Memberships Use Case: Wine Club

Overview

Memberships offers profile fields so you can gather and store important information about your members to help you support and market your memberships more effectively. In this document, we’ll cover how to create and manage profile fields, as well as how they impact the member experience.

Requirements

• Memberships v1.19+
• Teams for Memberships v1.5+, to use team functionality

Creating profile fields

Follow the steps to create profile fields:

1. 1. Go to WooCommerce > Memberships > Profile Fields.
   2. Click Add profile field.

1. 1. Add a Name for the profile field. This can be an internal name, but will also be shown to members if you don’t also update the Label field.
   2. Update the following fields:
      • Slug: Unique identifier for the profile field. The slug will be used during import / export. You can enter your own slug, or one will be created automatically upon saving.
      • Field type: Select the field type. This controls what type of information the member can enter in the field.
      • Default value: Only visible when Field type is set to “Checkbox”. Determine whether the checkbox should be enabled (checked) or disabled (unchecked) by default. For other field types that support defaults, the default value(s) are managed on the Field Options tab.
      • Memberships plans: Select the membership plan(s) where these fields should be applied. Leave blank to apply fields to members of any plan.
      • Editable by: Determine who can edit this field. If fields are admin-only, they won’t be visible or editable by members. If members can edit fields, they can do so from any of the Show field on locations.
      • Show field on: Only visible when Editable by is set to “Members and admins”. Determine where members should have access to this field. Displaying the field on the product page, registration form, or team member invite is helpful for fields that should be populated when a member first joins the plan.
      • Label: Only visible when Editable by is set to “Members and admins”. Optionally set a member-facing label for this profile field or leave blank to use the field’s Name instead.
      • Description: Only visible when Editable by is set to “Members and admins”. Optionally set a description for the field, which will be visible to members.
      • Required: Only visible when Editable by is set to “Members and admins”.

1. 1. For Multi Checkbox, Multi Select, Radio, or Select field types, go to the Field options tab. For Checkbox, File, Text, or Text Area field types, this tab is disabled so you can skip to step 7.
   2. On the Field options tab, use the Add new option button to add options for the profile field that members may select. You may also determine which option(s) should be selected by default. You can set multiple defaults for fields that accept multiple inputs (e.g. Multi Checkbox and Multi Select).

1. Click Create to save the field.

Managing member profile fields

On the WooCommerce > Memberships > Members page, you can view profile field entries for your members. You can show / hide profile fields by adjusting the Screen Options. You can also use the filter to view members based on their field entries.

As a site admin, you can always view and edit profile fields from the Edit User Membership page (WooCommerce > Memberships > Members). If you modify a field, members may be able to see your changes based on the Editable by and Show field on settings (i.e. if profile fields are visible in the My Account area).

Import / export

If you need to view or modify profile fields in bulk, you can do so from WooCommerce > Memberships > Import / Export tab. Click here for more general information about this tool.

When exporting members, you can select the Include profile fields setting to ensure profile fields are added to the export.

You can also import profile fields along with members to update these fields in bulk.

Please keep in mind a few things when importing profile fields:

• The column header should use the profile field’s slug to ensure Memberships matches the content with the right profile field.
• Field values are case-sensitive, and will not be imported if they don’t exactly match listed field options (when applicable).
• When updating checkbox fields, “yes” means that the field is selected / checked and “no” means the field is not selected / unchecked.
• If you clear the contents of a required profile field, the field will retain its previous value (i.e. it will not be cleared).

Using the REST API

Member profile fields are also available via REST API! Check out our WooCommerce Memberships REST API documentation for more information.

Member experience

The member experience with profile fields will largely depend upon the field’s Editable by and Show field on settings. This lets you control who can see profile fields, and where they can see or interact with them.

Here are a few examples of how you might setup profile fields to support different use cases:

I want to use profile fields as internal fields for admins only.

• Setup: Set Editable by to “Admin-only”.
• Result: Admins can populate and manage profile fields, but members themselves will never see the fields.
• Field examples: Designate high-value accounts; upload internal notes.

I want to collect information from members when they join a plan.

• Setup: Set Editable by to “Members and admins”; set Show field on to “Product page” and / or “Registration form”, depending on how members join your plan.
• Result: Members will see these profile fields when they view a product that grants membership access or when registering for an account, when registration grants access to a membership. You can also require profile fields to ensure prospective members can’t purchase or register without those fields populated. Please be careful when requiring profile fields for product purchase or registration! These should only be fields that absolutely must be populated, since you don’t want to block membership purchase or registration with complex field requirements.
• Field examples: Information that does not change over time, e.g. demographics, interests, “how did you hear about us?”, etc.

I want to collect information from members when they join that should be maintained and updated by members over the course of their membership.

• Setup: Set Editable by to “Members and admins”; set Show field on to “Product page” and / or “Registration form”, depending on how members join your plan, and “My Account”.
• Result: Similar to the above use case, members will be asked (or required) to populate profile fields when joining a plan, but can also update those fields as needed from the My Account page.
• Field examples: Information that does change over time, e.g. number of pets, fitness details, etc.

I want to collect information from team members when they register to join a team.

• Setup: Set Editable by to “Members and admins”; set Show field on to “Team member registration” (only visible when Teams for Memberships is active).
• Result: When users are invited to join a team, they will see these profile fields on the registration form.
• Field examples: Company role, school grade, etc.

Populating fields during registration or purchase

When the Show field on setting allows profile fields to be presented on the “Product page” or “Registration form”, this means that prospective members will have the ability to populate these fields when joining a membership.

Profile fields will only be shown at registration or on the product page when the Membership plans field includes a plan that grants access upon registration or by purchasing that product. In other words, the fields are only presented in areas that are related to how members join the plans listed in the profile field settings.

 Important! If profile fields are required, users cannot register / purchase without populating these fields. Please be careful about making too many profile fields required, as this could impact your conversions.

On the registration form, fields will be listed below the username / email / password fields.

On the product page, fields will be listed near the quantity and Add To Cart buttons.

Updating fields in the My Account area

When the Show field on setting allows profile fields to be presented on the “My Account” area, merchants can view and manage their profile fields from the account area, under the My Profile tab. From there, members can update their profile fields as needed.

Teams for Memberships support

When Teams for Memberships is active, merchants can also configure the Show field on setting to “Team member registration”, which will present the profile fields to potential team members when they are registering to join the team.