Badges, rules & paid access

Gate channels, posting, commenting and content by CRM tags or member level, show members badges for what they hold, and sell access with your products.

Access in a community is decided by two things a member carries: the CRM tags on their contact (which a purchase adds) and their level (earned with points). Three tools turn those into access:

• Private Group Badges — show who holds which tags, and mark restricted content.
• Rules — gate posting, commenting and channels by tags or level.
• Access settings on content — courses, days, videos and single posts can each require tags or a rule.

Badges and rules are both in your community's Settings → Community Settings.

Before you start

• Badges need the Access groups & privacy permission; rules need Restrictions. The community owner has both — see Community roles & permissions.
• The CRM tags you want to gate by must already exist in your CRM.
• To sell access, create the product in your ESTAGE account first — see How selling access works.

How selling access works

Products aren't created inside the community. You make them in your ESTAGE account, with their price and payment method, and buying one adds its CRM tags to the buyer. In the community you then link a product wherever access is gated:

1. Choose the tags that grant access.
2. For people without them, choose Show product purchase modal and Link Product — they're offered the product right there. Or choose Redirect to page to send them to a sales page.

You can do this for the whole community (Visibility → Paid in General Settings), for a course or a challenge day, or with a rule.

Private Group Badges

Settings → Community Settings → Private Group Badges opens Badges: "Badges attach to members whose CRM tags match, and gate restricted content."

1. Click New Badge.
2. Enter a Name and pick the CRM Tags — anyone holding one of them gets this badge.
3. Optionally, under If user has this badge, then hide the following badges, pick badges this one replaces — so a member who upgraded shows "VIP" instead of both "Member" and "VIP".
4. Add a Badge Image and click Create.

Badges appear on members automatically as their tags change. Delete on the edit screen removes a badge.

Rules

Settings → Community Settings → Rules opens Community Rules: "Gate posting, commenting or channel access by member level and/or CRM tags."

Creating a rule

1. Click New Rule.
2. Under IF... (Select Trigger), choose Level or Tags, then the level or tags required.
3. For tags, choose What should happen if user does not have access: Nothing, Redirect to page, or Show product purchase modal (and the product).
4. Optionally click Add for a second condition, joined with AND (both must hold) or OR (either is enough).
5. Under Then, choose what the rule allows:
   • Able to post in group
   • Able to comment on posts
   • Access to … | channel — one entry per channel
   • Create Custom Segment / Reusable Rule — a named rule with no action of its own, to attach to videos, events and single posts later. Give it a Rule Name (Segment).
6. Click Create Rule (or Create Segment).

What a member without access sees

A Restricted Access! notice — "Reach level to unlock it. You're just N points away!" for a level rule — with a button to get access, which opens the product or the page you chose.

Using a rule on one item

Custom rules show up in the Access Rule field of videos and events, and as Select Rule in the post composer, where an admin can lock a single post.

Things worth knowing

• A tag-based channel rule also puts the channel on approval, letting in members who hold the tags automatically. See Channels.
• Rules apply to everyone, not to one person. To stop one member from taking part, ban them — see Moderating posts and members.
• Tags come from your CRM. Adding or removing a tag on a contact there changes what they can open here. See CRM.