Memberpress Bridge

[Dominic Conrad]

Ive just purchased the Memberpress bridge (https://usestrict.net/product/bbpress-notify-no-spam-memberpress-bridge/) for bbPNNS.

Can you provide some more detail on what it enables the end user to do in their account profile, compared to what they’d see/get just using just bbPNNS on it’s own? All i know is that it “makes bbPNNS play nicely with MemberPress display rules”

I was under the impression that if a membership restricted users to seeing/using specific bbPress forums, then these members would not receive topic/reply notifications from those restricted forum topics/relies. Is this the case? Do you have docs that assist us in setting this up?

[vinny]

Hi Dominic,

Thanks for reaching out.

> Can you provide some more detail on what it enables the end user to do in their account profile, compared to what they’d see/get just using just bbPNNS on it’s own?

The Memberpress bridge will add Digests and Opt-out items to the Memberpress nav bar (if the add-ons are installed).

> I was under the impression that if a membership restricted users to seeing/using specific bbPress forums, then these members would not receive topic/reply notifications from those restricted forum topics/relies. Is this the case?

Yes, that is how it works. bbPress needs to be set up via role-based notifications (e.g. add Subscriber role to get everyone), and then the Memberpress bridge will check if the selected users have access to the forum that triggered the notification. It drops users who don’t have access.

Other than setting up the role-based notification in bbpnns, there is nothing else that needs to be done. You can see the Memberpress bridge in action by using the Dry Run tool under bbpnns > Settings > Support tab.

Cheers,
Vinny

[Dominic Conrad]

Using Dry run i dont seem to get a different recipient count when i reply to topic in a restricted forum as opposed to a forum both memberships have access to. I’ll do some more testing tommorrow…

[Dominic Conrad]

Maybe I baought the Memberpress Bridge by mistake? I don’t have the Digest or Opt out Add-ons on my site so surely there is no point in me having the Memberpress bridge?

[Dominic Conrad]

This reply has been marked as private.

[Dominic Conrad]

This reply has been marked as private.

[vinny]

Hi Dominic,

Please allow me a day to go through your comment and screencast (which have been marked as Private so that only you and admins can see them).

[Dominic Conrad]

This reply has been marked as private.

[vinny]

Hi Dominic,

Sorry for the delay in replying.

Before I answer your questions, I’d like to share the way I usually test out notifications on staging sites with several production email addresses and not spam everyone.

Basically, all you need to do is to change every email address to a “plus alias” address that you have access to in gmail or hotmail or any other service that accepts them. Plus aliases are basically aliases to your own mailbox. Taking ‘[email protected]’ as an example, you can do ‘[email protected]’ and get 2 addresses for the price of one :).

On staging sites, in order to get unique addresses for my own mailbox, I run the following query (having wp_ as example prefix):

alter table wp_users add column orig_email text; -- create a new column to back up the original email addresses

update wp_users set orig_email = user_email; -- back up the original email addresses

update wp_users set user_email = CONCAT('foo+', user_nicename, '@gmail.com); -- Create the unique plus alias address for each user pointing to your chosen mailbox

Then you don’t have to worry about spamming the actual users, as you’ll be receiving all emails in your selected mailbox.

Now on to answering your questions…

Q1) Can I assume the following lines:

[2023-02-22 11:49:46] [99747] [bbpnns_memberpress_bridge]: Dropping blocked user ID102
———————
[2023-02-22 11:49:46] [99747] [bbpnns_memberpress_bridge]: Dropping blocked user ID104

….is the bNPSS Memberpress bridge doing it’s job and preventing the email being sent to the two test pilots registered so far?

Correct Memberpress is telling the bridge that each user cannot access that forum and the bridge is correctly dropping them.

Q2) If I assign the test pilots to only the ‘Subscriber Test Pilot’ role after they register and make them the recipients only in bbNPSS, is this a way to allow test pilots on staging play with the forum without any emails being sent to regular members?

Please use the technique I outlined above so that you don’t have to worry about not sending out emails in complex user access situations.

Q3) When I push/deploy the staging site back to live I should then update bbPNNS to have recipients as Participant / Moderator / Keymaster? Do you agree?

Because you’re using Memberpress (or any other supported membership plugin), setting role-based notifications is recommended. That way, bbpnns will load every member for the given role and the bridge will weed out the ones that do not have access.

Q4) relates to what these test pilots see in their front-end account profile subscriptions page. Will the subscriptions (Forums/Topics/Replies) listed here depend on the config of bbPNNS at the time they registered or can it be dynamically changed by subsequently altering the settings of bbPNNS ? The reason I ask is that of the two test pilots i have registered so far, they have completely different subscriptions listed (see attached) and I’m wondering if this was because bbPNNS was configured differently between the registrations.

It may very well be. In your screencast, I see that you have the option to automatically subscribe all new users to all forums. That is why they were registered to forums that they weren’t allowed access to. I recommend that you disable that and keep the role-based notifications enabled. Or, if you haven’t installed it yet, have a look at https://memberpress.com/addons/bbpress/. They may have an option to automatically subscribe new users to whatever forums the group is allowed.

Let me know if you still have any questions.

Cheers,
Vinny

• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by vinny.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by vinny.

[Dominic Conrad]

Vinny

Thanks for the detailed reply and for the script – I take it that is an sql query? That would have helped enormously in the past!

I appreciate your answer to question 2, but these test pilots WILL need to receive and interact will email notifications – thats the whole point of them testing the staging site. They will then feedback any issues they have to me. I can’t be receiving all their testing notifications.

