Wen Wiz NewsPad & Web Wiz Forums Integration

Just curious if anyone has done any further integration with the forums and newspad.  I am thinking of making the following changes:

• Eliminate requirement to create an account to subscribe.
• Make forum login as "universal login" so that it logs you into both the forums and newspad.

Logistically that means:

• Removing requirement to create a password when subscribing (perhaps replacing existing form with new form, or modifying the existing signup page).
• Changing default page when they login to the forums with a new page that has links to the forums, forum settings and newspad subscription preferences page.
• Newspad login page replaced with forum login page (perhaps forwarding the newspad login page to the forums login page).
• Links to "login" all point to forum login (now the universal login).
  
• Adding the forum's common.asp include to all newspad pages so that newspad has access to the forum variables including who is logged in.
• On the modify newspad subscription preferences page (management_centre.asp), instead of seeing if the user is logged into newspad, it will see if they are logged into the forum.  If so, it will use the e-mail address in the forum profile to find the correct newspad record.  If no record in newspad exists, it will direct them to a form where they can create a new record.  (Might be easier to see if they are logged into the forum, and then behind the scenes mark them logged into newspad as well, i.e. setting both variables as logged in when they login to the forum.)
  
• If the forum user is logged in, the fields in the newspad signup page will be prefilled with information in the forum profile.

Some issues that I see with the integration include:

• If users do not create an account when they sign up, how will they manage their subscription?
1. Possible solution: all change in subscription preferences require confirmation via e-mail if they are not logged in.  (But this will require adding a whole new set of functionality to newspad, basically rewriting many sections of it.  I would prefer not to do that.)
2. Alternative solution: force them to create an account to manage their subscription, and the account can be created after the fact.  As long as the forum account has the same e-mail as the newsletter subscription, then they can access their newspad preferences when logged into the forum.  (Not really the best solution, but the easiest to code.)
3. Another solution: when they subscribe to a newsletter in newspad, it asks for username and password and create a forum account at the same time.  (Easy solution, but still requires people to create an account to subscribe.)
• If they change their e-mail address in the forums, should it change it in newspad, and vice versa?
  

Another way to implement integration of logins:

• When user creates an account on the forums, it creates an account on newspad, but does not subscribe them to anything.
• When user subscribes to a newsletter via newspad signup form, it creates an account on the forum as well (additional username field must be added to newspad signup form).
• Logging into the forum logs them into newspad.
• Newspad login system (as stored password in newspad) is unused.  All users must login via the forum login system to login to newspad.
• Confirming their e-mail address on the forums, confirms it for newspad as well.
• Confirming their e-mail address for newspad, confirms it for the forums as well.
• Add field in newspad storing forum user ID associated with the newspad account.
• Decide if newsletter subscription e-mail must be the same as forum e-mail, and if so, provide code to synchronize the two.

So those are my ideas for integrating the two.  I am going to do some more thinking about the best way to do it before I fully dive in and start coding.  If you have any suggestions and ideas, let me know.


Edited by wistex - 21 February 2009 at 7:40pm