We also need to have an option for cheque payment. Some of our members mail in cheques to pay. So there needs to be a view on the back end to show members who we are waiting on cheques from.

To give you a better idea as to our workflows right now, I will type them below. These can be changed slightly but ultimately need to be there:

Application Received:
1.) Applicant receives email to say we received application
2.) Approval Person #1 receives email to approve this applicant
3.) Approval Person # 2 receives email to approve this applicant
4.) Once both # 1 and #2 approve, the applicant receives an email to pay for the membership (even though technically they are not a member until the 4th person approves)
5.) They receive an invoice via email along with their membership login and password to our website.
6.) Quarterly, we send a list of applicants to Approval Person #3 so they can approve a bunch at once (this workflow can change if it's too complicated)
7.) Annually, we send a list of applicants to Approval Person #4 so they can approve a bunch at once
8.) Once Approval Person #4 approves, we manually go in and make the applicant a FULL MEMBER

Once Approved:
1.) Applicant receives email to say Approval Person #4 approved them and now they are a full member.

Membership Renewals:
1.) Currently we manually export a list of memberships that are about to expire and send out an email. It would be nice is this was automated and we don't have to worry about it.
2.) Members can log in to our website and renew in their profile.

If the member does not renew:
1.) If a person does not renew and their membership expires, they are labelled as "inactive" or "archive" in CB and they no longer have access to the members only portion of our website. It would be nice at this point they receive an email to say they are no longer a member.

CB needs to have a full list of our members (migrated from our older version of CB) with custom fields that we have built. I have already started to put some into our new CB. These fields are important to our registration process and to exporting lists of names/information. Exporting to .xls is important (I assuming we have to use CB Juice?).

Pre-create the fields in CB > Field Management. Next export your old user data CSV formatted that'll fix CB Juice requirements (test export a CB user to see how it'd be formatted). You can then import all of your users using CB Juice. It maybe easier to manually re-register the users depending on how many users you have though. I'm unsure if your current usage is a Joomla install or not so that could also be a determining factor as the next best move.

We would like a page on our site listing our different types of memberships. We have 6 that we advertise on our site but 7 in total (the other one we do not like to advertise but they still exist- they are free memberships we give to certain people). We would need to manually enter them in CB as this type of membership.

CBSubs can link directly to plans pages. You can find this URL within the header when editing a plan in CBSubs > Plans. Omit the plan variable and you can have a page dedicated to showing all your CBSubs plans. This allows you to do URL based plans that don't show on registration, etc.. As for your 7th plan just don't allow it on frontend and you can easily give it to users from backend user management.

Under each listing of membership, would need an application button. This application form is to APPLY to be a member. Certain memberships have to go through approval processes before they can become a member. It is a 4 step approval process (some are only 3 and some require no approval). On the platform that we have right now, we have a custom back end view of all of the applicants and a green light sort of system. When there are 4 green lights, they are a full member. However, after 2 green lights- they have to pay. Some of these approvals are automated emails to certain people who check off an approved button. Our CBSubs needs to have some sort of approval process similar to this.

CBSubs doesn't really have an approval process like this. The only way to do that is under the Workflows tab of your plans set the registration approval to be before payment. This way a moderator needs to approve their registration before they can pay. That would be the time to review. I suppose something more complex could also be put together using CB fields and plan conditions though. As CBSubs can override registration approval on a plan by plan basis you'd be able to have some that require this and some that don't.

Payment- We currently use Moneris. I have already seen that CBSubs can also use Moneris. That is great. Applicants need to be able to pay by Visa, Mastercard or American Express. We also need to have an option for cheque payment. Some of our members mail in cheques to pay. So there needs to be a view on the back end to show members who we are waiting on cheques from.

There's an Offline gateway for the purpose of mailing in a payment with a printable payment slip. That should cover the checks usage. They should go through the normal frontend payment process and select the offline payment method (admins can do this on a users behalf as well if the user forgets).

Application Received:

You're fine up to step 4. CB doesn't really have a multi-moderator approval process. Once approved by any moderator their account gets approved. So as long as you don't expect an automated system to handle the multi-approval and it's just back-forth communication this will be fine. Otherwise something would need to be put together to handle multi-moderator approval of a registration. You'd set your CBSubs plans to require approval before payment on the workflows tab to cover this usage.

Once Approved:

Once approved CB will send them an email letting them know they're approved. Upon login they'll then be asked to pay.

If the member does not renew:
1.) If a person does not renew and their membership expires, they are labelled as "inactive" or "archive" in CB and they no longer have access to the members only portion of our website. It would be nice at this point they receive an email to say they are no longer a member.

This is standard behavior for CBSubs. It doesn't send an email by default, but you can configure one.

We have one other feature that I should ask about:

When the user registers to become a member- they have to attach forms (usually just .pdfs). Some of the items they would attach would be education documents etc.
Does CBSubs do something similar? Can users upload documents for us to review?

If they are able to upload- is it possible for us to download off the backend and send via email to the appropriate people who need to review and approve?

You can use a File fieldtype for that. Yes, you can download from backend. It'll display a link above the input to download if they uploaded anything. Sending the download via email probably won't work, but you can try [FIELD_NAME] substitution to see if it'll give you the full download URL, but likely just be the filename.

Just went over with our Director how we can improve our approval/registration process. What if we did this:

1.) User registers online (uploads their documentation). In the registration form, they need to list a sponsor (sponsor's email address).
2.) Once submitted, the sponsor receives an automated email that we customize to say we need their approval on this registrant.
3.) Another customized email goes to our admissions committee at the same time to say we need their approval on this registrant.
4.) We receive those two approvals via email and then we can enter in the back end that yes they are approved and the payment email goes out to them to pay.
5.) Once they pay, they will receive their login to our website and an invoice via email.

Is this possible?

It's probably easier to just use the existing admin approval workflows that CB provides. An email is sent to all CB Moderators that a new user is awaiting approval. Once approved CB will send them an email that they can now login and pay. Upon login they'll be asked to pay. It more or less automates your process for the majority of it. You'd just need your moderators to talk to one another first before anyone approves.