There are two main items that need to be addressed when it comes to a member wanting to Upgrade or Downgrade their Subscription from one membership “level” (a.k.a “Product” in DAP) to another.

1) Modifying the actual recurring payments to reflect the new amount

2) Giving them appropriate access as per the upgrade (or downgrade)

So let’s see how both of these are accomplished.

1) Modifying Recurring Payments

You do need to take some manual action for this. The way to do it is….

• Ask your members to sign up for the new product/level/subscription separately, like it were a new sign up
• Cancel their old subscription manually. When using Paypal standard, this can be done by both you (as the admin) and the member themselves. But with all of the other payment solutions, you (the admin) will have to log in to the payment gateway (Authorize.net or Paypal Website Payments Pro) and manually delete the member’s old subscription). DAP will not automatically remove user’s old subscription profile in your payment gateway.

2) Giving your member access to new level

Set up automation rules using DAP’s Product Chaining feature, so that if they sign up for one Product (or “level”), they’re automatically removed from another Product (or level).

So if they are currently signed up to your “Gold Membership”, then when they sign up afresh for the “Platinum Membership”, then set up a Product Chaining rule that says, “If member signs up for Platinum Membership, then remove them from Gold Membership”. This is just to make sure that they don’t have access to two products (or “levels”) at the same time.

DAP has a “Smart Login” feature, where the login process will work slightly differently under different conditions, all designed to make the user-experience for your member more smooth and consistent with general log in standards around the web.

So let’s see the various possible login locations in DAP.

But first, it is important to note that DAP has two main types of logins.

Primary Login

This is where it is considered a “generic” login by your member. For eg., a member came to your web site, and then just generally wants to log in to the member’s area – so they have no “context” – it’s NOT as if they were trying to view a specific page or post, got challenged with a login form, and then logged-in from there. That makes this a “Primary Login“.

Examples of this are…

a) You have a dedicated login page, like http://YourSite.com/login/ – which is what you’ve entered in to “Setup > Config > Login URL“. The body of this page has the DAP merge tag for the login form, which is %%LOGIN_FORM%%

b) Login/Logout Widget on the home page of your web site. This is also considered a primary login, because they just came back to your site, and just wish to log in to their member’s area to see what’s new.

Secondary Login

This is a log in action that HAS “context”. Say, a member landed deep into your site (not the home page, not the dedicated login page) and tried to log in from, say, the widget on the side-bar, or were challenged by the “In Page Error Message” that says something like “Sorry, you must log in before you can view this content” and are presented with a login form right on that very same page. They were trying to read something before they were asked to log in first – which means, they must be returned to the same page they were trying to view BEFORE they were asked to login. So that makes this a “Secondary Login“.

Examples of this are…

a) Login/Logout Widget on any page EXCEPT the home page.

b) Any custom “Error Page”, where you have inserted the DAP merge tag for the login form, %%LOGIN_FORM%%.

c) DAP’s “In-Page Error Message” which says “Sorry, this is private content – you must log in first before you can view this”.

So now that you know what’s a Primary Login and what is a Secondary Login,

Redirection Rules

Based on whether it’s a Primary Login or a Secondary Login, your member will be redirected to a different location.

1) If it is a Primary Login action, then…

a) They’re taken to the “Post-Login URL” if set at a Product-level AND they have access to just one Product.
b) They’re taken to the GLOBAL “Post Login URL” (under Setup > Config) if you have NOT set anything at a Product-level, OR if they have access to more than one Product.

This scenario is the only one where the Post-Login URL is ever used (whether it’s the Product-level or Global-level).

1) If it is a Secondary Login action, then…

They’re always redirected back to the same page they were on (or were trying to access) before they were challenged to log in first to view the content.

Bottom-line:

Primary Login is predictable, and you (the DAP Admin) control where they go right after they login.

Secondary Login depends on “context”, and they’re taken back to whatever page they were before they logged in.

Starting DAP v4.2, each of your members can now get their own unique RSS feed link that they can use with a feed reader (like Google Reader, FeedBlitz, iTunes, etc) to get a custom RSS feed with content that they’re eligible to view.

To give each of your members their own unique RSS Feed URL, just insert the following line of code into the top of the “Member Links” or “My Content” type page, or wherever you want your users to see their personalized RSS feed link…

If your blog is in the root…

http://YourSite.com/feed/?key=%%ACTIVATION_KEY%%

If your blog is in a sub-folder (say “/blog”)…

http://YourSite.com/blog/feed/?key=%%ACTIVATION_KEY%%

The text %%ACTIVATION_KEY%% in the above URL will be replaced with their own custom key, like…

http://YourSite.comcom/feed/?key=123456789

They can then copy that link, enter that into any feed reader, and it will show content specific to their account.

Custom Feed Link Security

Another useful feature we’ve added, is that the custom feed link also does IP count validation. So if they share  the feed link with others, then after “X” unique IP login attempts (where “X” is configurable by you, the DAP Admin, in Setup > Config), their account will automatically get locked out.

