What it does…

If one create a custom field of the checkbox type with multiple comma separated extra values, these are stored in your wp user meta table as a string:

Select field values stored as string

Nested user meta data

Now my plugin does it’s best to handle nested user meta data  – it checks for arrays and objects and breaks those down into single level values so you can report and filter by them.   Ideally of course each piece of user data should be stored simply as single value!   However some plugin authors don’t seem keen to do it that way.

Comma’s in user meta strings

A comma in a user meta string is quite a valid thing – maybe it’s a descriptive field?   So the user list plugin which has to work generically, since it does not know what fields people will be creating, cannot just breakdown any string into comma separated components …..

So if you need to create fields using Register Plus for your users where they may “belong” to more than one of the values AND you want to be able to filter or list by those values using my plugin, then you will need to define more than one field!  (Eg: the example given was that a person could  be a coach and a player, or just one.)

Two possibilities are shown below:

The database (user meta table)

Multiple or Single values in user meta

The list:

User List options

You’d have to play around with names and values to see what works best from a usability point of view!

Or ask Skullbit/Devbits to update the plugin and change how those values are stored – single user meta values might be better, or at least an array!

Related posts:

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2. User Lists AmR-Users allows an administrator to design their own users lists or reports. It offers a basic set to start that...
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Example List

Version 2 of the amr users plugin has been uploaded to wordpress.  It is a fairly major change aimed at better performance for websites with a large number of users, so a lot of the additional functionality is around cacheing the reports and rebuilding the caches when there are user changes.

Example Configuration

This was released now as a number of folks asked about it.   I hope to put a few more updates through soon to address the following:

• Ability to reference additional user tables (eg: subscribe 2 un registered users)
• Cached reports are updated on standard wordpress changes, however once one starts accessing additional tables where there is no ‘action’ defined by which one could trigger an update, then we may need to have a regular background cache update.

Cache status example

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I have received a few requests for member search facilities – a “search for that member” tool.   This may be a useful add-on to my amr users lists plugin.  In thinking about it, it seems to me that there are a few possible approaches:  Eg:

• Search for a particular member within a large community or subscription base
  1. admin – searching for a member, with “some” data – possibly part of name, or approximate date registered.  A short term solution for a partial name search  is to have a long “amr-users” list with relevant data displayed, and then click edit/find in your browser – this would then search all the text on the screen and jump to the possibilities.
  2. users – searching for similar users or members.  This is possibly more of a filtering operating.  They would probably need to be able to to be able to filter by some data that has been created by a user meta plugin like Register Plus or any of the membership plugins.For example – say class year and/or current location
• Filtering – allow a user or viewer to filter a list returning a sublist, possibly sorted by a dynamic criteria (similar to the point above)

Specifics required

Before working on such a plugin, it would be useful if people would describe in more detail their ideas of a member or user search tool and how they would like it to work.   If you are interested in such a tool, please comment on this post.

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If you are attempting to integrate multiple plugins for your membership site, then this may be the tool for you.  If those plugins store data in the user meta table, this plugin will access it (whether it is an array or an object) and convert the keys to more accessible data as though they were straight meta values, for selection and reporting.

Admin area for administrator only

The admin settings area is aimed at an administrator, who will design and setup the reports for less skilled editors or website managers.  Some lists are provided pre-configured to get you going – you can add more or change these.

Configured User listings for editors

The first field of each listing will offer a link to edit that user.

The fields you see listed will vary depending on the plugins that you have in use, and on the meta data that the plugins may have created.  In the Screenshots you will some data from subscribe 2, register plus and your members plugins.

If you have very large numbers of users, the post count and particularly the comment count (no wordpress cacheing) listings may be slow.  If very slow, please contact me and we can consider ways to cache the data.  If you wanted to list this data on the front end, the performance would have to be improved.  for now it is assumed to be admin/editor use only.

Download

It should be up at wordpress soon, in the meantime, there is a zip file :amr-users plugin

Screenshots

Default List 1 View

Default List 2 view

Default List 3 view

Admin 1

Admin 2

Admin for list 3

Exported to CSV

Imported CSV with no worries into Open Office Spreadsheet

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Reasonably well documented:

Profiles

• advanced profile management system
• add custom fields – could be useful
• no screenshots

Connections

• An address book / addressbook that is managed in the admin and embedded in a post/page.
• Upcoming birthdays and anniversaries can also be embedded in a post/page

Profiler

• more aimed at being that external members directory
• has screenshots

WordPress Users

• Aimed at showing an external member list on a page
• Does not use shortcode? Does it work in 2.8?
• No screenshots

author-listing

• list acrive and inactive authors
• no screenshots

Not much documentation:

ttc-user-comment

• Creates a list of all users, registration date, and number of comments See link under ‘Manage’ to access page and checks email address against www.stopforumspam.com database.
• No screenshots

Warp User Profile extension

• No screenshots, pluginlink does not work, limited info

friendz

• Still in development
• profiles, paginated and customizable user lists, and some characteristics of social networks, like friends and sets.

hoodame

• No screenshots, pluginlink does not work, limited info

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Firstly, what do we mean by personalised?

