Setting Membership Preferences

To Change the Members Page

To edit the Membership Preferences

1. Click on the Preferences tab
   
   
    
2. Under the General tab select the Membership link
   
   
    
3. Here you are able to edit the following settings:

• What page should be used as the members home?: Leave blank for default  
• Allow signup?: Allow new users to sign up for an account. If this is set users will be shown links to the signup pages, otherwise the administrator will need to manually create accounts in the website backend  
• Show username / password fields: Are users allowed to specify a username & password for their account (which allows them to log in). Defaults to yes.  
• New members require admin approval: Require users to be activated in the backend before they can login with their accounts. They will automatically go into the Inactive Customers tab and will need to be activated
• New users get put in a group?: When customers signup using the signup form, should they be placed into a specific customer group. Note this will not affect customers auto-created as part of the order process, enquiries or customers imported via the spreadsheet or created via other means.
• Member discount: Discount applied to all members of the site. Enter a number followed by a percentage (eg '40%') for a percentage discount, if you simply enter a number this will give a fixed discount (eg '40' will give everyone $40 off their order)  
• Username label. Alternate label for the login field on login/signup forms (defaults to Username.)  
• Password label. Alternate label for the password field on login/signup forms (defaults to Password.)

Reasons for Membership

• It can be used to obtain Customer's contact details which can then be used for marketing purposes. Although the newsletter signup would be better for this
• Customers who have purchased can log in and use the Order Tracking functionality.
• Logged in customer's shopping carts can be stored between visits to your website (provided this setting is selected in the Preferences > Product Display area)
• You can set up wholesale/retail pricing structures and give specific customers discounts across your product range.
• You can create private areas on your website that only Members can access and use like forums, downloadable pdfs or access-controlled content pages

Membership Signup Process

Users can signup on your website by creating an account using the standard online form or you can create them as a user manually.
 

To create a Members login area

1.  Go to the Content Tree and select Add new top-level link
   
   
    
2. Give it a Name - in this example we shall call it "Members"
   
   
    
3. Click Select a link
   
   
    
4. Change the Protocol to area:// and URL to login and click OK
    
5. View your site in Live Edit mode and you will see the Members tab in the top level content tabs
   
   

Please note
When you are setting up the members area it is a very good idea to work with two browsers open - that way you can edit the website as admin and then view what your non-logged in and logged-in members will see. We recommend editing the site using Mozilla Firefox and viewing it using Internet Explorer.

When you view the page when you are not logged in you will see this


When you view it when you are logged in as website admin you will see this



You may not wish to give your members access to all of these options - should you wish to have any removed eg. Order Status or Delete Account, please contact our support team who can hide these from this area.
 

To change the members page

The website comes with the standard signup text - "Sign up for free! Create  an account with us to remember your details and take advantage of our  account management functions."  which you can overwrite.

1. To change the login text go to the Content Tree and down the bottom you will see Standard Pages - Click the + to the left of it
   
   
    
2. Find Login, click it, then click Live Edit
   
   
    
3. When you are in live edit you will see the following screen. Click the pencil just above where it says Welcome
   
   
    
4. In the Signup header override section put your text to replace the "Sign up for free!" text. In this example we will change it to "Join our VIP Club"
   
   
    
5. Then where it says Signup text override put your own signup text. In this example we will change it to "Become a VIP and you can login to receive special pricing. Click here to create an account"
   
   
    
6. Now when you view the Members page (when you aren't logged in as admin) you can see your changes.
   
   Please note
   The text on the right hand side of this signup where it says "Login" is hard coded into the website and not easily changed - please contact our support team for a cost estimate should you wish to have the text altered. If you don't want the text on the left and only want the Login area, go to the Preferences tab in the website manager - click on "Membership Settings" , scroll down to "Allow signup" and change it to "No"
   
    
7. To create a link to the signup form you need to highlight the words you wish to link - in this example the words "click here" - then click the Link icon
   
   
    
8. Change the Protocol to area:// and the URL needs to be new_account
   
   

Please note
You can create this new account signup link anywhere within your website as part of text on a regular page.