Search the Manual:

4.9. Member Access System

The Member Access System allows you to easily manage member profiles and logins or restrict access to content by requiring member login with a password. You can also monitor member access, enable member registration through your website, and allow for automatic or moderated membership confirmation.

4.9.1 Setting Up the Member Access System

Once you have installed the Member Access System Module, you can begin using it right away or you can change the default configuration settings if they don't meet your needs.

To make changes to those settings,Click on the Site Content icon on the main menu toolbar to open the Site Content area

From here, click on the blue button to open the module configuration page where you can set your preferences for a variety of options.

 

 

In the Configure area you can select a variety of settings. A description of each of those settings and how they effect the way your module functions follows.

4.9.1.1 Title

In this field you can enter the name you would like to give your Member Access System - this title will appear in your Site Content area when you log in to manage your content.

4.9.1.2 Password Protection

If password protection is toggled On, members must Sign In to view protected pages. When password protection is toggled Off, there is no protection and all pages on your site can be viewed by any visitor to the website. Note: Members' ability to Sign In and manage their accounts is not affected by this setting.

4.9.1.3 Logging

Toggle this setting On if you wish to track member activity while logged in (pages visited, etc.) Note: With Logging On, the log file may grow very large. The system will notify you if this occurs. See next setting.

4.9.1.4 Log Size Notification

If you have toggled the previous setting On, you will want to indicate how large the log file gets before you are notified. Once the selected number of log entries is reached, you will receive email notification to clear log files. It is important to clear the logs when the become too large because logging can be very storage intensive and will slow down your site and possibly overload your hosting if left unchecked.

4.9.1.5 Login/Username

You can choose to have visitors sign in with their email address by selecting the appropriate radio button. Or you can create an arbitrary name of your choosing. NOTE: if you choose a custom login name and later choose to have users sign in by email address, anyone with a blank email address will not be able to sign in.

4.9.1.6 Notifications

You can choose to have notifications of new member sign-ups sent to a designated email address by entering the desired email address here. If you do not want new member sign up notifications sent, leave this field blank.

4.9.1.7 Registration Type

Select the type of registration you want to enable on your site. If you select Open Registration, any visitor to your site can register and be approved automatically allowing them immediate access as a member. If you choose Moderated Registration, visitors can register, and they will still receive a welcome message, but they will not have access as a member until their registration is approved. If you select Closed Registration it "turns off" the registration process so that visitors can no longer register.

Note: When "Moderated Registration" is enabled, then you must mark a member as "Approved" before they can log in or show up in search results. Users will still recieve the welcome message when they register, but they will not be able to login until they are approved. If you enable moderation, be sure to update your welcome email below to let people know that their registration has to be approved before they can log in.

4.9.1.8 Search Results

You you can determine the maximum number of members to be listed when someone searches for a member on your site by entering it here. You can also determine whether members will be given the option of not appearing in search results by toggling the option "Allow members the option to decide if they are hidden from the search listings" on or off.

Note: Setting a reasonable maximum number to display in search results will prevent malicious visitors or programs from automatically harvesting your entire membership list.

4.9.1.9 Sign Out Page

Here you can select the page that members will be sent to when they sign out. If you would like to create a custom message, first create it in the Page Manager. It will automatically be added to the list of pages available in the drop down menu for this setting.

4.9.1.10 New Member Welcome Email

The next item that you will want to configure is your New Member Welcome Email.

4.9.1.11 Page Options

Within the Member Access System there are a number of pages that you can configure including:

They all have the same settings and options which you can configure. Some of these options are the same as those offered when creating any other page withing the Page Manager and they are described below.

 

4.9.1.11.1 Password Protect: if you turn password protection on for any page, members will have to be logged in to view the content of the page and other visitors to the site will not be able to view the page. If password protection is turned off, the page will be visible to all site visitors.

4.9.1.11.2 Create a Custom URL: The typical URLs that websites generate automatically are not user friendly. In many cases, they make it more difficult for search engines to properly index your website pages.Bistro allows you to add an easy to recognize, custom URL for each page on your site, to do so simply type your custom URL into the Create a custom URL: text field.

4.9.1.11.3 Manually Overwrite the Title Tag: When you give any page a title in Bistro or (as in the case of this module) a title is assigned, Bistro automatically uses it as the Title Tag for that page (the tag that search engines "read" when they search the page). If you are actively managing search engine optimization for your site, this feature allows you to manually overwrite the Title Tag at the page level to enable more keywords and specific messaging to be assigned on a page by page basis. To overwrite the Title Tag, simply type in the title or phrase you want search engines to associate with this page into the text field provided.

