Thread

I have a few questions on how SCM handles PayPal subscriptions.  I’m using EE 1.x.

1. It seems like if I can set up a time-based product (1 year) and SCM will automatically move the member to the correct group depending on whether he is active or inactive.  Is that correct?

2. Can the subscriptions automatically renew?  I know they can in PayPal but would PayPal automatically notify EE to keep/move the user to the Paid member group?

3. Are orders stored in EE?

4. Are the subscriptions managed in EE or PayPal?

5. I am a bit confused on the IPN notifications from PayPal.  The EE user guide states:

In order for PayPal to be able to send payment notifications to your site, your site needs to be online and accessible to the public. If anything would prevent an unauthenticated user from visiting your site, PayPal will be unable to send payment notifications.

There is a public portion of the website but most of it is members-only.  Do I need to keep the membership registration and payment pages on the public side?

Thanks.
Lori

Hi Lori,

Let’s get right to it 😊

1. It seems like if I can set up a time-based product (1 year) and SCM will automatically move the member to the correct group depending on whether he is active or inactive.  Is that correct?

Yup.

2. Can the subscriptions automatically renew?  I know they can in PayPal but would PayPal automatically notify EE to keep/move the user to the Paid member group?

Auto-renew, yes. If the payment fails, then EE will move them out of the “paid-group”.

3. Are orders stored in EE?

Indeed.

4. Are the subscriptions managed in EE or PayPal?

It’s a combo effort. EE keeps up with when the subscription should renew, if the payment fails, then EE moves the member.

There is a public portion of the website but most of it is members-only.  Do I need to keep the membership registration and payment pages on the public side?

Right. PayPal will not have a user account on your installation, so it needs to be able to conduct its transaction via publicly accessible areas.

Let me know if you have any other questions!

Cheers,

Thanks so much Dan!

Additional question.

Am I able to do Subscriptions in EE1 using SCM?  I looked in the User Guides for both EE1 and EE2 and I saw documentation for EE2 regarding subscriptions but not EE1.  I have two different sites that I may want to use this for - one running EE1 and the other running EE2.

Thanks.
Lori

Hi Lori,

Indeed. Subscriptions are part of the upgrade to 2.x.

If there is a reason you can’t upgrade from 1.x, you can look at Membrr. It works with both versions of ExpressionEngine and is a 3rd party subscription module.

Cheers,

Indeed. Subscriptions are part of the upgrade to 2.x.

Okay, thanks.

If there is a reason you can’t upgrade from 1.x, you can look at Membrr. It works with both versions of ExpressionEngine and is a 3rd party subscription module.

I looked at Membrr and may end up using that.  I was hoping to use something a little simpler like SCM.

A few more questions…
If I use SCM for EE1 then I’d have to to treat the purchase as a one-time purchase which may be okay if I can figure out how to automatically (or manually) move member whose membership expired out of “paid” group and into an “expired” group.

1. Is the SCM purchase linked to the Member account or does it just fill in their screen name at the time of purchase?

2. Can I add custom fields to SCM to capture additional data?

Thanks so much for all of your help.

Lori

Hi Lori!

1. Is the SCM purchase linked to the Member account or does it just fill in their screen name at the time of purchase?

2. Can I add custom fields to SCM to capture additional data?

!. Yes, SCM tracks purchases based on member_id. However, it doesn’t have a UI for “purchase history”, even though ExpressionEngine has all the data.

2. What kinds of additional data? User data would be custom member fields. There isn’t a way to modify what SCM tracks though.

Cheers,

2. What kinds of additional data? User data would be custom member fields. There isn’t a way to modify what SCM tracks though.

Since EE1 doesn’t do subscriptions or recurring billing natively, I was thinking of passing a hidden field in the purchase form for “expiration date” (today’s date + 1 year).  That way I could use conditionals on the front end template to show/hide content based on whether the yearly subscription is still active.

Thanks.
Lori

Hi Lori,

That idea might work, but since SCM doesn’t natively support adding data to member’s custom fields, you’d be looking at coming up with a JavaScript-based solution that would submit a separate form to update the member’s custom fields, and… you get the idea. That’s a whole lot of unnecessary work in my opinion. I’d go the route Dan recommended: using Membrr to manage this sort of thing. That’s what it’s built for, and the cost is worth the time you’d save trying to come up with something similar in SCM.

Hi Kevin,

I like Membrr but problem is they don’t support the EE1 version anymore.  Thanks so much to everyone for your help.  You can close this thread.

Thanks.
Lori

Sure thing, Lori. Let us know if we can help again in the future!