Bulk create users, then make users claim their accounts?

  • Resolved jtabangcura

    (@jtabangcura)


    7 years, 2 months ago

    Hello! I am looking for a solution or a plugin that will achieve what I’m trying to do. Here is the scope:

    • I need to mass-add 1,500+ users to a membership site
    • Members will then have to visit a registration page and claim their account by providing:
    • the username (a serial number) that was given to them via snail mail
    • an email so they can receive electronic notifications
    • a password (alternatively, a random password can be emailed to them)

    Essentially, I am migrating a museum’s membership system to a WordPress platform so that their members can access members-only portions of their website.

    Does anyone know of any plugins/combination of plugins that could achieve this? I am largely a front-end developer, so my experience in data management of this scale is a bit limited.

    I appreciate the help! Thanks!

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  • Moderator bcworkz

    (@bcworkz)

    7 years, 2 months ago

    I’m unaware of such a plugin, but I’m not very knowledgeable of what’s all available. There’s a number of custom coded solutions possible. You could write an SQL query that adds a bunch of users with sequential placeholder data. That would likely result in incomplete user data. It’d be better to use PHP and wp_insert_user() to ensure proper user creation.

    While the user data can be sequentially created, it would be worth investigating the possibility of importing the existing user data. For example, if at least the mailing addresses can be included with the user creation, a letter template could be created to act as a sort of mail merge function. Javascript could sequentially get user data to put in the template and print out the letter and envelope. Because of security restrictions, someone may have to sit there and click the print button for each letter (or maybe not?), but everything else could be automated.

    If enough existing data can be imported, all the user may need to do is follow a particular link and create a new password. With custom coding, there are a lot of possibilities, especially for one off code that basically runs once without any need for a fancy user interface.

    Another approach would be to somehow mail everyone a special link that includes a hash value (nonce) for validation. Perhaps using the old system. No users are created ahead of time in WP, the user is created on the fly when the user visits the link with the right hash value.

    Thread Starter jtabangcura

    (@jtabangcura)

    7 years, 2 months ago

    Thanks for the advice! I eventually figured it out on my own by making the username the member ID and the password the member’s last name, then forcing them to change password and provide an email address before they can proceed.

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