This plugin replaces ALL files from both the “Paypal Payments Pro” Upsell-Tree plugin as well as the “Authorize.net” Upsell-Tree Plugin

Starting DAP v4.2, we have consolidated both the Authorize.net & Paypal Payments Pro Upsell-Tree Plugins into one simple set of files, and it has been named the DAP Shopping Cart, which will allow you to both accept one time and recurring payments, as well as do 1-Click Upsells.

This consolidated set of files is named DAPShoppingCart.zip , and is available for download from the members’ area at http://DigitalAccessPass.com/dap/ .

Upgrading from DAP v4.2

If you are upgrading to DAP v4.2 from a previous DAP version, and you’ve been using Authorize.net or Paypal Payments Pro to accept payments, then you must also upgrade to the new DAP Shopping Cart.

So all you need to is…

1) Download the DAPShoppingCart.zip file from the members area

2) Unzip it to your desktop

3) Upload all files inside directly to your main “dap” folder on your site. (do not upload the folder named DAPShoppingCart – upload only the files inside this folder)

As of 4.1, DAP does not yet have a unique member-level RSS feed link (coming in v4.2).

So once you protect a page or post in DAP, you can make it either completely disappear from your feed (for all users, members and non-members alike), or you can show partial text (by turning on sneak-peek), but in that case you must make sure you have a “more” tag entered into each of your posts.

So if your blog post is showing in its entirety, then….

1) You may not have protected the post in DAP at all, so it’s an unprotected post, which will (and should) show up in your feed

2) Or, you have turned on Sneak-Peek and haven’t inserted the WordPress “more” tag (<!–more–>) into each of your posts. If you turn on Sneak-peek, then you must insert more tags into all posts.

Also, if you have turned on Sneak-Peek, then you must also do this…

Go to “Settings > Reading” in WP admin, then set “For each article in a feed, show” to “Summary”.

If it is set to “Full text”, then it will show the full text in the feed, which is not what you want.

How It Works

Joe Member joins your site on 01/01/2011.

He stays a member for about 3 months. Let’s say it’s now mid March. He wants to take a couple of months break. So he goes on a 2 month break. Comes back end of May and wants to resume his membership.

DAP allows him to pick up right where he left off – which is continuing to receive content as of April (04/01/2011), even though today’s date is May 25th, 2011.

So while he took a break, other members who did not take a break in membership, continued to pay for those 2 months, and continued to receive content dripped through those months. So it is only fair that when he does come back end of May and resumes his subscription, he does not resume from June’s content, but from April’s content (when he last put his membership on “Pause”).

It’s ok if you’re not dripping content on a monthly-basis, but rather on a “day” basis. So to put it in terms of “days”, when Joe resumes his subscription, since he was already 90 days old in the system when he put his subscription “On Hold”, and comes back another 60 days later (roughly about 2 months), then DAP will start dripping Day #91 content onwards for him, and NOT Day #151 onwards (he didn’t pay for 2 months in between).

This is how DAP works right out of the box. Nothing special to configure. And DAP automatically takes care of pausing the dripping when he is not paying.

WARNING: Just remember that in order for you to put his actual payments on hold, you will need to have a payment gateway like Authorize.net or Paypal Website Payments Pro. Or you must be using a shopping cart like http://1SiteAutomation.com . Using something like Paypal Standard or ClickBank will not allow you to put the actual charging of his credit card on hold.

NOTE: If you actually did want him to start receiving current content even though he left for 2 months, then all you have to do is, once he comes back and starts paying again, just extend his access end date on his account (which will initially be showing 03/31/2011 – end of March, when he left) and modify it and make it 05/31/2011. So when his next payment comes in after he resumes, DAP will extend his access end date to 06/30/2011 – which means, he can now access all of the current content.

1. Enabling Instant Payment Notification (IPN) within your Paypal account.

a) Log in to your Paypal account and click on the “Profile” link.
b) Go to Instant Payment Notification

c) If IPN is already enabled, and you already have a URL in that field, then skip ahead to Step 2.
Else, if IPN is not already enabled, then click on “Choose IPN Settings”

d) On the next screen, in the Notification URL field, enter…
http://YourSite.com/dap/dap-paypal.php

Don’t forget to replace “YourSite.com” with your actual web site’s domain name.
e) Make sure “Receive IPN Messages” is selected.

f) Click on “Save”.

DAP currently does not work with any “Cache” related plugins, and the reason is quite simple, actually.

Cache plugins are built on the premise that they will “cache” (save and store the contents of) WordPress pages and posts – which usually don’t change for “non-membership” type regular blogs – in a easy to retrieve, static file, so that WordPress doesn’t have to go to the database to load the contents of the page or post each and every time, which will improve the performance and loading time of your WordPress blog in general.

But the fact that such plugins are actually designed to “skip” interactions with the database as much as possible, and will make a “static copy” of your page or post and serve the same static copy to all visitors regardless of who they are, completely goes against the concept of a membership site.