A truly personalised communication is more than just a greeting by name.  Offering the ability to use more information than just the name is not always as easy a task as it may seem.   Indeed even if one is just talking about a personalised greeting,  there are many differing opinions on whether there it is worth doing at all.   When almost every spammer seems to know the recipients  name, is there value in bothering with just that?

Pros of personalising

• Some people believe that the recipients value it and some people it is a waste of time and can be detrimental.
• Done well, it could be used to verify that the email is not a scam, by offering partial confirmation of details (EG: your account ending in 9876).  Again some recipients do not like having their personal details echoed in an email and would prefer to simply be requested to go to the website

Cons or Pitfalls

Some common mistakes or pitfalls with even very basic personalisation such as a personalised greeting,  are:

• Asking for too much information upfront is dangerous:
  • making it harder for people to sign up may reduce the number of signups.
  • some find the request for more information than is needed intrusive and may respond with garbage to get past these fields.  By echoing the garbage back, when communicating, the business reminds the reader of their attempt to gather more information than is necesary to deliver the product.
• 

  Example of Error in Personalisation

  Operator errors in setting up the emails.  Many of us who receive a lot of email letters, often receive such emails with errors.  For example I receive one every week with the same error from a large enterprise that publishes printed community newspapers.  (Not the only personal example I have!)

• So many spammers or phishing emails are personalised that you risk looking like one of them.   To reduce this risk, if you decide to personalise a greeting, do not personalise the subject line using the name, and do not have the name in uppercase this is a  classic spammer look

Review of some opinions available on the web.

1. Aweber – one of the major providers of Email Marketing Campaign tools  has a tip that suggests that one “Think before you personalise” and  asks “Isn’t There More To A Truly “Personal” Email Than A Name?”
2. Webmasterworld has a post by Tedster that says
   

   I’d like to take a closer look at the idea of personalizing mass emails: using the person’s name in the subject, the greeting, and/or the body copy……

   First, this is a technique and NOT really a relationship. It’s an electronic database trick and almost everyone knows that. A lot of the industry “information” that recommends personalization so very strongly actually originates with a company who sells personalization software!

3. webdynamic.com.au is a company that sells personalization software.  They have an article which describes how a truly personalised email is more than just  “Dear <First Name>”
4. freemarketingzone.com is another such company that offers tips on personalising emails and at least mentions some of the errors and pitfalls and differences of opinion.  They recommend testing to determine whether it is worth personalising.

When is something a truly personalised email?

It is more than just a greeting by name.   It will reflect information specific to or of specific interest to the recipient (this is more commonly known as targeted emails or segmenting your customers).  This page at the UK financial services authority has some useful examples and discusses what is and is not a personalised communication.  The following link discusess web personalisation is a much broader sense than just emails - Boxes and Arrrows says in an old but still true (imho) post: Personalization is not Technology….. Web personalization is a strategy, a marketing tool, and an art

WordPress Plugins or Options

So are there wordpress plugins that allow personalisation and if they don’t why not?

• The major free subscription “email” plugins do not offer personalisation.  Their aim is primarily to make it as easy as possible for users to sign up.  To do this they gather the minimum data (eg: a confirmed email address).  Thus for many of the users in the wordpress database, there will be no name to use, so why bother.
• The low cost membership plugins offer some personalisation once the user is logged in, but not yet in sending emails.  The more expensive software options typically do offer this functionality.
• Of course there are also the regular monthly cost third party services such as Aweber,  GetResponse, Pro autoresponder.  These may be worth considering if you have a high volume and generate enough income to justify the costs.

And then there is:

I have developed a plugin that  allows access to the user meta data, so that one may reflect this information if the user is logged in, or in emails.  It will be ready in the next week or so.  Personally I am not a fan of superficial personalisation, as this can make things unnecessarily complex and if errors are made, can make your web or email look unprofessional. However there has been a need and the request made.  So far it works with shortcodes in pages or posts.  It will work with Subscribe2 and Cambridge New Media’s Your Responder.(still in beta).

Stay tuned!

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Sometimes web owners wish to make these emails more personal.  There are varying opinions and schools of thoughts on this.

