I have already created one small RW site that used JW SiteLok stack and everything seemed to go really well. I love the product. I then had another client that wanted to do something similar, but wanted to have people pay for an annual membership. I noticed that there is a SiteLok PayPal Plugin and from the descriptions I should be able to us this collect money and activate access via SiteLok. I have been following all the instructions but I find myself stuck.
I have SiteLok installed on the server / site. I have the PayPal Plugin installed and configured. But I can’t seem to figure out how the two work together. What am I missing?
I can’t seem to find the info or visualize the the SiteLok paid membership flow.
Is there anyone out there that has done this? I would love to pick you brain or get some extra insight.
Personally, I do not use PayPal plugin with Sitelok, but I’d suggest you contact Adrian directly (through his website). He is an extremely helpful kind of a developer and I’m sure he will guide you through the setup process.
Thanks. I did fire off a support email but there has to be someone here that have setup what I am trying to do. I think I am just missing a small piece of the puzzle.
Yes, I created a product with the plugin. I grabbed the code that it generated (The Link) but I get an error. Plus, I don’t understand where the new account info comes from. Shouldn’t I need to capture the new users name, email, and other info before they are sent away to pay for the subscription?
Here is the current FREE membership page that I have.
I would like to pull this info into SiteLok and then after they make their Subscription Payment with the PayPal plugin they would be redirected to the confirmation page and their login info would be emailed to them.
I have gone through the entire plugin manual but right now all I have is a link that doesn’t work for my “Product”.
@thebugnut I use Sitelok all the time, but never with PayPal (or any pay service). Like others have suggested, Adrian is fantastic and should be able to help you quickly. (Though he may not respond on a weekend.)
The only thing you wrote that caught my attention was:
It would seem filling out the membership info should go directly to Sitelok. It sounds like you have not set it up that way: that the info goes to some other database first. Although I could be wrong and I’m just misintepreting your wording.
But, again, Adrian should be able to help out: he’s fantastic! @vibralogix
I think the error is just because you have set the Number of regular payments to 1. Can you leave that field blank and generate the link again and it should work ok. That field tells Paypal how many payment periods to continue for and probably 1 doesn’t make sense for a subscription. Leaving that field blank leaves the subscription running until you or the members cancel it.
In terms of the membership flow it really depends how you set it up. If you use that Paypal link it will allow non members to pay and have an account created automatically. There are other options such as having users login and then pay which is useful if you have a free membership plan and want to have users upgrade to a pro plan for example. You can also create a registration form that connects to payment after its submitted.
If you need any help contact me via my site support and I am sure we will get things working how you need.
The account info will come from PayPal. You can supplement this info with a form. This is also explained in the manual. You can test using a Paypal sandbox set up on the PayPal side.
The plugin does support Paypal’s sandbox system but that can be a pain to use sometimes. Often I find that using a second Paypal account (they allow you to have a personal account as well as a business account) and setting the price to 0.01 to save refunding is the easiest way to test.
Ok, I am attempting to implement this little project tonight. I will post my question and results here. Hopefully the will help others.
I have decided at this time to simply get the SIteLok functionality up and running first. Once I know all my pages are in place and only displaying Locked content to existing members I can then worry about the PayPal plugin.
I was able to get everything up and running but I do have a question that I could use some help with. Hear me out…
Right now I created a Membership Subscription for access to the Members area on the website for 1 year. I later realized that the only way it can be cancelled is to cancel it through PayPal. If you don’t, PayPal will just automatically charge the user again the following year. That seemed OK at first, but now I think there are few problems / questions.
How does someone who paid with a credit card instead of their PayPal account cancel their subscription?
Would it be better to sell the website access for 365 days and have it expire? Then send the user an email asking them to re-up their membership manually?
How do would I tie a new payment to an expired account? I don’t even know where to look for that type of functionality. I assume it’s there somewhere.
Again… any help anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated. You guys rock. :)
As far as I know Paypal create an account when someone pays by card. This way the user can login to Paypal to cancel when they need to.
This really depends on your needs. Either way should work ok.
If you place the renewal button on a members page (so they need to login to access it) then Sitelok can connect the account to update even if the Paypal email is different.
