I sell several digital products, as well as annual membership to receive access to a vBulletin forum (which gains access to all digital products for free), as well as one-on-one coaching. I'm trying to get all this setup now but I'm not understanding how. * What is the use of the folder versus creating different files? * If I want someone to have access to all files with the membership, should this be done via a folder? * Is there a way to upload protected files via an app like FileZilla instead of the admin area? * What about creating a private area of clients? Not an option each person can choose, but something I can give to those who work one-on-one with me? * What if I have a URL on my website that I'd like to only allow access to certain clients? I see that I can add a "Link" but it says it's not actually protected, just shows up in the member's options. Is there a way to protect pages on my website?
I will give this a go... In another post you were inquiring about a WordPress integration. So I am not sure if you are going for a aMember/WordPress/vBulliten mashup or what. All of the questions below have nothing to do with controlling access via vBulletin. I do not have intimate knowledge about vBulletin; therefore, all my responses below are dealing strictly with the aMember part (except one reference to vBulletin). When you add protection to a folder, each file inside the folder inherits the protection of the folder. This is covered in on this page in the aMember Wiki. If there is only going to be one level of membership, this would be the easiest approach. Yes, and that is covered on this page in the aMember Wiki. As far as I know, one-on-one is not supported directly in aMember. You would have to create a product for each user. However, you might be able to support this within vBulliten as private messages. This is refering to an external URL (something outside your website). Obviously you can't protect a link to a site that exsists on the open web. You can only show the URL to certain members, but they can bookmark the site for later use without logging in.
Yes you could call it a mashup. My website is a Wordpress site (theorganicsister.com) where I offer services and digital products. I also offer a membership where you get all the products, plus forum access. Does it require a folder? I think this depends on our respective definitions of membership. I offer a membership, but I also offer single products. The membership gains all products; the single products do not gain membership. But I'm assuming what you're meaning is what aMember considers a membership, which is anything someone can buy right? So my Digging Deep ebook product would be considered a "membership"? Ah I don't think I explained that well enough. I meant I work with clients, offering a coaching service. All coaching clients would gain access to the same things (essentially one of the digital products + I would need to give them the ability to access my online calendar - perhaps through using the Link option in the "Protect Content" area? - as well as access to purchase more sessions...but the ability to purchase sessions would not be available to everyone...I'd be fine editing members to have access to these things; just not sure how to keep non-clients from gaining access.) What about protecting a link to a page on my Wordpress site? I have a password protected page now (theorganicsister.com/clients) but I'd love to convert that over to be accessed by signing in to a members account.
Tara, I looked at your site. It looks great. IMHO, you should perform a full WordPress/aMember integration and drop vBulletin. vBulletin is a discussion forum and if you want a discussion forum you could use bbPress which is a WordPress plugin. This would eliminate dealing with a three-way integration. Being a WordPress plugin, bbPress will integrate seamlessly and will inherit the WordPress theme look and feel. One more caveat related to bbPress. Since you are leaning towards one-to-one counselling, you should consider BuddyPress which is another WordPress plugin. It adds social features to an existing WordPress site including public, private, and hidden groups. It is also easy to conduct private messages with members, which is something else you seem to need. BuddyPress will integrate with bbPress to support group level forums. However, I would wait until BuddyPress 1.7 comes out in about a month. This version addresses some weaknesses that currently exist with the plugin. From 1.7 and up, I would consider BuddyPress ready for prime time. You can easily implement all the control you want using the aMember/WordPress integration. You can control which WordPress pages persons can view and even dynamically control the menu to only display links to pages they can see. You will not have to worry about file/folder protection unless you are serving up media that you want to protect. However, this path is going to to require that you, or somebody, follow the WordPress/aMember integration from the beginning to end. Virtually every question you have is addressed in the documentation. IMHO, this is how this would work. Perform the aMember/WordPress integration fully and set up the memberships and page protection. Make sure this is working fully and you understand how all this works. Only after you have successfully performed Step 1, and run the site for at least a month, install BuddyPress 1.7 and integrate the bbPress group forums. However, before you add this additional level of functionality, you need to read about this feature and make sure you are willing to handle yet another leaning curve. Good Luck.
Eep. That sounds like a big changeover. Unfortunately I already have 300+ members on my VBulletin site with countless threads. Would I lose those? Not sure I understand the pros and cons but I will look further into it.