Integration Overview Please Read First

The aMember/WordPress integration is not performed like a typical WordPress plugin solution. aMember is a stand alone membership program that is installed on the same server as the WordPress installation and integrated with WordPress.

• WordPress can be installed in the root or a sub directory of the website.
• aMember should be installed in a sub directory of the website. The sub directory can be named anything but in the examples shown in this documentation it will be named "amember".

Site visitors will interface with WordPress unless they need to log in, signup, renew/purchase products, or edit their profile. For these functions they will be shown an aMember page. With well implemented integrations the switch between a WordPress page and an aMember page will be seamless. Do not try to embed the aMember pages into WordPress pages in any way. If you try this, the installation will break.

The site admin should maintain separate admin accounts in both WordPress and aMember. Do not try to link the admin account in WordPress to the admin account is aMember.

After the integration, all site registration, user authentication, and profile information is controlled by the aMember program. Therefore, the following steps should be strictly followed.

• The WordPress registration system must be disabled, which is covered in detail on this page.

• To keep the aMember user database and the WordPress user database in sync, all registrations must be performed on the aMember Signup Page. This means you need to provide a link to the aMember signup page from at least the home page of WordPress. This is typically done by placing the aMember Widget in the sidebar of the WordPress homepage.

• Users should login and logout of WordPress through aMember. This is typically done by placing the aMember Widget in the sidebar of the WordPress homepage.

• Users should make changes to any information collected by aMember (name, password, email, address, etc) from within aMember. Logged in users are provided a link to their profile edit page in the aMember Widget. Do not allow users to change any profile information on the WordPress side (many profile page and social networking plugins provide links to a users profile edit page on the WordPress site - these must be avoided).