Member groups, Freemember and self-activation via email?

Question

I am using Freemember to manage my site members information and registration etc, however I have come across an issue with my current setup.

I need to use the 'Self-activation via email' option so that new registrants have to verify their email address before gaining access to the site. With this I have 3 initial member groups for different levels of access, so I have 3 separate forms to register.

For this I have setup the forms to use the parameter group_id="8" for example, so the user is added to the correct group.

Now the problem now is that when a user registers using one of these forms they can login straight away without having to verify their email via the activation link which is due to them being added straight to the member group bypassing the 'pending' stage.

This is the same as this question: New member registration set to require activation, but new registrants are working without it, although it doesn't offer an alternative method.

I need a way to utilise both features where the user is first added as 'pending' but when they activate via the link they are added to the correct member group according to the form they used initially.

Can anyone help please?

Thanks Wes.

Answer 1

A user is either pending, and after activation is automatically added to the default member group. Or, if you set the group_id, is immediatly added to a particular member group.

To get what you want (let user activate, and only then assign to a specific member group) you need a custom solution. For instance, store the group_id in a custom member field, and on activation use that field, verify it is in allowed range, and then set the group id.

Answer 2

As GDmac mentioned, member email activation and custom member registration groups are mutually exclusive.

This is a limitation of EE, not Freemember (since members are either placed in the "Pending" group, or directly into an active group).

If you need something more complicated, you would probably need to write an extension which runs after each user is activated, which places them into the appropriate group.