Hub Access Groups - Introduction & Setup

Overview

Dollie's Hub Access Groups is a powerful feature in your Hub that allows you to control and monetize the services offered on your Hub/Platform. These access groups can be tied to various actions such as membership levels, product purchases, or custom integrations.

Hub Access Groups permit you to limit or expand what users can do within your hub. This includes launching websites, access to your Blueprints, and control over site dashboard features on a per feature basis. For developer you can easily add a custom integration to automatically add or remove users to access groups based on certain events/triggers.

Creating and Managing Access Groups

To create a Hub Access Group, go to your WordPress admin dashboard and click on Hub Access > Add Access Groups.

In the Access Group group you'll see the list of users and the functionalities they can access. You can also view which integrations are currently linked with the specific group.

Adding Users

Users can be added to a group manually or through an integration that triggers during certain actions. Like purchasing a product, signing up for a Membership level or submitting a form. More about that in a bit!

Controlling how many sites / resources can be launced/used

For each group you can easily control what a user in that group is allowed to do. For example, if a user is added to the 'Pro' group and inside that group you allow 10 sites to be launched, that user can launch up to 10 sites.

If a user tries to exceed their allocated resources/sites, they will be shown a notification urging them to upgrade or sign up for a higher membership level.

Controlling Access to your Blueprints

You can also dictate what users can do within your hub once they are on a specific plan. For instance, if you have Blueprints, you can control which ones are accessible by each group. You can designate specific Blueprints available only for 'Pro' users or any other group.

Controlling Access to Site Management Features on the Site Dashboard

Inside your Hub, on the site dashboard where users manage their sites, you can control which areas are available. For example, you can restrict users in the 'Starter' group from deleting their site or using the developer tools.

You can also upsell specific parts of the site dashboard to specific groups. For instance, if someone purchases a membership upgrade or a WooCommerce product, they can get access to additional features such as backups.

Each user can belong to multiple access groups, and each group could allow access to a particular part of the dashboard. This flexibility allows you to upsell specific features easily.

Interaction with Other Access Groups

You can also remove an user from an Access Groups once they are added to another Access Group. This allows you to create upgrade paths between groups. For example moving someone from a "Base Plan Group" to a "Pro Plan Group". Here's an example on how this could be useful when using WooCommerce Subscriptions.

You make one WooCommerce Product with multiple product variations.. see: https://woocommerce.com/document/subscriptions/switching-guide/#section-1

So your product would be:

1. Your Subscription Product
- Variation 1 - 1 Sites
- Variation 2 - 2 Sites
- Variation 3 - 3 Sites


2. You then make Access Groups for each site.
- Access Group 1 - Allows 1 Sites
- Access Group 2- Allows 2 Sites
- Access Group 3 - Allows 3 Sites


3. You configure your access groups to remove the user from the previous Access Groups




Now you've provided a clean upgrade path for both your subscription purchases and the access groups. Your customer will always be in the same access group as their current subscription.

Configuring Integrations

Hub Access Groups work seamlessly with popular plugins like WooCommerce, Paid Memberships Pro, and many more to come. Below is a general example of how it works,

WooCommerce Integration

Navigate to WooCommerce > Products. There, under each product, you'll find a dedicated section for Hub Access Settings for the group. Here, you can control what happens when a user purchases the product. For instance, if a user buys a specific product, they can be automatically added to a designated access group.

Paid Memberships Pro Integration

If you navigate to Memberships > Membership Levels > Specific Membership, you'll find settings that allow you to add users to an access group once they purchase or sign up for a particular membership level. If their membership is downgraded or expires, the integration will automatically remove them from the group.

These configurations provide a simple way for developers to programmatically add Access Control to the hub through any WordPress plugin or theme.

Overwriting Access settings for individual users.

In addition to group-level control, Dollie also allows you to override access group settings on a per-user basis. This feature enables you to exclude specific users from these restrictions or further limit their access.

To access this feature, go to the user edit screen. There, you can manually control what each user can do, providing an additional level of control for specific features or users.

Conclusion

Dollie's Hub Access Groups provide a flexible and powerful way to manage and monetize your platform. It makes it trivial for you to control what your customers can do inside your platform.

For developers, the Dollie Developer Docs offer a guide on writing custom integrations. Please look at the developer docs in our knowledge base to learn more.

Updated on: 27/02/2024