4.9.1.11.4 Show a Sub Menu: If your website design includes submenus, you can also easily include a pre-defined submenu to the page by selecting it from the Show a sub menu drop down list. Note: if you have not yet created your submenu structure, you can do so using the menu manager, and then return to configure your Page Options.

4.9.1.12 Custom Member Options

The Member Access System allows you to define the information you wish to collect when a new member registers in the Custom Member Options section of the configuration screen. This information becomes part of the member profile (public or hidden).


Here you can define up to 25 custom profile fields for your members.

Before you begin defining your custom fields, please note the following:

When a visitor to your site searches for a profile, a summary of that profile is displayed. The "Title" given to each search results page will be the first custom field that the visitor has access to see.

For example: if your first custom field is called "Company" and you create a member that has a value "ACME Inc." for "Company", then the title that shows up in search results will be "ACME Inc". If that field is blank, and there are no other custom fields for that profile, then the user's email address will be used as the title. It is highly recommended that you make your first field a required field to avoid confusing search results.

For each custom field you define, you will have to provide the following information

4.9.1.12.1 Title: what this custom field will be called - for example Name, Company, etc.

4.9.1.12.1 Type: the type of entry that will be made into this field - for example, Line of Text, Web Link, Checkbox, etc)

In addition, you can select from a list of attributes that you wish to apply to the custom field.

The first attribute is whether or not you wish to use the custom field. Until this option is selected, the field (even if fully defined) will not appear in your registration form.

Other attributes you can define include:

By using up to 25 custom fields and applying the various attributes, you have a great degree of flexibility in defining your Member Access Sytem. We recommend that you plan out the type of information you want to collect, which items will be required, whether the information will appear in the member's profile, etc. in advance. Once you have a clear picture of the information you want to collect and how you will manage it, defining your custom options will be much easier.

4.9.1.13 Public Status

The final setting in your Member Access System is your Public Status setting. This setting allows you to toggle on and off whether the public can see the elements of this module. You can choose to keep this toggled off while you are making significant changes to your custom options or the various pages associated with the Member Access System, and then toggle it back on once your changes are complete.

4.9.1.14 Saving Your Changes

Once you have finished setting up your Member Access System, remember to save your changes by clicking on the blue [Save Changes] button on the top or bottom right corner of the configuration screen.

 

4.9.2 Using the Member Access System Module

Once you have finished setting up your Member Access System, you can begin using it right away. From the module's main page, there are three areas you can manage, they are:

 

4.9.2.1 - Manage Groups

The module automatically defines two categories for you - the "full access" group and "ungrouped" (any member who is not assigned to a group). In addition to these predefined groupings, you can create as many groups as you want. You may want to define your groups based on specific projects that members will be involved in, or based on levels of membership or some other criteria that works for your website and organization.

Any page or asset (file, document, image, etc) on your website can be made accessible or blocked based on which group a member belongs to. Or, you may give all members access to all locked pages - hiding them only from non-members.

Anyone you assign to the "full access" group will automatically have access to all locked pages on your site.

Ungrouped members are those that have not yet been assigned to a specific group. If you do not define any other member groups, all new registrations will automatically be placed into ungrouped members - not into the full access group.

4.9.2.1.1 - Create a New Group

From the main module screen, select Manage Groups. The Manage Groups screen will open.

 

To create a new group, click . The Edit Group Screen will open.

 

Name: type in the name you would like to give your new group

Welcome Page: Edit the default text that is provided for the welcome page for your new group using the standard Bistro editor

Add Members: If there are already registered members associated with your site, they will appear in the list on the bottom half of the Edit Group Screen. To add any of your registered members to this new group, just click [Add] to the right of any members you wish to include in the group. Once they have been added to the group, a green checkmark will appear to the left of their names to indicate that they are members of the group currently being edited.

 

Save Group Details: once you have finished creating your new group, remember to save your information by clicking

To exit the Edit Group Screen without saving, click .

4.9.2.1.2 - Edit an Existing Group

From the main module screen, select Manage Groups. The Manage Groups screen will open.

From here you can:

4.9.2.1.3 - Delete an Existing Group

From the main module screen, select Manage Groups. The Manage Groups screen will open.

Note: You cannot delete the Member Access System default groups (Full Access and Ungrouped).

However, if you have created additional member groups, you can delete any of those groups by checking the checkbox to the left of the group you wish to delete and clicking .

You will be prompted to confirm your action and then taken to the Delete Group screen to select how you want members of the deleted group to be handled. Here you can choose to delete all members of the deleted group, or you can have those members moved to the "ungrouped members" category by clicking the appropriate button.

At this point, you can also choose to cancel the process and your group will not be deleted.