So what do you think of my proposed workaround in Q2)?

Thanks for pointing out why I was getting discrepancy in forum subscriptions following registration. Doh!

[Dominic Conrad]

Also, regrading your answer to Q4) I just disabled ‘Automatically subscribe new users to all forums.’ option for a new test pilot registration and they aren’t subscribed to ANY forums!

The main point of using bbNPSS is to initially force subscribe new members to forums that they are allowed access to. So is there an in-between option/solution whereby they are subscribed to only the School Food forum? i.e. only 1 of the 12 forums?

Or, to ensure initial engagement with the forums by both memberships (regular members get access to ALL forums, School Food members get access to only School Food forum), should I keep ‘Automatically subscribe new users to all forums.’ enabled in the knowledge that the Memberpress Bridge will prevent the school food group getting email notifications about topics/replies relating to the other 11 forums?

If there is no ‘in-between’ solution, when we then explain how they go about unsubscribing from specific forms/topics/ – we can explain that force subscribing was an all-or nothing feature and they need not worry about the other 11 forum subscriptions as they wont be getting and email notifications relating to those.

Appreciate your thoughts on this dilema.

[Dominic Conrad]

UPDATE: I think i’ve confirmed that my proposed workaround in Q2) is not viable.

Changing a user’s role Post-registration from Subscriber to the role set as recipient in bbNPSS whilst ‘Automatically subscribe new users to all forums’ is enabled doesn’t then make that user a subscriber to all forums. They need to be assigned that role at the point of registration, not afterwards, to be subscribed to all forums.

[vinny]

Hi Dominic,

Let’s try to simplify things a bit. To allow your testers to test without spamming everyone, follow the approach that I told you via SQL, and then change back just the testers’ email addresses via Admin > Users.

When using a membership plugin and its add-on, the best approach is to use the role based notification field and set ‘Subscriber’ role. That will load everyone and the bridge will do its job of weeding out those who should not be notified.

Cheers,
Vinny

[Dominic Conrad]

OK, I can see ho that makes sense and keeps things simpler.

When I full deploy staging back to live site, do you have SQL query to reverse the email assignments?

[vinny]

> When I full deploy staging back to live site, do you have SQL query to reverse the email assignments?

It’s probably best to just apply the config changes manually in the settings screens, as they should be simple. However, if you do need the query, it would be this:

update wp_users set user_email = orig_email;

Cheers,
Vinny

[Dominic Conrad]

Vinny

Thanks for the reply. The testing on the staging site is pencilled in for a couple of weeks time so I am just getting back up to speed with this.

A couple of questions…

a) From your last reply ‘….just apply the config changes manually in the settings screens, as they should be simple’ – the settings screen for what? The user’s profile or are you referring to bbPNNS config screens?

b) bbPNNS and the MP bridge helps me out with subscribing new members to all forums. But how do i ‘update’ the profile of all pre-existing members on the website so that they are also subscribed to all forums/topics and replies? I imagine this may also require an SQL query but that is not my strong point. Might you have a solution or route to follow? We would then inform users their profiles had been updated and why and also how to modify their profiles and unsubscribe form forums they don’t want to remain subscribed to.

Also, the link you provided to https://memberpress.com/addons/bbpress/ doesn’t recommend anything specific to help with my scenario – it’s just a forum topic at bbPress – bizarre how Memberpress have linked to it actually.

[vinny]

Hi Dominic,

From your last reply ‘….just apply the config changes manually in the settings screens, as they should be simple’ – the settings screen for what? The user’s profile or are you referring to bbPNNS config screens?

I meant that instead of copying the staging site over onto production, just apply whatever settings changes you made in staging manually in production. It should just be a few clicks.

bbPNNS and the MP bridge helps me out with subscribing new members to all forums.

Not really. You would tell bbpnns to load every single user as a recipient via the role setting, and the Bridge will then weed out the ones that cannot receive notifications.

But how do i ‘update’ the profile of all pre-existing members on the website so that they are also subscribed to all forums/topics and replies?

You don’t. Just set bbpnns to load everyone having ‘subscriber’ role in the role settings. The bridge will do the rest.

Also, the link you provided to https://memberpress.com/addons/bbpress/ doesn’t recommend anything specific to help with my scenario – it’s just a forum topic at bbPress – bizarre how Memberpress have linked to it actually.

The download is available from Memberpress’ downloads section after you log in (you need to have an active Memberpress license).

Cheers,
Vinny

[Dominic Conrad]

Hi Vinny

“It should just be a few clicks.” OK, I see what you mean now – trouble is that the bbPNNS work is only about 20% of the work ive done on staging!

RE: But how do i ‘update’ the profile of all pre-existing members on the website so that they are also subscribed to all forums/topics and replies?

You said ‘You Dont’ – the trouble is I need them (existing and new) to be subscribed to all forums – and then give them the option to unsubscribe from individual forums themselves from their profile > subscriptions screen/page.

I take it The MP bridge looks to see if a user is subscribed to a particular forum (as well as having access rights) before notifying them of topics/replies?

The whole point of this task/project (and why i’ve integrated bbNNS & the MP bridge) is to increase user forum engagement by a) Having all users be subscribed to all forums/topics/replies at a given common time, b) ensure they dont get notified of topics/replies they cant access and c) show them then how to unsubscribe from any forums/topics they don’t need to hear from.

Am i going about this the wrong way? Is there a better way…..?

[Dominic Conrad]

I could have done with an answer to this….. Any chance Vinny?

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