Guide to XFtoWP 1.2 Beta 2

XFtoWP 1.2 Beta 2 is now available, and offers more expansive and consistent user syncing, smarter automated actions, and the first eCommerce plugin integration! See what’s new:

Haven’t ready the first XFtoWP beta guide? See the full features tour of XFtoWP 1.2 first, then see how they have progressed below.

A seriously solid admin workflow

The first thing I can’t help but notice is how solid the new admin workflows feel on the XFtoWP settings page. Everything you need from your XF site setup, all the way to the new User sync settings.

Turning on the new user sync features is as easy as clicking a checkbox for what you want your site to be able to do. These permissions look simple but do control important actions between your websites, so it is best to enable the “sync” options for the most consistent results.

BETA NOTE: The “enable user lookup” setting currently doesn’t do anything, but will be a nice little feature once it is complete.

In Beta 2, the User actions system has been completely rebuilt and enhanced to work far more reliably, including near perfect user groups syncing, and new product purchase and product expired actions.

The manual controls from the Edit User screen have largely stayed the same but with some user checks put in place so now only administrators can view and sync users.

Need an at a glance view of what data is connected to your sites? The new Connected data page in XFtoWP 1.2 has been a great tool to see which threads and users are connected across my entire sites:

Created automated actions from membership plugins to your XenForo forum

By itself, the user syncing features of XFtoWP work with the native WordPress register, login, and profile resets… and works with just about any plugin that utilizes the standard WP users database (which is most plugins).

Where the power of the new User actions system really starts to shine is by targeting common actions in eCommerce and membership plugins and running actions on your forum users automatically..

For example, wouldn’t it be great to add and remove usergroups based on a product or membership status? What about being able to send private messages and alerts based on different parts of a membership lifecycle?

Well now you can start to target these actions with the very first plugin integration to make it into XFtoWP.

…and by popular demand, it is MemberPress!

Enabling XFtoWP to MemberPress is as easy as uploading the tiny integration file now provided in your customers area.

How to Integrate XFtoWP with MemberPress (and other plugin integrations coming soon)

Once the integration plugin is enabled, MemberPress will have already been plugged into XFtoWP’s user sync system. Now you can configure a few settings to get the most of your integration:

Step 1: Add forum usergroups to your products

As explained in the beta 1 guide, you can now add usergroups you wish to promote and demote users to from XenForo – Site Setup – User groups.

Step 2: Create a new “product purchase” user action

The MemberPress integration will add the new “Product purchase” and “Produce expired” actions to the User actions settings. You can now change user groups and send messages based on the actions you choose.

You may notice the {usergroup} variable as an option, and that is one you will always want to use if you intend to assign per-product usergroups to customers.

Once you select the {usergroup} variable and save it to your action, you’ll want to go to the product Edit page (in this case, MemberPress > Memberships) and assign a usergroup to the “XenForo actions” meta box:

…and that’s it! You can go create a test transaction and then immediately see the changes made in your test users.

Step 3: Creating test transactions

To create a test transaction, view the page of your Membership and complete the transaction here. If your WP account is already connected to a forum user, that user will get their groups updated and any messages sent.

If a guest is purchasing a product, a new WP user and XF forum account will be created and linked together, available for immediate login

The best part of all? The Product actions work across multiple products. Meaning if you have the same user purchase multiple products, the purchase product action will be gracefully applied to them and add/remove usergroups as necessary.

I’ll let you use your imagination on that one, as I know if you are reading this, you understand the huge possibilities there.

BETA NOTE: As of writing, the “Product expired” user action does not fully save all variable usergroups but other actions work accordingly.

Beta upgrade guide

If you are currently using XFtoWP 1.2 Beta 1 you should upgrade to Beta 2 immediately to try out the new features! While this version of the plugin is functionally stable, it is still beta software and is strongly advised NOT to be used on production sites.

…unless you’re bold, which I see a few of you are, and luckily I don’t expect the plugin to stay in beta for too much longer…

If you are upgrading from XFtoWP 1.2 Beta 1 you can simply delete the existing plugin and re-upload the new beta version through the plugins page. No settings or other data will be lost when you do this.

I also recommend you save the plugin settings and refresh your forum data to ensure there is a connection and no error messages. You should also delete all test users in WP and XF and start with fresh users.

If you find any error messages or anything that looks out of place, please report them to thread attached to this post.

Finally, if you setup User actions in the last beta you will need to re-create those as they have gotten some restructuring under-the-hood. Luckily there is not much information to add here so it won’t take much time.

Developers, there is a new world of content creation open with XFtoWP

Are you a developer and see the opportunity in creating templates, widgets, and other integrations with XenForo data available in WordPress?

XFtoWP comes with many rich developer tools that make getting, using, and sending data across your and XF and WP sites a breeze.

If you are interested in learning how to use XFtoWP developer tools, please leave a message in the attached thread and I’d be happy to help you out!