CM Home Forums CrossMember Features you want developed Website integration

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  • #816
    Roger Young
    Guest

    How easy to integrate into a current website especially to allow secure login to a members area using membership data?

    #819
    wwwebbers
    Keymaster

    Hi Roger,
    Integration for normal use is via three simple links – Joining, Renewing, View my record.

    The more complex integration that you’re talking about here is part of a next programme of work. I’ve had a couple of requests for exactly what you’re looking for and I intend to implement this as a REST API. Crossmember already has an Oauth2 Server implemented so it will be reasonably straight forward to build the API.
    I envisage that on member login to your website, as part of your authentication you will know who they are – perhaps their membership number that you have attached to their user profile. Implementing a REST call to Crossmember with this information could then provide you with their status/expiry date etc that could then allow you to determine if they are a current paid up member that will allow them to access member only pages according to your club’s rules. You could then store a token in their session data that will allow members area access.

    Does this align with your thinking/requirements?

    Crossmember development is driven by community need (rather than what I think we all want) so your input is valued.

    All the best,
    Brian.

    #853
    Stewart Sims
    Guest

    Hi Brian,

    The above broadly sounds good to me, I believe a while back we asked and it was on your radar as something to implement in future. We must catch up at some point, generally everything is all working well for the RCOC, but would definitely be interested to know if you have made any progress on this or want to discuss further, there are a lot of implementation details and on our side we would probably need some changes to our website / forum to accommodate this. However the automation it would bring would be great for the club! Although one step at a time, 1 year in we have a lot of other things taking up our time so website development has dropped down the list of priorities a bit but I guess that’s normal for a car club.

    #855
    wwwebbers
    Keymaster

    Hi Stewart,

    Yes it’s still on my radar as I think this will bring a whole wealth of benefits to Clubs. It expands the abilities of Crossmember into the Club’s website through the secure sharing of information.
    I’ve not got into it yet. At the moment I’m quite focused on getting the migration of Crossmember onto its new home sorted. Planning for that is going well and I’ve already migrated parts of the system that wont be subject to downtime when the nameservers move – unfortunately that’s a necessity for this move but it should be the last for a long time as this move should future proof Crossmember for growth.
    Once I get to thinking about the REST API I’ll come calling on you (and any other Clubs that would like to have input please shout here) so that we can ensure what is built is good for all.

    Cheers,
    Brian.

    #1086
    wwwebbers
    Keymaster

    I ought to put something into the announcements section but as this topic was relevant I’ll add it in here first.

    the REST API went live in CROSSMEMBER late last year and just recently I’ve been working on a few WordPress Plugins to utilise the API for Club Websites to use.

    1. API Client – The must have plugin that will handle all the communication with CROSSMEMBER

    2. Member Login – A plugin that will, on your own Club website, create Member Login accounts so that you can lock down your members only area. Login accounts are created when the member joins, flagged if they are overdue, and deleted when the member lapses. The last point is the crucial one. It’s all too easy to either allow self registration, or create a user when someone joins the club, but I bet many clubs forget to remove them when they lapse!

    3. Regions – The ability to have an automatic ‘self-updating’ Regions page on your website. You’re already putting the information into CROSSMEMBER, why replicate this into your website when automation can do it for you.

    Anything else you want me to build?

    Cheers,
    Brian.

    #1897
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Hi Brian,

    Is there any further information available on the REST API that could help a developer consider how to better integrate Crossmember’s data on membership with other aspects of a Club’s IT presence – e.g. forum, website?

    Thank you,

    John

    #2118
    wwwebbers
    Keymaster

    Hi John,

    The Rest API allows you to query your membership database so that you can decide what you want to do with the result. It doesn’t provide a solution in itself, it allows you to build solutions.

    A couple of WordPress Plugins that I’ve already created include …….
    1. Member Login – This will provide all your members with a login to your club website when they join the club and will remove them as users to your website when they leave the club. It will also integrate with WooCommerce to put each member into a ‘members’ group so that WooCommerce can do discounting for members.
    2. Regions – allow your regions page to be automatically updated.

    So in your case, you mention website and forum. The website bit I think is probably 90% or more covered by the Member Login plugin described above. I’m guessing that you have a separate forum maybe phpBB or similar that needs it’s own separate login which you’d like to join in with your website login – so that members only login once.

    The Rest API allows your website (in this case) to be notified when members join/leave, but you need to decide what you actually want to happen when you get that information. You could use the Member Login plugin above (assuming your using WordPress) and if you need something further, either myself or your web development agency you’re using could develop a plugin to do the extra stuff around your forum for instance.

    In terms of helping your developers, they can have access to the Staging Area of Crossmember – like we used prior to putting your club live, on which they can test out their code.
    I also have a “Swagger” docs url on the Staging area which will allow your developers to key in items to check the response.

    If you’re also having your new website built on WordPress, I have a Plugin which I would expect you to use that will handle the communication with Crossmember so that you don’t need to get this written, then your developers can integrate with that plugin and forget about having to integrate with Crossmember. That makes life a lot easier.

    Hope that helps,
    Brian.

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