MemberFix’s perfect preparation simplifies WordPress integration for publisher customer
At OpenAthens we’re working towards new service provider integrations every day. We want to make it a good experience for web developers and their publisher customers every time, so we asked someone who has just completed their first OpenAthens integration for their thoughts
MemberFix has been a WordPress operations partner for membership and e-learning sites since 2014. The company builds, hosts, optimizes, and maintains more than 500 membership websites around the world – including a publisher delivering highly-specialized multimedia content about UK immigration law. When the publisher wanted to expand its offer for licensed users they asked MemberFix to integrate their WordPress website with OpenAthens.
WordPress integration for beginners
“Our client wanted to create two different levels of site access and they asked me to work with OpenAthens to achieve it,” says their MemberFix developer and integrator Elizabeth Lukanova.
"It was also quite fast", she says. The implementation was ready to go in under two months.
More than half of our publisher customers outsource web development and hosting to a specialist WordPress partner like MemberFix. Usually they like to leave their developer to work with us on integrating the site with OpenAthens, and get on with their day job of creating and publishing quality content.
“It was my first OpenAthens integration so I approached it carefully, but everything turned out to be quite seamless.”
Guidance and weekly meetings
“OpenAthens gave me all the documentation I needed and I studied it thoroughly before starting,” says Elizabeth.
“I also decided to do testing on my own before every weekly call and always tried to be a bit ahead. If we agreed to go for four new steps over the next week I’d try for five.”
MemberFix took responsibility for working through the various stages, and for our part we made time in the online meetings to explain the features of OpenAthens and their importance in the academic library space.
“Often service providers haven’t needed to know these things in detail. It’s up to us to explain the need for pseudonymous attributes, WAYFless linking and the OpenAthens redirector, about library user expectations in terms of user experience and single sign-on,” comments Sylwia.
“When a service provider knows about these things they can develop the features they need and we can work together to test them thoroughly in OpenAthens."
“It is also worth investing time to thoroughly test how they facilitate user provisioning, because some of WordPress’s default configurations need adjusting to meet the OpenAthens Federation’s requirements.”
Another key part of the process is to adjust the site’s authorisation systems so it can handle different kinds of single sign-on site visitors – OpenAthens users and also various other enterprise SAML-based system users.
MemberFix’s WordPress integration went live in March this year. Moving forward, the publisher’s staff can easily manage visitor access levels themselves, because MemberFix has given them an intuitive administrator interface.
“Everything is working smoothly out of the box,” says Elizabeth. “OpenAthens provides lots of information and it’s not hard if you’re properly prepared.”
Tips for a seamless WordPress integration
- Communicate – have a kick-off call about the project goals, scope it out and be meticulous about keeping to regular catch-up calls, says Sylwia. “Every integration is unique because of the various ways that platforms’ access control systems are built and because developer skills are different, so it is important to talk and get our support and advice when you need it”
- Work with our implementation team to test, test and test again – and plan enough time into the schedule to allow for it. This means you’ll avoid surprises and future-proof the solution long-term
- Do your own testing ahead of the scheduled weekly meetings, is Elizabeth’s advice. “This way, if there are any hitches you can raise them on the call and they needn’t run on for another week”
