Advice Making Changes to Existing Plan Setup

Hello!

I need some advice for configuring some new Plans and adding them to my existing CBSubs website.

I have been running a Community Builder-powered website using the CBSubs product to enable subscriptions and one type of paid subscriptions (a paid “Sponsorship” option only made visible by emailing the direct URL to sign up). This has been working well.

I’ve supported general free accounts and membership for users so that all new website members/signups are automatically assigned to a CBSubs Plan called “Free Membership.” This Plan is at the top level of the Plan hierarchy, and all other Plans have it as their parent.

I now would like to add a pubic-facing option for users to sign up for either a “Subscription” Plan or a “Gold Subscription” Plan: either when they first register, or via upgrading to this from their existing Free Membership Plan after they’ve signed up.

So, a member can either have:
1) A “Free Membership” subscription (the default for all members)
or
2) A “Subscription” or “Gold Subscription” (available for purchase, with the purchase option publicly visible in registration and profile)
or
3) A “Sponsorship” or “Gold Sponsorship” (available for purchase, but only via the direct URL)

For 2) and 3) – the “Subscription” and “Sponsorship” items – I want any members whose subscriptions expire to automatically fall back to “Free Membership.”

To accomplish this, is this the Plan hierarchy I need?

“Free Membership” (exclusive, child plans always visible)
– “Subscription” (not exclusive)
– “Gold Subscription” (not exclusive)
– “Sponsorship” (not exclusive)
– “Gold Sponsorship (not exclusive)

Or would this be better?

“Free Membership” (exclusive, child plans always visible)
– “Subscriptions” (exclusive, children visible)
–--– “Subscription” (exclusive)
–--– “Gold Subscription” (exclusive)
– “Sponsorships” (exclusive, children hidden)
–-- “Sponsorship” (exclusive)
–-- “Gold Sponsorship (exclusive)

Any advice on the best structure to get what I’m seeking would be appreciated. Thanks!

From my understanding:
1- Free Membership is free lifetime ?
2- Sponsors and Gold sponsors are a minority of known high givers, while subscribers can be anyone ?
3- there is no problem that a Sponsor sees normal subscription plans, correct ?
4- Do you currently have real subscriptions for free membership, visible in the CB -> Plugins -> CB Paid Subscriptions -> Subscriptions list ?
5- Which means you had in CB Paid Subscriptions -> Settings -> Global -> Registration settings -> "Create Subscriptions also for free lifetime plans" turned on ?
6- "This Plan is at the top level of the Plan hierarchy, and all other Plans have it as their parent." but i thought you only had "Free Membership" and "Sponsor" plans ? which other children plans do you *already* have ?

Generally, I would not recommend having 3 levels (2 levels of parent plans), with 2 free levels above paid levels for user-experience and simplicity, but some cases in the purchase experience can justify it.

And specially should subscriptions and sponsorships be exclusive among themselves ?

I guess, to respect the current arrangement, which is safer, the simplest setup would be to have:

“Free Membership” (exclusive, child plans always visible, existing)
– “Subscription” (exclusive, existing)
– “Gold Subscription” (exclusive, new)
– “Sponsorship” (not exclusive or exclusive, hidden)
– “Gold Sponsorship (not exclusive or exclusive, hidden)

The very simplest setup would be, but requiring to NOT have subscription records for the free plan:
“Free Membership” (exclusive, default plan, no subscription record)
“Subscription” (exclusive)
“Gold Subscription” (exclusive)
“Sponsorship” (not exclusive, hidden)
“Gold Sponsorship (not exclusive, hidden)

BUT: if you have subscriptions, don't change their plans hierarchy.

Otherwise this should work too (if you don't have "Sponsorship" subscriptions active and child of "Free Membership"):

“Free Membership” (exclusive, child plans always visible)
– “Subscription” (exclusive)
– “Gold Subscription” (exclusive)
“Sponsorship” (not exclusive, hidden)
“Gold Sponsorship (not exclusive, hidden)

And if you want different rights for members and sponsors, you could also have:

“Free Membership” (exclusive, child plans always visible)
– “Subscription” (exclusive)
– “Gold Subscription” (exclusive)
“Sponsorship” (exclusive, hidden)
– “Gold Sponsorship option (not exclusive, hidden)

So everything should work on a fresh installation, but keep existing hierarchy preferably and choose the solution that works best for you and that is easiest for your users and clearest for your marketing.

