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Allowing people to access different parts of your website using Memberstack

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Carefree works with the hospitality industry to gift its excess capacity so that unpaid carers can take a break.

Do you want to have different member areas on your website? This Guide looks at a no/low code way to do it if your website is built using the Webflow website builder. Some steps also cover thinking and planning that could be relevant to using other website building software. 

Jump to steps
Key software:
Memberstack, Webflow
How they set it up:
In house technical team created it
Setup costs:
Planning and no code build time
Ongoing costs:
£25-£75 per month in memberstack fees, plus webflow licence
Guide in use since:
July 2020
Jump to steps

Steps to creating member areas on a Webflow site using Memberstack

Think about why you need to protect areas of your website so only certain people can visit them.

Common reasons include:

  • Wanting to offer resources only to people who have paid for a certain level of membership

  • Wanting to offer resources only to people who have been pre-approved in some way - for safety or other reasons

Reasons for websites which might include databases of information:

  • Wanting to protect people’s data, so only people who absolutely need to can view it

  • Wanting to provide people with certain roles only relevant information so they aren’t overwhelmed trying to find what they need

Once you have thought about the different groups, you need to work out what each one needs to be able to access. This will help you decide what permissions to allocate to each group.

Carefree wanted to create a single website that would help different stakeholders access what they needed. This included making sure:

  • people they support could get information about their involvement with Carefree

  • support workers could find information about the people they have registered for help

  • support workers could find historical information and impact data

  • Carefree team members involved in data processing could manage data

  • partners could respond to requests, view what they had donated, and see information about their impact

Carefree spent time testing the information they would make available to each group. They tested this in multiple ways before creating a log-in system.

They’ve since changed platform to a system using Glide, but the rest of this Guide explains the steps they went through with Memberstack.

If you want to limit what people see when they visit your website you need a system that allows those people to log in. At the heart of this type of system is a process called 'authentication'. It authenticates who has logged in and what they can view or do.

Depending on the type of information you want to provide to people, you can achieve that authentication in different ways.

  1. Using off the shelf software that includes built in logging in and authentication. This could be community forum software or a customer relationship management system (CRM).
  2. Using a low-code website builder and an authentication plug-in.
  3. Having your web developers choose an authentication tool and set it up on your website.

Memberstack is an authentication plug-in that works with the web builder Webflow. If you have a Webflow website or you need to create a website and would consider Webflow, then Memberstack could be helpful for you.

Carefree were using Webflow already, and wanted to build their new information pages in Webflow. So Memberstack was a useful plugin for them to use.

They also liked it because:

  • It had reasonable pricing for the number of members they had

  • It was free during the trial period of building and testing

  • It has customisable design components

  • They liked the information they could get from its dashboards and managing members

  • It integrates through Zapier

Though Memberstack worked for them, as their service evolved they invested in a more customised system from Glide.

Webflow is a no-code website building package. You design through drag and drop. You can view what you are building as you go. However it does need some design skill and understanding of how a website works. 

If you are going to work in Webflow you need a team member or volunteer with dedicated time available. They need to be interested in understanding user experience good practice and web design and accessibility. They also need to enjoy learning from online guides. You may decide to hire a “no-code” developer to help you.

Carefree had an in-house no-code specialist on their team when they built this solution. Since then they’ve also started working with freelance no-code specialists, so their in-house expert has more support.

Memberstack provides instructions on how to copy and paste it into Webflow. If you understand enough about Webflow to find its site-wide settings area, you can do this without help.

Then you go to Memberstack itself and open the dashboard. There you can start to name your membership groups and tell Memberstack which areas of the Webflow site it should allow for each group.

Carefree use these features to give user groups access to different information. 

For example a manager of a community referral partner would have admin rights to see a top-level view including the activity of their whole team. 

Their team member would have different rights. They would only be able to see their personal activity.

Memberstack offers guides that help you create your log in process. They use a smart form that means all your users can log in through the same pathway.

You need to add a link to this form to your main website. Usually you will add a log in or sign up button that opens the form.

This website doesn’t have to be in Webflow like the protected areas. Memberstack offer guides that explain how to add the log in to websites built on several different platforms. 

You will need the help of the team who manage your main website as you will usually need to add and adapt some small pieces of code, and test that it works as expected.

Carefree added a login button to the top right of their users screens. This took users to the login process only. Sign up to the system was handled separately.

You need to decide the best way to give your members information about these new areas and enable their access.

Ask yourself these types of question:

  • Do they already have log in information for another site? Would they expect it to be transferred?

  • Is it appropriate for to create log-ins for them?

  • If we ask them to sign up themselves, how will we do reminders for those who don’t?

  • Will data (theirs and others) be secure if we create log-ins for them?

  • How do we make sure they reset their passwords?

  • What support can we give them? Online guides? Video guides? Live chat?

You might make different decisions for different member/stakeholder groups.
Whatever decision you make, remember that people find change difficult. Prepare good marketing information about why you've implemented a new process and what people will find when they log in.

Memberstack allows you to create sign up forms for new users. It also allows you to upload CSV (spreadsheet files) to add multiple users yourself.

Further information

For more information about this guide, or the change to using Glide contact Joey Ceunen.