The Thrive Apprentice WooCommerce integration is not the easiest to figure out, that’s why I created this tutorial.
Thrive Themes staff previously called this setup the “Frankenstein monster” because they deem the setup of WooCommerce a complicated process. Recently they added a lot of support features, such as WooCommerce compatibility for Thrive Theme Builder and the direct Apprentice/Woo integration will also be released shortly.
Well, if you want to avoid paying monthly fees, this added complication is the price you have to pay. I have set up several stores this way and I love it. It’s your choice.
WooCommerce is widespread, lots of plugins got created for it and you can take advantage from this fact.
If you want to use unusual payment gateways, e. g. for a foreign country, many times WooCommerce is the only solution to implement this if you don’t want to pay for a developer. WooCommerce has a natural interface with PayPal and Stripe.
Related:
How To Build An Online Store Using WordPress
Thrive Apprentice Plugin: Online Courses In WordPress
(This post contains affiliate links. This means I get a commission if you make a purchase through my links. There is no additional cost to you, but it enables me to provide you information like this for free. Please read my disclosure for more info.)
You can now build a gorgeous and conversion focused WooCommerce store using Thrive Theme Builder and there is a detailed tutorial on this.
Access Control Through WordPress User Roles
WordPress uses user roles to control what users can and cannot do within the site. The basic roles are
- Administrator
- Editor
- Author
- Contributor
- Subscriber
When you install WooCommerce, you’ll gain two user roles:
- Customer: Assigned to new customers when they create an account on your website. This role is basically equivalent to that of a normal blog subscriber, but customers can edit their own account information and view past or current orders.
- Shop Manager: A manager has the same permissions as a customer, plus they’re also granted the ability to manage all settings within WooCommerce, create/edit products, and access all WooCommerce reports.
You can grant access to a Thrive Apprentice course using these WordPress user roles.
In case of a free course, you can
- remove all access restrictions so that anyone can access the course, like I did that in Free Tier Revenue Engines or
- you can grant access to Subscribers and/or Customers.
Create User Roles: Members Plugin
However this is insufficient if you want to give selective access to people who paid for specific courses.
I solved this by adding additional roles that are equivalent to each paid course. This can be easily done using the free Members plugin (it was originally created by Justin Tadlock, now it is owned by MemberPress).
E. g. for the “7-Day Funnel Fix” course I added the role “Funnel Fix” and I added the role “Google First Page” for the “Blogging On The First Page Of Google” course.
I also added an “All Access” user role for customers that buy the entire package of courses.
Once you added these roles, you can even switch off the plugin, the created user roles remain.
YITH Automatic Role Changer
The Automatic Role Changer plugin allows you to automatically assign roles to your customers following a specific purchase or amount spent in your WooCommerce store.
You can set up different purchase rules.
I set up the rule as shown below to assign the specific role after “User purchases a specific product”.
Once this is done, make sure you save it.
Then go to the Access Restrictions tab of the Thrive Apprentice plugin and turn on the blue Restrict Access switch:
Designate how many lessons you want to show without being logged in and the message you want to show to users that don’t have access.
Click on the down arrow to see all user roles and check the necessary boxes.
I create roles like All Access and All Access Trial to give access to bundles and trials.
Don’t forget to click on the green “Save” button.
In default state both the administrator and the customer get an email of the fact that the rule was assigned, however you can turn these off.
YITH PayPal Express Checkout Gateway (Free)
I don’t like the original WooCommerce PayPal gateway. I think this free plugin is your best choice.
It gives you the option to set the default PayPal checkout screen to whether you want it to be on credit card checkout (without forcing new customers to create an account) or you want to start with the PayPal payment screen.
You can also customize to add your logo, header image and site name.
Autocomplete Orders
The Autocomplete WooCommerce Orders plugin will mark the transaction completed without requiring human review – without this the access doesn’t get assigned.
Sending Out Login Data
When a new account is created, WooCommerce automatically sends out the login credentials to your customer.
The free Kadence WooCommerce email designer plugin lets you easily customize the default transactional WooCommerce email templates.
Edit the design using the native WordPress customizer for instant visual edits. Customize the text (including body text) or each email template in WooCommerce without editing code.
Social Login & Register for WordPress
Social Login is a professionally developed and free WordPress plugin that allows your visitors to comment, login and register with 40+ Social Networks like for example Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, PayPal, Instagram or Yahoo amongst others.
It makes the user experience much better, decreases bounce rate, because there is no need to remember passwords. Customers can create an account right on the checkout page with a single click.
Disable WooCommerce Bloat
I use Disable WooCommerce Bloat to disable unnecessary WooCommerce features, such as the Marketing Hub and to make your shop faster and cleaner.
The WooCommerce Cart Fragments feature is the tiny cart that appears on all your pages, adding extra loading time. You can switch it off and make your WP site faster.
Checkout Field Editor for WooCommerce (Free)
If you sell online courses and info products, all the address, etc fields are an unnecessary burden that decreases your conversion. PayPal already handles these functions for you.
With Checkout Field Editor you can enable/disable field(s)(temporarily remove) from displaying in checkout page, order details page and emails.
WP Affiliates Manager (Free)
The WP Affiliates Manager plugin has built in integration with WooCommerce. Simply activate these two plugins on your WordPress site and do the basic setup configuration. After that, you will be ready to start accepting affiliate registration on you site.
Your affiliates will be able to send traffic to your WooCommerce store and get rewarded for it when a customer (referred by the affiliate) purchase a product.
Hi!
In order to avoid purchasing a paid plugin just for this, I created the plugin https://wordpress.org/plugins/dfx-woo-role-changer/ that allows the assignation of roles to products.
Thanks for the info David, I will definitely check it out.
Hi David, what plugin would yours bypass with this integration above?
This is extremely useful Peter thank you. But I’m wondering would this setup be obsolete once Thrive release a direct woo integration?
I’m looking to sell my courses BOTH as individual products AND as part of a paid membership subscription where people get access to all of them as long as they’re paying.
How would this work with this setup?
Unfortunately we don’t exactly know what the integration released by Thrive will work. I will update this post when the release comes. The release will still use WordPress user roles for access, which will make the additional plugin unnecessary.
Yes, you can sell courses BOTH as individual products AND as part of a paid membership using this system. You just need to create a user role like “Membership”. You then assign this label to each course that you want to be available through your membership. At the same time you still have the individual course user role assigned.
E.g. If I have a “Sales Funnel Course” user role attached to my sales funnel course but also the “All Access” user role, customers will get access regardless if they purchased the individual course or the membership.
Again that’s really helpful Peter thank you. But I was wondering, in the case of subscriptions, how would the roles be revoked once a subscription is paused or cancelled?
This is from the YITH site: “The Automatic Role Changer plugin allows you to automatically assign roles to your customers following a specific purchase or amount spent. When combined with YITH WooCommerce Subscription, the customer will automatically get the role you have set when the subscription changes to status ‘active’ or ‘trial’. The role will be removed when the subscription gets the status ‘paused’, ‘pending’, ‘overdue’, ‘cancelled’, ‘expired’ or ‘suspended’.”