[SOLVED] CBSub and print publication

Hiya:

It's been a long time (the account says almost three years). You guys look like you're doing very well.

I have a client who is the publisher of a print magazine and wants to build an extensive on-line environment, with access-restricted content and differing levels of access to a forum. Obviously, CB and CBSubs is what this client needs.

But the client also wants to automatically give subscribers to the print magazine the same accesses. I don't want to recommend having two databases, so my question is whether anyone has used CBSubs for a print publication. What we would need would be the ability to create mailing labels (name, street address, city, state, Zip and Zip+4, Country) based on current subscription status (will expire in two months, will expire in one month, expired, expired + one month, etc.). Ideally, the output would be a PDF file, but a standard CSV would work as well.

Has anybody ever done this with CBSubs? If not, is the data kept in the MySQL file in such a way that we could write our own backend against it to produce these reports?

Thanks.

\dmc


\dmc

But the client also wants to automatically give subscribers to the print magazine the same accesses. I don't want to recommend having two databases, so my question is whether anyone has used CBSubs for a print publication. What we would need would be the ability to create mailing labels (name, street address, city, state, Zip and Zip+4, Country) based on current subscription status (will expire in two months, will expire in one month, expired, expired + one month, etc.). Ideally, the output would be a PDF file, but a standard CSV would work as well.

CBSubs can't do this. Best approach I can suggest is querying the subscriptions database table with a custom extension to output the results in a format you're wanting then print those results. Clearly would need to custom develop the extension or hire someone to do it, but it's doable.

If you're using an external service to handle storage of the publications and it has an accessible database you could also use CBSubs SQL Actions to add users to that database as External database queries are supported.

krileon wrote: Best approach I can suggest is querying the subscriptions database table with a custom extension to output the results in a format you're wanting then print those results. Clearly would need to custom develop the extension or hire someone to do it, but it's doable.

I can probably write this myself. Does your documentation explain the MySQL fields you use in the subscriptions database?

Thanks.

\dmc

I can probably write this myself. Does your documentation explain the MySQL fields you use in the subscriptions database?

No, you'll need to examine the database and formulate a query to do as you're needing.

krileon wrote:

I can probably write this myself. Does your documentation explain the MySQL fields you use in the subscriptions database?

No, you'll need to examine the database and formulate a query to do as you're needing.

Welcome back
True, but I need to note the database is very self-explanatory, logically designed in cleartext

So exporting or syncing (e.g. with the built in SQL integrations, or SOAP/XML/URL integrations plugin) with an external database or htttp system can be done without huge effort.

E.g. We use it here to give access to our Forge Redmine server Incubator group to Professional Members, using a stored MySQL procedure on the forge server, and it works really well, fully automated.

beat wrote: Welcome back
True, but I need to note the database is very self-explanatory, logically designed in cleartext

Beat:

Thanks for the welcome.

I knew the db would be logically designed -- you guys did it -- but I'm happy to know it's also in cleartext.

\dmc