There are many different ways that people want to record their user detatils and then to email out to them.  Following are some notes (in progress) about ways of doing this in wordpress.

Factors that affect the decision:

• Amount of data wanted to capture – tradeoff – try for to much, users won’t subscribe.
• Ability to select or isolate user groups eg: by roles or member types.
• Confidence in email delivery and receipt – spam a big issue, and false positive’s happen.  This is a big problem even with the large scale dedicated email services (see below).   Aweber say that they have a relationship with many large hosts and so can offer a better success rate for email delivery
• Whether you want to involve a third party – yet another place the web owner has to login to manage their members or subscribers
• Degree on interaction required between other plugins such as role managers or membership software.
• Whether you just want the posts to gout by email, or whether you also want to be able to send custom emails that do not go on the website.
• Ability to save such custom emails (not as posts, or else you use the rss to email options!)

If you have a lower volume and want to keep costs down:

Subscribe2

• free, $40 upgrade to get html on the broadcast “mail subscribers”
• aimed at a “quick” subscriber to encourage users, therefore no capture of details beyond email address
• no personalisation, as many subscribers will not even have entered a username
• allows users to subscribe by category and to specify html or text

Post notification

• apparently came from a similar base as Subscribe2
• has similar functionality

mailpress

• lots of configuration options, may suit an experienced wordpress user.  Remember features = complexity which can = hard to implement.

Email Users

• sends mail to user groups based on roles
• plugin link does not work, no screenshots – don’t bother

mass-mail

• relatively new – maybe wait a bit and see how the feedback goes re bugs etc

Your Responder from Cambridge new media (Your Members plugin)

• looks like it will be a good option
• can save emails for re-use
• can select users by member type
• still in beta mode with a few annoying bugs

mailtostaff

• Aimed at quick informal internal staff communication, not suitable for customers

Mail2List

• syntax error in latest version loaded – testing??
• Can personalise?
• No screenshots, so you’d have to install to see more
• Can create custom lists too?

emailuserx

• Limited info, no screenshots, link to plugin page does not work – don’t bother.

Large volume and don’t mind spending more:

• Aweber – well regarded, and popular,
• GetResponse,
• Pro autoresponder,
• Auto response plus (an installed version)

Just want to convert the RSS Feed to an email

• subscribe 2 or post notification as per above
• feedburner – bought by google, sometimes unrealiable – or is that the nature of emails these days!
• feedblitz

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For the list of members with their status etc if the list is not too big (better tools required if list gets really large -  will hopefully be coming from the “Cambridge new media” crowd in later versions):

• Logon to admin >go to Your members > Members and subscriptions > Member Management
• see partial list
• Go down to  Number of Rows per page:
• Enter a large enough number and click reload
• see full list – select all, cut and paste into excel, or calc

Users who have subscribed to email notifications

For full list, including those who have subscribed to post notifications using Subscribe2.  Note since this is a quick easy signup – to encourage the user, the only info available is email address.  Any one NOT on the full list is only a  “please notify me” member, not paid

• Go to Tools > Subscribers
• Filter if you want to cut the list down, else select all.
• Top right hand side – select “save emails to csv” file

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• The Your members plugin
• The subscribe2 plugin, and
• The podcast plugin

to achieve a membership site for a weekly publication that includes a members only audio file.  They use a training website with publicly available sample material  from amongst others, the very interesting Intuitiveweek.com.

Publishing the weekly post

Descriptions of separate steps or concepts

If you are new to writing posts in wordpress, please view each tutorial and practise each step first in a play website eg: http://anmari.com/play/wp/

• How to add an mp3 file into a wordpress website
• How to write a post with a members only section
• How to add the mp3 into the post
• How to add audio player with podcast information into post

Summary or Overview for the more advanced

• Summary of how to write a post with a private section with a audio player in the private section., OR
• Summary of how to write a post with a private section with mp3 link only (no player)

Notifying subscribers

Sending a “broadcast” email using the Subscribe2 plugin “mail subscribers” function, to (public non members and paid members) of the above publication

• How to send email using  “mail subscribers”

Related posts:

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Summary:

For those who are familiar with writing posts in wordpress:

• Please ensure that you are either logged in as the author, or change the “post author” when writing,
• Write the new post,
• set the member access (trial, plus member)
• set the category (& optional tags)
• bracket the members only section with
  You need to be logged in to download the file or see the post
• upload the audio file, add the link into the private part. Ensure that the full URL is specified so that the “enclosure” custom field (required for the podcast feed) will be created by wordpress. check by saving/publishing and then scrolling down to the custom field section.

Detailed Description:

In order to be as detailed as possible, these instructions have been divided into the following sections.

