I have been through all of the tutorials and docs and not had any luck finding the necessary info. I'm trying to create a free membership, so each company will then be encouraged to join (no cost) and share their contact info to build our directory. All of the examples I'm finding have multiple levels of paid memberships, which we do not wish to do on this site, but will on our next site.
Currently the site has dummy info I used as a test for displaying the info correctly, now I must create the part where they register and by doing so can input/edit only their own business & contact info that people (mainly those in the wedding biz) can then easily find each other.
Hi, it sounds like you could use simple User accounts instead of "memberships" per se. You could place custom fields on a User profile to store business contact information, and use Toolset Forms to register User accounts with this custom field information. This is probably the most straightforward method, however there are some limitations. The biggest limitation is it is not possible to set up a parametric search for Users, so you could not search by distance from a specific location or for businesses that provide some particular service. If this type of search is important for your site, the User profile approach will not work. Also you cannot create robust post relationships with this approach, the only way to relate Users and posts is as a post author, which is somewhat limiting.
Instead, you can follow this guide for information about using a proxy post type to represent each business: https://toolset.com/documentation/post-relationships/how-to-create-custom-searches-and-relationships-for-users/
This approach is the most flexible, because it doesn't limit your ability to search or create post relationships. It still requires User accounts for each business, and there is an extra step to create a proxy post.
We're looking at upwards of 5000 potential users, would that not become a management nightmare in WP?
Managing 5000 anything will be a challenge in WordPress, but User accounts are built-in to WordPress so a large portion of that is not your responsibility. Actions like verifying passwords and changing passwords are handled by WordPress automatically. If you don't use different User accounts for each business, then you need some other way to determine which site visitors have permission to edit each Business. With User accounts, you can set each User to be the author of one Business post. Then each author can edit their own post. Without User accounts / Business post authors determining this, you need to create your own system for logins and post management. Seems like extra work on your side without User accounts.
1. How then do we limit/control these Authors to only a single post?
We don't want duplicates, or spam entries, and of course want only entries from our desired service area.
2. How would I set the post form into a users dashboard within WP for posting/editing?
We only want specific data for a simple database (rolodex style - if you will).
3. How do we limit spam posts from outside our service area?
As we hope to gather only specific types (wedding related) of businesses in our directory, how would we negate or bounce those not following the rules?
4. Can we set new posts to be held for moderation/approval?
By keeping posts from live publishing on the site perhaps that will answer the above question.
1. How then do we limit/control these Authors to only a single post?
We don't want duplicates, or spam entries, and of course want only entries from our desired service area.
The idea is that you only display the Form to create new entries if the current User is not the author of an entry post yet. This article discusses the technique: https://toolset.com/documentation/post-relationships/how-to-create-custom-searches-and-relationships-for-users/
See the FAQ here: https://toolset.com/documentation/post-relationships/how-to-create-custom-searches-and-relationships-for-users/#how-do-i-prevent-users-from-creating-more-than-one-contractor-post
2. How would I set the post form into a users dashboard within WP for posting/editing?
I don't understand this, sorry. Toolset's Forms are used on the front-end of the site, not in wp-admin. To create or edit posts from wp-admin, the system generates these internal forms automatically based on the criteria you specify when creating the custom post type and the custom fields associated with that custom post type.
3. How do we limit spam posts from outside our service area?
As we hope to gather only specific types (wedding related) of businesses in our directory, how would we negate or bounce those not following the rules?
It depends on the rules. If the service area is defined by a group of zip codes, you can implement validation on Forms that requires one of those zip codes is used in a specific custom field when submitting the Form. If you define a wedding-related business based on some checkboxes you select in the Form, you can require a certain number of checkboxes from a specific group of checkboxes, etc. Some basic validation can be built-in to Forms, but some more complex validation will require custom code using our APIs like cred_form_validate: https://toolset.com/documentation/programmer-reference/cred-api/#cred_form_validate
4. Can we set new posts to be held for moderation/approval?
Yes, you can set any Toolset Form to create posts in a Pending Review or Draft status. Then your internal editing team can review those posts and decide to publish them or reject them.