The idea behind using a membership plugin like DAP, it to make sure that different visitors see different content: For ex.,

1) Casual visitors (Non-Members) who have NOT yet signed up for your products, should see content differently than …

2) Members who may have purchased one of your products, but not the product that gives them access to a specific page or post, who should see content differently than…

3) Members who actually have purchased the right product and DO have access to the content, who should see content differently than…

4) Ex-Members who signed up for your subscription-based content in the past, but have since canceled or allowed their access to expire

So, DAP tries to figure out who the visitor is first, and then packages the very same content differently to each category of visitors.

And installing a “cache” plugin kind of makes the whole point of a membership plugin meaningless. Both plugins basically contradict each other in what they’re trying to do.

One (your cache plugin) is trying to speed things up by not going to the database every time, while the other wants to make sure all of the right settings are loaded from the database to make sure your content stays secure from un-authorized access.

So, while cache plugins may work for the average, non-membership, static blog where a single post or page is not really meant to be shown differently to different people, it’s not a good idea to use it on a membership-site.

As a courtesy to our customers, we offer a free installation service, where we will install DAP on your site for free.

However, many people are confused by what “Free Installation” means. So this article is to give you more details about that.

Installation -vs- Setup

To give you a real-world example, think of “DAP Installation” similar to “Delivering the boxed TV set to your doorstep”. That’s it!

We won’t take it out of the box, hook it up to your cable box, set up your channels, set up your DVR, hook up your game console, DVD player, Roku box, etc. All of those things fall under “Setup & Configuration”. If you want us to do it all for you, then check out our “Membership Site In A Box” package that comes with “Concierge” sessions to help you set it all up.

What Free Installation Includes

• We will upload all DAP files to your server
• We will activate the dap plugin on one WordPress blog (the DAP-WP-LiveLinks plugin)
• Activating this plugin will create all of the dap tables in your WordPress database
• We will setup the Cron job(s) for you within your web hosting cPanel.
• If we see any hosting related configuration or installation issues, we will do our best to resolve them, if they are even resolvable (99% of the time, they are).
• We will then send you your new DAP Admin Email id and Password via the same support ticket you opened for installation.

That’s it. There’s nothing else involved in the free installation that we perform.

What Free Installation DOES NOT Include

• Installation or setup or configuration of your theme (like OptimizePress or Thesis)
• Installation, setup or configuration of other plugins
• Troubleshooting of your current WordPress installations
• Troubleshooting issues with any previous membership plugins that you may be using
• Doing an “Overview” of your web site and giving you ideas about what can or cannot be done using DAP
• etc… etc… but you get the idea

Hope this helps clarify what you’re getting as part of your purchase.

Please remember that get get only one free installation, regardless of which license you buy.  Additional installations may be purchased at http://DigitalAccessPass.com/buynow.php#installation

If you want us to do it all for you, then check out our “Membership Site In A Box” package that comes with “Concierge” sessions to help you set it all up.

What Is “Login Xpress”?

“Login Xpress” is a DAP feature that enables your members to be logged right into your membership site immediately upon completion of their purchase.

This is roughly how it works:

• Visitor arrives at your web site
• On your sales page, they click on any “Buy” button to purchase a Product (or Membership Level)
• They’re taken to the checkout page (depending on Payment processor being used) and they enter their payment information and hit “Submit”
• When they hit “Submit” to complete their payment, their payment is processed right away, and the buyer is immediately transferred back to your web site, in real time, and automatically logged in to your membership site, and they are taken to the “Welcome” page or “Members” page (you may choose what this page is going to be at a per-Product level)

Payment Processors That Work With Login Xpress

DAP supports this feature with the following payment processors:

• Paypal Standard (DAP-generated buttons only – will not work with Paypal-hosted buy buttons that you generate from within your Paypal account)
• 1Shoppingcart / 1SiteAutomation.com
• Authorize.net

If you use any of the payment options above, then you can set up your sales funnel in such a way that buyers are logged in right away immediately after purchase.

Payment Processors That DO NOT Work With Login Xpress (Yet)

• Paypal Website Payments Pro
• ClickBank
• e-Junkie
• WorldPay

DAP integrates with the above processors via some kind of “back-end payment notification” – similar to Paypal’s “IPN” (Instant Payment Notification). Which means the notification between the payment processor and DAP on your site only happens on the “back-end”. Which is why DAP can only deliver the login details to the buyer via an email, and cannot log them in right away (like it can do with “Login Xpress”), because the buyer’s information is available to DAP only when the payment processor sends out the IPN notification behind-the-scenes, so to speak.

So if you’re using the above processors to accept online payments, then what you need to do, is to redirect your buyers to a static “Thank You” page that has a message similar to the one below…

“Thank you for your purchase. In a few minutes, please check your email address used during purchase for your log in details to log in to the members’ area and access the product you just purchased.”

And behind the scenes, DAP would’ve already received the payment notification from the payment processor, and it would’ve created an account for your buyer, given them access to the purchased product, and sent them the “Thank-you Email” for the product(s).