We are about to take the plunge and buy aMember as it will do the job perfectly for us. But, up until now all of our 125 subscriptions have been done manually, i.e. we have not used an automated script to manage them. It will be difficult getting people to sign up, even though they're paid, so I am thinking we should manually create their accounts on our new aMember system. What is the procedure for this? Are there any drawbacks etc?
It is easy enough to do. You can put all of their data into a spreadsheet and import them at one time.
Thank you, Jack. Presumably we would have to map our spreadsheet columns to exactly match the fields in aMember?
Just use aMember CP -> Import function. It asks you to upload CSV file - it can be created from Excel spreadsheet.
OK, thanks. I've been reading your manual about the Import function: http://manual.amember.com/Using_Import When you say 'define where fields are in the import file', what does this mean? Does it mean I should create the spreadsheet first and name the columns to match the fields in aMember? I guess the safety mechanism in Step 3 of the process will allow me to check if the 20 records match the fields before continuing. If not then I can amend the source file accordingly.
@shotoshi: Easiest way to do this is to create one user manually in aMember, then do an export to a csv file. You can use that csv file as a template.
@skippybosco: Thank you very much for this, much appreciated! Of course! If there's an import function there must be an export function - why didn't I think of that ;-) I'm more confident about buying and using aMember now.
In fact, there is no need to export anything. Excel file (source for your CSV file) must have the following columns: E-Mail address Customer name Username (optional - amember can generate it) Password (optional - amember can generate it) -- optionally you may add payment information regarding customers: Payment System Receipt # Amount paid Subscription start date (payment date) Subscription end date (may be fixed or lifetime) I recommend you to just create text file as follows in notepad: PHP: you@youremail.com;Test Customersecond@secondemail.com;Second Customer save it to disk as test-import.csv, then run aMember Cp -> Import to see how it all happens. I hope then will be no questions.