Promotions Example 3: Free/Paid Access 

How to set up a trial subscription for your paid subscription site

Some admins prefer to limit the access that a new user has to their site until they take out a Paid Subscription. The drawback with this is that the new user may not be in a position to decide whether they wish to pay for access until they’ve seen what content is available. As such, a method of allowing a ‘Trial Access’ is required.

For this example, we will use the following criteria:

- Initial Usergroup: Registered Users
- ‘Expired Trial Members’ Usergroup: Expired Trial Members
- Paid Access Usergroup: Premium Members
- Time Trial Access is available: 10

When a new user registers, they automatically go into the Registered Users usergroup. This usergroup can be set with partially restrictive permissions so that new users can see but perhaps not post to the forums unless they take out a Paid Subscription. To set this up, you will need to ensure that the permissions for your Registered Users usergroup are correct for your ‘Trial Members’. You will then need to create a new usergroup, ‘Expired Trial Members’, which should have no access to view your site.

For more information on usergroups and permissions, please see this section of the manual relating to these.

Once you have your usergroups setup to your needs, you should create the appropriate Promotion. Using the criteria above, your Promotions screen should look like this:

<<<Screenshot of Promotions screen with the following criteria>>>

Explanation:

• Usergroup
  This is the usergroup that the users are currently a member of, i.e. Registered Users. The Promotion will only apply to these users.
• Days Registered
  These are the number of days that a user will have access to view your site before they are moved (promoted) to the usergroup that has no access, in this case 10.
• Promotion Strategy
  As this example will have a user promoted after 10 days have elapsed since registration, this should be set to ‘Join Date’
• Promotion Type
  Set this option to ‘Primary Usergroup’. When the Promotions Scheduled Task runs, the user will then have their Primary Usergroup changed.
• Move User to Usergroup
  This should be set to the new usergroup that was setup earlier, i.e. Expired Trial Members’

Note that the ‘Reputation Level’ and ‘Posts’ values although completed will have no effect on this Promotion as the Strategy has been set to ‘Join Date’. Once the above have been set, click the Save button.

Now complete, this Promotion will move active users from the ‘Registered Users’ usergroup to the ‘Expired Trial Members’ usergroup once they have been registered for 10 days in your forum.

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