Functionally the most Important is that if your existing plan "Free Membership" is the parent plan of your 2 other plans, AND that parent plan has subscriptions records and the child plans too (which I now read is the case!), then that hierarchy should stay, and you should add the new plans also below that "Free Membership", if they are exclusive to the existing subscriptions, as subscriptions are tracking their hierarchies as well, and changing plan's hierarchy without adapting subscriptions hierarchy one by one or in the database is untested and could work or lead to unexpected results.

EDIT ADDED: So flattening current plans hierarchy would require extensive testing on a site clone, or just zero out corresponding parent_plan and parent_subscription columns in the #__cbsubs_subscriptions MySQL table.

Does that answer your questions to choose your setup ? Otherwise, please reply/confirm the numbered suppositions/questions above so can better answer.

Thank you very much for your lengthy and helpful reply. Yes, there are more Plans in my schema (which I left out to try to simplify things). However, I clearly need to let you know the full scope of what's going on.

To start, let's answer your questions:
1) Yes, the Free Membership option is set to be a free, "lifetime" membership that never expires, per the Plan setting.

2) Yes, Sponsors/Gold Sponsors will be a minority (and need to be personally qualified before being invited to this program). And yes, Subscribers and Gold Subscribers can be anyone who wants to sign up and pay.

3) Yes, Sponsors (and similar) can see everything available, however, there will be no call for a Sponsor to become a Subscriber/Gold Subscriber. And indeed, I don't want a Sponsor to be presented with this option, ideally.

4) Yes, most of our members are already active in the "Free Membership" plan. All members have been pushed to this: We have no "regular" Joomla members that aren't already also in at least the "Free Membership" Plan, or another CBSubs Plan.

5) Yes, the option for "Create Subscriptions also for free lifetime plans" is turned On, and it has been configured this way since we started using CBSubs.

6) Good catch! In the interests of keeping things simple, I wanted to just focus on our immediate needs. However, it's clear that it will be best to share the full scope of what we have, and what we want. Specifically:

Here's what we've built currently, and what we need to start from:

General Breakdown of Current User/Member Options and Access Hierarchy:

• Public/Guest User
  No login or account
  
  • "Member"
    A free account and login, with profile and other basic access via Joomla/CB/CBSubs, set to the "Free Membership" Plan in CBSubs. We currently have a couple hundred members with this free account.
    
    • "Sponsor"
      A paid account via CBSubs, inheriting all Member privileges, and adding Sponsor-specific features and privileges. Requires manual approval and setup, with the Plan not visible to Members or the public. We currently have about 10 Sponsor accounts.
    • "Institution"
      A free account via CBSubs, inheriting all Member access and features, plus Institution-only features. Requires manual approval and setup, with the Plan not visible to Members or the public.) We currently have a couple dozen Institution accounts.
    • "Neighbor"
      A free account via CBSubs, inheriting all Member access and features, plus Neighbor-only features. Requires manual approval and setup, with the Plan not visible to Members or the public.) We currently have a handful of Neighbor accounts.

Current CBSubs Plan Hierarchy:

• "Free Membership" Plan (currently the Parent to all other Plans)
  Exclusive; Free; Lifetime subscription. This is the default Plan for all new website signups
  • "Sponsorship" Plan
    Exclusive; Paid; 1 Year term. This is the Plan for all "advertisers" on the website.
  • "Institution" Plan
    Exclusive; Free; Lifetime subscription. This is the free, "enhanced" plan for local community groups.
  • "Neighbor" Plan
    Exclusive; Free; 1 Year term. This plan requires a Member to share their home address to get enhanced access.

Here's the goal for where we want to get to, including adding new member categories and subscriptions:

Future, Desired User/Member Options and Access Hierarchy:

• Public/Guest User
  No login or account
  
  • "Member"
    A free account and login, with profile and other basic access via Joomla/CB/CBSubs, set to the "Free Membership" Plan in CBSubs.
    