• Writing the weekly message
• Preparing the mp3 file
  • Option 1- using the add media
  • Option 2 – Use FTP to upload the file
• Adding the audio link to the weekly message

How to Write the weekly message or Post:

These instructions assume that you have at least written a post in wordpress before.  If you have not, please familiarise yourself in a test or demo system if possible.  If using a live system to practise in (not recommended), do not “publish” – simply save as drafts, and then delete your tests later.

Logon to the admin area of your wordpress website.

Write the weekly message

Click Add New

Open the Post menu

In our example we are working with here, we have two parts to the weekly message.  A section that is to be the formal partially protected post.

• Open up the posts menu
• Click Add New

Add new Post

• Enter the title at the top
• Now before you do anything else, a good habit to get into is to set all the settings for that post before you write the content
• Set the access in the “Your members section”.  This defines who will have access to our post when they are logged in. In our example, we click
  • Trial
  • Member

• Set the Category - this may be correct by default already, always check.
• Scroll down to the bottom.  If you see a “Subscribe2 Notification Override”, decide whether
  • you wish to use the automatic notification of a new post according to the S2 settings, (by post or daily digest), with standard information or
  • no notification is to be sent (only feed readers, podcasters direct visitors will know of this post)
  • you plan to send a separate broadcast email – see notes on this at end.
• Save the draft
• Go back to the main text box.  In this example we will ad in some nice formatting, so open up the “kitchen sink” by clicking on the coloured line icon.  Now you should have 2 lines of icons.  Note these options now on the second line:
  • the Format dropdown box, and the
  • the “Paste as plain text” – if pasting from Msword or any document with it’s own formatting, always paste using this button, to avoid inconsistent formatting.
    
• Either type in the text directly, or cut and paste (as plain text)  from the source document.
• Select any text that is to be formatted as heading 2, click the format  dropdown and select heading 2
• Select any text that is to be formatted as heading 3, click the format  dropdown and select heading 3
• Save the draft
• Mark the sections that are private. Enter
  You need to be logged in to download the file or see the post
  at the end of the private section.  If you miss the ending tag, the post will be completely public.
• Preview – you are logged in as admin you will see the full post as a member would.  Check all looks okay.
• Decide where the mp3 link should go – to be private, it must be inside the private tags.  For example under the headings.  Put your cursor there.
• Click the Add Audio button.  If you have pre-loaded the file as per below.
• Click media library

Prepare the mp3 file

Depending on your internet connection and the size of the mp3 file, you should choose how to load the file onto the server.   If the file  is not too large, then it can be loaded using the wordpress media loader.   I suggest you test this out first with a representative size file.If you experience problems, then you may want to consider loading using ftp.  This will be discussed separately, For consistency this should be to the same folder or directory that the “Add New Media”  would have used.

Extract the file from the email if it has been emailed to you, storing it in a location that is easy to access for uploading.

Option 1- using the add media

Media Menu

It is possible to add media from within the post, however for large or complex files that may take a while, it is simpler in some ways to prepare it before you get to the post, or to upload it separately and return to the postto link the two together.

1. Goto the  admin menu area called “Media”,  click on it if it is not open, and then click “Add new”.
2. If you have previously successfully uploaded with the flash loader, you can continue on to click the “Select Files” button.  If you do not have the latest Flash version enabled in your browser, or you experience any problems uploading then next time, click on the “Browser Uploader” instead.
   

   Select Browser Upload, then Select files

3. Browser your computer and select the file in that handy location.  Click Open or Select or whatever your PC uses to choose the file.
4. The file will start uploading.  On my connection “downunder” (Australia is notorious for not yet having high speed broadband) where I have the fastest connection I can have, a 6 Mg file takes just about a minute to upload.   Wait…….. do not close the window or do anything else silly….. do your computer stretches.  When the file has been successfully uploaded, you will a list of media files with the new one at the top.  Note it is not “attached” to any post yet.
   

   Media List

Option 2 – Use FTP to upload the file

Specific instructions will depend on the type of FTP software you are using.   You need to know

• the hostname ( the domain name)
• the ftp username
• the ftp password
• the folder path to use for the uploads  Ask your administrator for the path.Example: http://yourdomain/some/wp-content/uploads-iw/

1. Run your FTP program, connect to the host, entering the username and password,
2. On the source side, browse to where the mp3 file is stored
3. On the destination side, browse to the folder destination
4. Upload the file
5. Check and get the correct url, by loading your browser, entering the url path in the address area and checking that you can access the file.  It will start downloading if it is found, Cancel the  download
6. Copy the url that has just worked – we will be pasting it into the post.

Now to add the weekly post / message that is to contain the mp3 audio file.

….. coming

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