question about IP access and institutional use

I have reformulated these questions which (andrewn51) asked 5 years ago on here. I would like to do something similar and I am having a hard time with it in Joomla. I would really love to get some feedback from the Joomlapolis Community, and coding help!

I have an online, subscription-only, peer-reviewed, art journal. Think of peer-reviewed as scientific journals. One place you find a lot of peer-reviewed journals are university or college library, cultural institutions, or any institution that focuses on research. In university, student have to write research papers and they use peer-reviewed (scientific) journals to support their argument.

The online art journal publishes articles, reviews, and curated exhibitions (think of exhibitions as artworks organized under a theme with a general statement).

I have not used CB Paid Subscriptions, but it appears that access can be provided to individuals. That is, anyone can register and pay a subscription fee to access the subscription content on the journal.

Now, I need to figure out a way to give access to institutions. Because institutions are large by its very nature, they require IP access for their students and patrons. Instead of every student creating an account on a vendor's website, the vendor will provide an IP address for the institution to the vendor. The vendor will then configure their website so that any students or patrons on the institution's network can access the subscription content on the journal/vendor's website without a login.

Can this be done?

Because the journal publishes lots of images and photograph, is there a way to secure it so that only paid subscribers can access it?

Thanks

That could be tricky. CBSubs doesn't have any functionality to bypass access protections based off IP. Maybe the best way to do it would be to auto-login using CB Auto Actions. Basically you'd have a CB Auto Action that'd automatically log them into an institute account either based off IP (conditioned in the action) or via URL. That institute account would then have access to the subscriber content (I'd just give that account a lifetime subscription). You can then block profile edit access or even profile view access by redirecting away with CB Auto Actions so those types of accounts can't access the profile.

If I understand, CBSubs does not have IP access?

How does this work? Do you have a step by step direction of how this works and how to implement it?

Basically you'd have a CB Auto Action that'd automatically log them into an institute account either based off IP (conditioned in the action) or via URL.

How do you do this? Do you have a step by step direction of how to implement this?

You can then block profile edit access or even profile view access by redirecting away with CB Auto Actions so those types of accounts can't access the profile.

Subscription is on an annual basis. At the end of the year, the institute can renew or cancel. So, having a lifetime will not work. Or is lifetime just a term you are using to describe a type of account?

Can CBSubs protect images, video, and audio so that it is only accessible to the member?

Is there a demo for CBSubs?

When using CBSubs and Community Builder, do you have the option to display or hide your members?

If I understand, CBSubs does not have IP access?

Correct, CBSubs does not have any protections based off IP address.

How do you do this? Do you have a step by step direction of how to implement this?

No, this is a usercase that has, as far as I know, never been done before. You'd need to create an auto action that automatically logs a user in. This is done using CB Auto Actions and is relatively easy to setup. You'd first need to make a lifetime plan that gives access to whatever you wanting. Next create a CB user that'd be used for the institutes login. The auto action would then use a Login / Logout action with Triggers set to None and the username set to the institute account. Now using the URL for that action will automatically log you in. The next steps are up to you on how you want to secure this, but most likely under Conditions is where you'd want to check for users ip address or better option would be to use a secret key you generate (basically make a password of some kind) and condition against that. The institute would then use the URL with the key in the URL.

Subscription is on an annual basis. At the end of the year, the institute can renew or cancel. So, having a lifetime will not work. Or is lifetime just a term you are using to describe a type of account?

Then the subscription on the institute account would be all 1 year. This is an entirely hypothetical situation as again no one has tried doing this that I am aware of.

Can CBSubs protect images, video, and audio so that it is only accessible to the member?

Depends on where those images, videos, etc.. are coming from. If for example from CB Gallery then yes as you'd just protect the gallery tab or its menu item as needed.

Is there a demo for CBSubs?

Yes, all our products can be demoed below (frontend and backend access is available).

demo.cbdemosites.com/

The demo site is reset regularly so feel free to play around with it and try things out. You can probably even test out this usecase there or try configuring various usecases.

When using CBSubs and Community Builder, do you have the option to display or hide your members?

Profile access is entirely up to you and is just a view access level configured in CB > Configuration > User Profile. Profiles can also be protected using CB Privacy using privacy controls. Fields and Tabs can be protected per plan using CBSubs Fields Tabs Protection as well. Then there's also CB Conditional for conditioned access.