    • "Sponsor"
      A paid account via CBSubs, inheriting all Member privileges, and adding Sponsor-specific features and privileges. Requires manual approval and setup, with the Plan not visible to Members or the public. On expiration, falls back to Member ("Free Membership").
      • "Gold Sponsor"
        A paid account via CBSubs, inheriting all Sponsor privileges, and adding Gold Sponsor-specific features and privileges. Requires manual approval and setup, with the Plan not visible to Members or the public. On expiration, falls back to Member ("Free Membership").
    • "Institution"
      A free account via CBSubs, inheriting all Member access and features, plus Institution-only features. Requires manual approval and setup, with the Plan not visible to Members or the public.) Does not expire.
      • "Sponsoring Institution"
        A paid account via CBSubs, inheriting all Institution privileges, and adding Sponsoring Institution-specific features and privileges. Requires manual approval and setup, with the Plan not visible to Members or the public. On expiration, falls back to "Institution."
    • "Subscriber"
      A paid account via CBSubs, inheriting all Member access and features, plus Subscriber-only features. Visible and accessible to both existing Members and Public/Guest users when they're registering for an account. On expiration, falls back to Member ("Free Membership").
      • "Gold Subscriber"
        A paid account via CBSubs, inheriting all Subscriber access and features, plus Gold Subscriber-only features. Visible and accessible to both existing Members and Public/Guest users when they're registering for an account. On expiration, falls back to Member ("Free Membership").

Note that the "Neighbor" Plan is going to be discontinued, and that all of these users will be moved back to a "Free Membership" (with an option to become a "Subscriber").

Also note that any website member can only be one of these things at a time: There's no doubling-up of any of the above desired Plans.

Based on your feedback, and my existing Plan schema and hierarchy, it sounds like this may work:

“Free Membership” (exclusive, child plans always visible, existing)
– “Subscriber” (exclusive, visible)
– “Gold Subscriber” (exclusive, visible)
– “Sponsor” (not exclusive, hidden)
– “Gold Sponsor (not exclusive, hidden)
-- "Institution" (not exclusive, hidden)
-- "Sponsoring Institution (not exclusive, hidden)

Does it sound like this will work?

Pomond wrote: ...
Based on your feedback, and my existing Plan schema and hierarchy, it sounds like this may work:

“Free Membership” (exclusive, child plans always visible, existing)
– “Subscriber” (exclusive, visible)
– “Gold Subscriber” (exclusive, visible)
– “Sponsor” (not exclusive, hidden)
– “Gold Sponsor (not exclusive, hidden)
-- "Institution" (not exclusive, hidden)
-- "Sponsoring Institution (not exclusive, hidden)

Does it sound like this will work?

Thanks for the detailed and clear description, that helps! Usually time spent at design stage is wastly gained in implementation stage.

Based on your description that only one plan should be active at a time, I would make them all exclusive and at same level:

“Free Membership” (exclusive, child plans always visible, existing) Below that a single level:
– “Subscriber” (exclusive, visible)
– “Gold Subscriber” (exclusive, visible)
– “Sponsor” (exclusive, hidden)
– “Gold Sponsor (exclusive, hidden)
– “Institution" (exclusive, hidden)
– “Sponsoring Institution (exclusive, hidden)

That should work, is compatible with your current hierarchy, and is way simpler than any other setup suggested above.

In the "Workflows" tab of the plans setups, you will the be able to precisely configure for each plan the conditions of upgrades (that in your case mean changes of plan). So even "visible" plans can be hidden to accounts with another active subscription.

Thank you! I will give this a try, and let you know in this thread if I have any more questions.

Hello!

I had a follow-up question related to the configuration of my subscriptions as mentioned earlier, specifically how "falling back" or reverting works when an account expires or is canceled, and if this will fall back to the "Parent" plan.

My proposed subscription Plans include "Subscriber," "Gold Subscriber," "Sponsor" and "Gold Sponsor," and all of these will revert to a regular "Free Membership." These all have "Free Membership" as their parent.

I'd like the (paid) "Sponsoring Institution" subscription to revert back to the (free) "Institution" plan -- and not the "Free Membership" plan -- when a "Sponsoring Institution" subscription expires or is canceled.

This means that I should make "Institution" the Parent for "Sponsoring Institution," correct? Here's this schema:

“Free Membership” (exclusive, child plans always visible, existing) Below that a single level:
– “Subscriber” (exclusive, visible)
– “Gold Subscriber” (exclusive, visible)
– “Sponsor” (exclusive, hidden)
– “Gold Sponsor (exclusive, hidden)
– “Institution" (exclusive, hidden)
–– “Sponsoring Institution" (exclusive, visible to "Institution" accounts)

Note that the "Sponsoring Institution" subscription will only be directly and privately offered to existing Institutions (via the Subscription tab on the profile or via direct URL link).

Thanks for your help!