Hello EE Team! I’ve got a few more questions for you today.
On a Friday afternoon no less 😊
I’m looking to build 5 sites using the MSM. These sites would provide various levels of membership to the members, including paid memberships. I understand that EE will not allow a member subscription system that automatically expires a member. This will have to be done manually.
EE doesn’t have a feature that auto-expires a member. But its possible with custom development. There is nothing in EE that prevents such a thing.
1) If we install one discussion forum, will it run across all 5 sites (and if so, how would this work), or can we have 5 individual forums on 5 individual sites?
Let’s start with the second point. 1 Discussion Forum license lets you run individual forums for each Site (or multiple forums for the same site) using Alias. Its not currently possible to share one forum across multiple Sites. Specifically I mean you can’t have the same forum appear at multiple URLs. You could certainly create links at each site that point to the same forum, but it would have a single URL that 4 of the sites wouldn’t share. Make sense?
2) Will members have access to all 5 sites, or can we use member groups to keep members confined to the original site they joined?
Admin’s choice. You can use Member Groups to determine what groups have access to which sites. One thing to keep in mind is that even if you give members access to all the sites they will still have to login at each site, even if they are signed in on another. This is due to the way web browsers treat cookies at the security level. They can use the same account at all the sites and their info travels from site to site, but a login will be required at each.
3) If we wanted members to gain access to all 5 sites upon sign up, is that possible using groups or some other method?
Make the default group one with access to all the sites.
4) Is the email newsletter CAN-SPAM compliant?
Yes, an unsubscribe link is automatically generated as part of outbound emails to any EE powered Mailings Lists. The rest of the CAN-SPAM requirements have to do with how the email is formed at the content level.
5) Is there a way to have members automatically added to the email newsletter upon registering for a regular site membership? Or could the newsletter signup be added to the registration screen?
It has to be registered for separately. I’m sure with a little custom development the second would be possible.
6) Can we track who is reading or deleting the newsletter, like Constant Contact?
No. The Mailing List module is not intended to be an email marketing campaign solution like Constant Contact. Such features require strict control over the email server, something a self-hosted application like EE can’t provide. Solspace, a well known EE developer has an EE add-on that works with Constant Contact.