Switching from ActiveMember360 is fairly straightforward. We have put together some best practices to ensure a smooth migration process.
What’s covered in this guide:
- Prepping
- What Won’t Change
- Conversion Process Overview
- Detailed Instructions
- Note Down Settings and Deactivate ActiveMember360
- Connect Memberium to ActiveCampaign
- Recreate Membership Levels
- Rebuild Custom Shortcodes and Widgets
- Replace Shortcodes
- Reprotect Content
- Webhooks and Autologin Links
- Final Notes / Conclusion
The number one mistake we see is not scheduling enough time to inventory your current system and plan the migration including testing the end-result. Migrating your site is a rare event, don’t rush it, and give yourself time to document what you currently have and develop a plan for implementing the new system.
Prepping
- Review this entire document before starting the upgrade process.
- Review your ActiveMember360 site and the features you use and compare it to the Memberium documentation. There is a large overlap of shared functionality between the two plugins; however, it is intentionally not 100%.
- Custom ActiveMember360 API calls in your themes or plugins will need to replace those with Memberium equivalents.
- If you find a function you need in ActiveMember360 that is not included in Memberium please contact Support for assistance so we can guide you to another solution, or implement a replacement for you.
What Won’t Change
- Your membership tags will port over with no changes. However, you will need to recreate your memberships in Memberium for ActiveCampaign based on the existing tags.
- Your users will port over with no changes and use the same passwords.
- Your content will come over unchanged.
- Your billing/payments system
- Since your billing/payments system integrates with ActiveCampaign (creates records in ActiveCampaign and applies tags upon purchase), there is no need to change anything on that end. Memberium works the same way in that it will recognize when a tag was applied after a purchase and will give the user access based on that tag.
Conversion Process Overview
- Go through your ActiveMember360 configuration screens and note down your settings. You don’t need to do this if you’ve set up a staging or development site as you can look back and forth throughout the process.
- Deactivate ActiveMember360. You can leave it active on the live site if you’ve set up a development/staging clone.
- Install Memberium for ActiveCampaign and connect it to your ActiveCampaign app.
- Recreate your Membership levels in Memberium for ActiveCampaign.
- Review any custom shortcodes, and recreate them in Memberium.
- Review your widgets. Any ActiveMember360 specific widgets will vanish when you uninstall ActiveMember360 and will need to be recreated in Memberium.
- Search your pages, posts and other content types for ActiveMember360 shortcodes. You can easily do this by searching for the text of “mbr_”.
- Review your pages, posts, and other content types, and mark their Memberium security settings to match your original ActiveMember360 settings.
- Review automations in ActiveCampaign for webhooks that use ActiveMember360 functions. Replace with Memberium equivalents.
- Review Email templates for ActiveMember360 AutoLogin links, replace with Memberium AutoLogin links.
Detailed Instructions
Steps 1 & 2 – Note Down Settings and Deactivate ActiveMember360
We highly recommend you set up a staging or development site. Usually, your web host can assist you in setting that up. If you’re able to set up a staging site, you’ll be able to switch back and forth between your live site with ActiveMember360 and the staging site with Memberium. This will make it easier as you don’t need to note down any settings since you can quickly go back and look. In addition, this will also provide a seamless transition for your users as they’ll experience minimal downtime.
If you’re unable to get a staging site, you’ll need to manually note down your ActiveMember360 settings. You can take screenshots of the pages or physically write them down. Ensure that you have taken note of how your content is currently protected. You’ll need to know what tags are being used as membership tags and what membership levels are protecting which content. This is crucial as otherwise, you’ll not be able to correctly re-protect your content.
Step 3 – Connect Memberium to ActiveCampaign
Once you’ve deactivated ActiveMember360, you’ll want to activate the Memberium for ActiveCampaign plugin. Then, you’ll need to connect it to your ActiveCampaign app.
In the screen above, you’ll need to enter your API URL and the Access Key. Both of these are in your ActiveCampaign account. Here’s a video showing you exactly where to find these.
Step 4 – Recreate Your Membership Levels Using the Existing Tags
Now that Memberium is activated and ready to go, it’s time to recreate your membership levels. Since you already have tags in ActiveCampaign (used by ActiveMember360), we will continue to use those same tags and associate them with new membership levels in Memberium.
The screenshot below is of the ActiveMember360 membership list. You’ll want to note down the name of your membership, the Tag Name, and the Failed Payment Tag Name.
In the example above, you’d note down:
Name: Lifetime Membership
Tag Name: MBR: Gold Mastermind (27)
Failed Payment Tag Name: Membership1PAYF (6)
Now in Memberium, you’ll go to Memberium>>Memberships and click Create New Membership Level:
On the next page, enter in the information you previously noted down:
Once that’s complete, you’ve now added that membership level to your site. We’ll show you how to protect your content with the new membership level. The important thing to note is that since you’ve used the existing tags, your users in ActiveCampaign don’t need to be retagged – they’ll automatically have this membership level when they login to your site.
Steps 5 & 6 – Recreate Custom Shortcodes and Widgets
Due to the nature of these being custom and specific to your site – we don’t have a clear cut method on helping you transfer these. However, if you find yourself stuck and need assistance from our support team, we’d gladly look over your site to help you understand what needs to be done to migrate these two items.
Step 7 – Replace Shortcodes
Just like ActiveMember360, Memberium for ActiveCampaign uses shortcodes for various functions including protecting content, displaying information, and more.
All of ActiveMember’s shortcodes begin with “mbr_”. This means you can run a search in WordPress to find all the pages that have that string on them.
You’ll want to do this for pages, posts, and any other content types you may have used shortcodes on. Then, manually go through the pages that appear in the search results and replace the shortcodes with Memberium for ActiveCampaign equivalents. You can find our list of shortcodes here. If you can’t find an equivalent shortcode, please contact our support team.
Step 8 – Reprotect Your Content
At this point, most of the time-consuming work is complete. The last major thing we need to do is reprotect your content.
It’s beneficial to have a staging site that you can refer to for this step, but if not, make sure you have good notes on how you protected things.
Go to your content pages/posts/lessons and you’ll see the Memberium Content Protection Metabox on the right-hand side. In that box, you’ll select the membership level you want to protect with. Click the checkbox for the desired membership and then click Publish to save:
If you’re needing more advanced protection options, you’ll find them in that box. You can protect content with individual tags, contact IDs, logged in and logged out, etc.
You’ll do this for all your content and then move to the next step.
Steps 9 & 10 – Webhooks and AutoLogin Links
Memberium for ActiveCampaign supports both webhooks for password generation and AutoLogin links. If you’re using these in ActiveMember360, follow these steps to get your Password Generation Webhook and your AutoLogin link.
Both items can be found in Memberium>>Settings>>Web Hooks/Links:
These are specific to your site and shouldn’t be shared.
The Email AutoLogin link simply needs to be replaced in any emails in which you’re using AutoLogin functionality. Likewise, the Password Generation Webhook will need to be replaced in the automation you use for new members. Once replaced, you’ve completed the migration.
Conclusion
The migration, although potentially time-consuming depending on how much content you have, is a one-time event. Once you’re over this initial hump, you can begin using Memberium, it’s advanced features, and deep integration with other plugins to start creating a better experience for your members.
We understand the migration process may seem daunting at first, but we hope that this guide along with our support team will be enough to make it as smooth and simple as possible.