 

 

4.9.2.2 - Manage Members

Members can be added to your Member Access System through your Bistro interface, or automatically when members register on your website. For every group you create in the Member Access System, you can place a registration form anywhere on your website by inserting the appropriate AutoStuff tag (a new tag is automatically added to the AutoStuff drop down list when you save a newly created group). For more information about using Autostuff, review Chapter 7 - Using AutoStuff . For more information on creating a new group, see Section 4.9.2.1.1 - Create a New Group.

To manage members, select [Manage Members] from the main screen of your Member Access System.

 

This will open the Manage Members Screen where you can:

4.9.2.2.1 - Register a New Member

To manually register a new member, click on the Manage Members screen. This will open the Edit Member screen where you can register your new member. 

Remember that the elements and fields that appear in the Edit Member screen contain any default fields plus any optional fields you have selected when you set up your Member Access Manager. For example, if you have created a variety of custom member options to record additional information in your member profiles, those fields will appear in this screen when you manally register a new member or return to edit a previously registered member.

4.9.2.2.1.1 Email address: Enter the email address for your new member. Note: This is a required field.

4.9.2.2.1.2 Approval Status: Select the appropriate approval status for your new member (either pending approval or approved) from the drop down list. Note: new members who register themselves through your website will be flagged as "pending approval" if you have chosen moderated registration in your module configuration, and "approved" if you have selected open registration when you configured your module settings. For more information about configuring or setting up your Member Access System, review Section 4.9.1 Setting Up the Member Acess System.

4.9.2.2.1.3 Password: Enter the password for the new member. Members will be able to change their password when they login to your website.  Note: passwords must be at least six letters/numbers long, and must contain at least one number.

4.9.2.2.1.4 Hide member from directory searches: if this member's profile should not appear in the search results when your member directory is searched, check this box.

4.9.2.2.1.5 This member belongs to the following group: From the drop down list, select which group your new member will belong to. Note: each member can belong to only one group.

4.9.2.2.1.6 Welcome Email: Indicate whether you want the new member to receive a new member welcome email by selecting the appropriate radio button.

In the bottom half of the Edit Member screen there are a number of other options available to you as you complete your new member registration. In most cases you will leave these additional options in their default settings.

4.9.2.2.1.7 Password Protect: if you turn password protection on for any page, members will have to be logged in to view the content of the page and other visitors to the site will not be able to view the page. If password protection is turned off, the page will be visible to all site visitors. A member profile behaves like any other page on a Bistro site, so you can also use password protection to prevent a member profile from being displayed to anyone who is not logged in to the site.

4.9.2.2.1.8  Create a Custom URL: The typical URLs that websites generate automatically are not user friendly. In many cases, they make it more difficult for search engines to properly index your website pages.Bistro allows you to add an easy to recognize, custom URL for each page on your site, to do so simply type your custom URL into the Create a custom URL: text field. If you wish, you may identify each of your member profiles with a custom URL.

4.9.2.2.1.9  Manually Overwrite the Title Tag: When you give any page a title in Bistro or (as in the case of this module) a title is assigned, Bistro automatically uses it as the Title Tag for that page (the tag that search engines "read" when they search the page). If you are actively managing search engine optimization for your site, this feature allows you to manually overwrite the Title Tag at the page level to enable more keywords and specific messaging to be assigned on a page by page basis. To overwrite the Title Tag, simply type in the title or phrase you want search engines to associate with this page into the text field provided.

4.9.2.2.1.10 Show a Sub Menu: If your website design includes submenus, you can also easily include a pre-defined submenu to the page by selecting it from the Show a sub menu drop down list. Note: if you have not yet created your submenu structure, you can do so using the menu manager, and then return to configure your Page Options. Typically you will not have a specific submenu associated with the member profile pages in your Member Access System.

At the bottom of the Edit Member screen you will see some basic information about the member you are registering (or editing), including:

Once you have finished registering your new member, click to save your registration, and you will be returned to the Member Access System main screen.

To exit the Edit Member screen without saving or registering the new member, click .

 

4.9.2.2.2 - Edit an Existing Member Profile

You can edit existing member profiles from the Manage Members screen.

 

To open a profile for editing, click on the hyperlinked member email address, or check the box to the left of the member email address and click .

This will open the Edit Member screen for that member profile.

Remember that the elements and fields that appear in the Edit Member screen contain any default fields plus any optional fields you have selected when you set up your Member Access Manager. For example, if you have created a variety of custom member options to record additional information in your member profiles, those fields will appear in this screen when you manally register a new member or return to edit a previously registered member.

