5.9 Manually Extending User Access to Protected Content

In MemberPress, you can manually extend a user's access to your protected content following the directions below. Just be sure to follow the instructions based on the Subscription type as outlined.

Manually Extending Automatically Recurring Subscriptions

When manually extending an automatically recurring subscription, there are two ways to go about it. One is to keep the user's future billings intact (such as if you want to manually give the user some kind of credit in the middle of their subscription, etc.) and the other is to cancel the user's future billings. 

Keeping Billings Intact

To keep the user's future billings intact, you will need first to pause the user's subscription, then edit their most recent transaction, and finally resume the user's subscription. 

Pausing

Pausing is necessary because, without it, the user will continue to be billed even if you extend their access by editing their transaction. So please be sure to follow these steps correctly, or else the user's billing cycle will continue uninterrupted. 

1. Navigate to the WordPress Dashboard > MemberPress > Subscriptions page.
2. Make sure that you are in the 'Recurring' tab.
3. Search for the Subscription using the Search tool on the page, or by browsing. 
4. Hover over the unique Subscription ID for the Subscription in the 'Subscription' column.
5. Verify that you are about to pause the correct Subscription.
6. Click the 'Pause' Link.
7. Click 'OK' on the Pop-up after verifying you are pausing the correct subscription.

Editing the most recent transaction

By editing the user's most recent transaction, you are extending their current access until the new expiration date that you set. To do this, simply follow these steps:

1. Verify that you are still on the correct Subscription after you paused it.
2. Hover over the unique Subscription ID for the Subscription in the 'Subscription' column.
3. Click the 'View Txns' Link.
4. Hover over the unique Transaction ID for the latest (or most recent) Transaction in the 'Transaction' column.
5. Click the 'Edit' Link.
6. On the Edit page, scroll down until you find the 'Expiration Date (UTC/GMT)' option, and there, make the expiration date any date in the future to reflect the amount of time you would like to grant the user (no changes done here will initiate any charge). To grant lifetime access, simply delete what is there (so the field is blank).
7. Finally, click the 'Update' button to save your changes. 

Resuming

To have the user's subscription continue billing, you or the user will need to resume the subscription manually. Please note that after the subscription has been correctly resumed, it may take up to 24 hours for the next billing to be fully processed. If the resuming is done after their edited transaction has expired, the user may lose access until their next transaction is processed. As such, we recommend resuming on the same day that the edited transaction is set to expire. 

To resume a user's subscription as admin, please follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the WordPress Dashboard > MemberPress > Subscriptions page.
2. Make sure that you are in the 'Recurring' tab.
3. Search for the Subscription using the Search tool on the page, or by browsing. 
4. Hover over the unique Subscription ID for the Subscription in the 'Subscription' column.
5. Verify that you have found the correct Subscription.
6. Click the 'Resume' Link.
7. Click 'OK' on the Pop-up after verifying you are resuming the correct subscription.

To have the user resume their own subscription, have them follow these steps (Important: this requires that you have enabled this option in your MemberPress > Settings > Account > Permissions section, as admin):

1. Navigate to your site's MemberPress Account page.
2. Click on the Subscriptions tab or link option.
3. To the right of the subscription, they would like to resume, click the resume link.

Cancelling Future Billings/User is on Last Billing Cycle

If for whatever reason you would like to cancel the user's future billings and give them extended access (such as if you'd like to grant lifetime access) then you need to be sure to correctly cancel the user's subscription. If the user's subscription is already on their last billing cycle, you do not need to cancel the subscription. After you cancel the subscription, you will then need to edit the user's last transaction to extend their access. 

Cancelling

To cancel the user's subscription, simply follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the WordPress Dashboard > MemberPress > Subscriptions page.
2. Make sure that you are in the 'Recurring' tab (Non-Recurring subscriptions cannot be cancelled).
3. Search for the Subscription using the Search tool on the page, or by browsing. 
4. Hover over the unique Subscription ID for the Subscription in the 'Subscription' column.
5. Verify that you are cancelling the correct Subscription (this process is irreversible).
6. Click the 'Cancel' Link.
7. Click 'OK' on the Pop-up after verifying you are cancelling the correct subscription.

Editing the most recent transaction

By editing the user's most recent transaction, you are extending their current access until the new expiration date that you set. To do this, simply follow these steps:

1. Verify that you are still on the correct Subscription after you cancelled it.
2. Hover over the unique Subscription ID for the Subscription in the 'Subscription' column.
3. Click the 'View Txns' Link.
4. Hover over the unique Transaction ID for the latest (or most recent) Transaction in the 'Transaction' column.
5. Click the 'Edit' Link.
6. On the Edit page, scroll down until you find the 'Expiration Date (UTC/GMT)' option, and here, make the expiration date any date in the future to reflect the amount of time you would like to grant the user (no changes done here will initiate any charges). To grant lifetime access, simply delete what is there (so the field is blank).
7. Finally, click the 'Update' button to save your changes. 

Manually Extending Non-Recurring Subscriptions

Because you do not have to worry about affecting any automatic future billings, the process of extending the access of a non-recurring (one-time payment) type subscription is quite simple. 

1. Navigate to the WordPress Dashboard > MemberPress > Subscriptions page.
2. Make sure that you are in the 'Non-Recurring' tab. 
3. Search for the Subscription using the Search tool on the page, or by browsing. 
4. Hover over the unique Subscription ID for the Subscription in the 'Subscription' column.
5. Verify that you have found the correct Subscription.
6. Click the 'View Txns' Link.
7. Hover over the unique Transaction ID for the Transaction in the 'Transaction' column.
8. Click the 'Edit' Link.
9. On the Edit page, scroll down until you find the 'Expiration Date (UTC/GMT)' option, and here, make the expiration date any date in the future to reflect the amount of time you would like to grant the user (no changes done here will initiate any charges).
10. Finally, click the 'Update' button to save these changes. 

Verifying

To verify that you have correctly extended the access for a user's subscription, simply go to your WordPress Dashboard > MemberPress > Subscriptions > search for the user's subscription. Once you have found the correct subscription, make sure that you see the following: a green 'Yes' under the 'Active' column, the updated expiration date, and if dealing with a recurring subscription, you see either 'Stopped' (for cancelled) or 'Paused' under the Auto Rebill column, as shown here: