What members see
Before you start, open these. They are all under Members in the menu: Member updates, Member Portals and Membership Types.
Can’t find one? It may be turned off for your business, or your account may not be allowed to open it. Ask the person who set up your FeePrime. They can fix both.
Members log in on your public website, not in the app your staff use. Understanding that split answers most of the questions members ask.
Two different logins
Your colleagues log in to the app. Sidebar, modules, permissions.
Members log in on your public pages, using a one-time code sent to their email. No sidebar. No modules. They see your website, plus whatever their membership unlocks.
A member is not a user of the app.
Giving a member a staff login so they can “see their account” is completely the wrong tool. It hands them your business records.
Members-only content
Any update, opportunity or course lesson can carry access membership types.
Leave it empty and it is public. Fill it in and only people holding one of those membership types can open it.
Member updates is the page for content aimed at members specifically. It has a type, a publication date, a headline, a body, photos, a rank, and the same access setting.
Locked content stays visible but locked to everybody else.
That is on purpose. A members-only notice nobody can see advertises nothing. So the headline is the invitation, and the body is the thing they get by joining.
An active membership, again
Access checks for a membership that is active right now.
Somebody whose membership has run out gets the locked view, plus a prompt to renew. Which is the right moment to ask. They are standing in front of something they used to be able to read.
The member widget
On every public page there is a small chip in the corner.
Logged out, it opens a login. Logged in, it shows the member their membership type and status, and lets them log out again.
That is the whole member account experience, and it is deliberately small.
A member organisation does not need to build a portal. The widget plus locked content is the portal.
Member portals
The member portals page records a member, and exists for organisations that need a portal record for each one.
Most organisations never need to touch it. The widget and locked content cover the ordinary case.
Reach for it when you have a specific need it answers. Not as a first step.
What you should actually publish
The mistake is locking everything. That leaves your public site empty and gives visitors no reason to join.
Publish enough openly that somebody can see what your organisation does and why it is worth joining. Lock the things that membership genuinely buys.
A site whose only public page says “members only” persuades nobody.
Try it
On staging.feeprime.com, publish one public member update and one locked to a membership type.
Look at both logged out. Then as a member whose membership has run out. Then as an active one. Three states, three different pages.