[SOLVED] Questions before I buy and start testing

I need a paid membership system to limit access to certain areas of our site. I know CBsubs will do this. What I am primarily concerned about is:

1- that I need to be able to create a plan that will allow members to join any time of the year, but will expire are year end for everyone. Also, if they purchase late during the year (for example in November) they will get a discounted price since their membership will expire on Dec 31st. Does this make sense? Is this easily done with CBsubs?

2- can I transfer all current registered users easily to this plan that will expire on Dec 31st?

3- I am using NoixACL on my site for directors access to private sections. Am I better off starting a new site from scratch to use CBsubs?

4- If I purchase the 15000 plan, can I set up a test site with my license (pretty sure I read somewhere that this is doable, just want to confirm).

5- if members expire and don't renew right away, but decide to renew a year or so later, can they simply reactivate their membership?

6- this going hand in hand with number 5...we use a membership number for each member. These never change..they are lifetime numbers, regardless of them being active or inactive, so can the registration forms be customized to allow a member to enter his number when registering online for the first time? In other words he has been registering by mail but would like to now register online using CBsubs and thus following years would be done with CBsubs. We are trying to move out of the stoneage! Also, can the system issue new membership numbers of 5 or 6 digits to new members that are not in the database? Is there anyway if entering our current hardcopy database with names and matching numbers into CBsubs database somehow so that it will know an existing member when they try to register online for the first time?

I know these are a LOT of questions, but these are the things I am facing right now and want to know what can and can't be done so that I can make a good decision here.

Thanks.

* I posted this also in USE CASES section...I think it better belongs here...sorry about the double post.

Post edited by: krileon, at: 2010/08/10 21:23

llema wrote:

I need a paid membership system to limit access to certain areas of our site. I know CBsubs will do this. What I am primarily concerned about is:

1- that I need to be able to create a plan that will allow members to join any time of the year, but will expire are year end for everyone. Also, if they purchase late during the year (for example in November) they will get a discounted price since their membership will expire on Dec 31st. Does this make sense? Is this easily done with CBsubs?

You can certainly have a physical year duration period in CBSubs but it will not automatically adjust its pricing when getting close to end of year.
One solution would be to manually change the price in November to a cheaper price and on January 1st change it back. You should also mark that early renewals are not permitted (plan setting) so people do not take advantage of modified November price to renew for next year.

2- can I transfer all current registered users easily to this plan that will expire on Dec 31st?

CBSubs has a detailed Import feature that can be used to initialize your existing user base.

3- I am using NoixACL on my site for directors access to private sections. Am I better off starting a new site from scratch to use CBsubs?

I would say so, but really depends on how you are using it. I have no experience with NoixACL, but believe that CBSubs built-in ACL should be sufficient for almost any use case.

4- If I purchase the 15000 plan, can I set up a test site with my license (pretty sure I read somewhere that this is doable, just want to confirm).

Yes you can.

5- if members expire and don't renew right away, but decide to renew a year or so later, can they simply reactivate their membership?

Yes, they can.

6- this going hand in hand with number 5...we use a membership number for each member. These never change..they are lifetime numbers, regardless of them being active or inactive, so can the registration forms be customized to allow a member to enter his number when registering online for the first time? In other words he has been registering by mail but would like to now register online using CBsubs and thus following years would be done with CBsubs. We are trying to move out of the stoneage! Also, can the system issue new membership numbers of 5 or 6 digits to new members that are not in the database? Is there anyway if entering our current hardcopy database with names and matching numbers into CBsubs database somehow so that it will know an existing member when they try to register online for the first time?

You can certainly use the userid as a unique id for each member. Anything else would involve new code that would need to be developed. You can of course create some manual process, where users submit their pending membership number and your admins confirm this with your external database. There is currently no CB field that will automatically issue random or sequential membership numbers - such a field can of course be created using the CB API.

I know these are a LOT of questions, but these are the things I am facing right now and want to know what can and can't be done so that I can make a good decision here.

Thanks.

* I posted this also in USE CASES section...I think it better belongs here...sorry about the double post.

Hope this helps - i removed your other post.

Thank you!