4.9.2.2.2.1 Email address: Edit this member's email address here. Note: This is a required field.

4.9.2.2.2.2 Approval Status: Change the approval status for this member by selecting either pending approval or approved from the drop down list. Note: new members who register themselves through your website will be flagged as "pending approval" if you have chosen moderated registration in your module configuration, and "approved" if you have selected open registration when you configured your module settings. For more information about configuring or setting up your Member Access System, review Section 4.9.1 Setting Up the Member Acess System.

4.9.2.2.2.3 Password: Change this member's password by entering a new password here. Members will be able to change their password when they login to your website.  Note: passwords must be at least six letters/numbers long, and must contain at least one number.

4.9.2.2.2.4 Hide member from directory searches: If this member's profile should not appear in the search results when your member directory is searched, check this box.

4.9.2.2.2.5 This member belongs to the following group: Change this member's group by selectting from the drop down list. Note: each member can belong to only one group.

4.9.2.2.2.6 Welcome Email:  This field is not relevant when editing an existing member profile.

In the bottom half of the Edit Member screen there are a number of other options available. In most cases you will leave these additional options in their default settings.

4.9.2.2.2.7 Password Protect: if you turn password protection on for any page, members will have to be logged in to view the content of the page and other visitors to the site will not be able to view the page. If password protection is turned off, the page will be visible to all site visitors. A member profile behaves like any other page on a Bistro site, so you can also use password protection to prevent a member profile from being displayed to anyone who is not logged in to the site.

4.9.2.2.2.8  Create a Custom URL: The typical URLs that websites generate automatically are not user friendly. In many cases, they make it more difficult for search engines to properly index your website pages.Bistro allows you to add an easy to recognize, custom URL for each page on your site, to do so simply type your custom URL into the Create a custom URL: text field. If you wish, you may identify each of your member profiles with a custom URL.

4.9.2.2.2.9  Manually Overwrite the Title Tag: When you give any page a title in Bistro or (as in the case of this module) a title is assigned, Bistro automatically uses it as the Title Tag for that page (the tag that search engines "read" when they search the page). If you are actively managing search engine optimization for your site, this feature allows you to manually overwrite the Title Tag at the page level to enable more keywords and specific messaging to be assigned on a page by page basis. To overwrite the Title Tag, simply type in the title or phrase you want search engines to associate with this page into the text field provided.

4.9.2.2.2.10 Show a Sub Menu: If your website design includes submenus, you can also easily include a pre-defined submenu to the page by selecting it from the Show a sub menu drop down list. Note: if you have not yet created your submenu structure, you can do so using the menu manager, and then return to configure your Page Options. Typically you will not have a specific submenu associated with the member profile pages in your Member Access System.

At the bottom of the Edit Member screen you will see some basic information about the member you are editing, including:

Once you have finished editing this member profile, click to save your changes, and you will be returned to the Member Access System main screen.

To exit the Edit Member screen without saving, click .

 

4.9.2.2.3 - Delete an Existing Member

From the main module screen, select Manage Members. The Manage Members screen will open.

You will be returned to the Member Access Manager main screen.

 

4.9.2.3 - Manage Stats

The Bistro Member Access System also allows you to export member data and activity logs for easier data management.  From the module's main screen, select Manage Stats.


This will open the Manage Stats screen where you can:

The bottom of the Manage Stats screen also includes a note of how many members you have in your member database and how many entries are currently in your stats log.

4.9.2.3.1 Export Member Data

To export an Excel compatible (.csv) file of all member data in your Member Access System, click

A browser dialogue box will open prompting you to save the file to disc or select a program to open the file with from a drop down list.

Once you have chosen to save or open the file, click OK to complete the action. Note: if your member database is large, this may take some time.

4.9.2.3.2 Export Stats Log

When logging is set to "on" in your Member Access System configuration, all signed in members' page visits are tracked and stored in your Stats log. For more information about configuring your Member Access System, review Section 4.9.1 - Setting Up the Member Access System

To export an Excel-compatible (.csv) file listing all of the data currently in your stats log, click

A browser dialogue box will open prompting you to save the file to disc or select a program to open the file with from a drop down list.

Once you have chosen to save or open the file, click OK to complete the action. Note: if your stats log is large, this may take some time.

4.9.2.3.3 Clear Stats Log

If you logging set to "on" in your Member Access System configuration, your Stats Log can become very large. If you have a lot of members and/or a lot of member activity on your site, this will happen quite quickly. It is important to clear your stats log regularly to prevent it from slowing down your site or overloading your host server. Remember to export and save your stats log if your wish to retain a history of member activity.

To clear all data from your member stats log, click

You will be prompted to confirm your action - and reminded to export your data before clearing your logs.