Huge site, specific user account requirements. Is MODX ready?

Wow, I've missed hanging around the forums. Life happened.

So, I have this potential project. Pretty definite IF I can figure out how to do the back-end. So far, that's been a huge "if." My programmer wants to do it ourselves, and honestly I have it half-built in my head, but with the scope and specific requirements of this, part of me would feel a LOT more comfortable using something that's already been extensively tested. I'm just not having much luck finding something appropriate. So, the requirements.

• It's going to be a subscription-based site, with trial periods. I have found a couple of services that seem like they could be integrated fairly easily with the MODX log-in functions, so I'm less worried about that.


• The structure of the accounts is tricky, though. It's an educational site, so teachers will be getting the subscriptions, which will give access to their students. (We're aware of the privacy issues.) So not only would we have to implement some kind of parent/child user account structure, there are also issues to consider such as a student being associated with multiple teachers. (If you've ever used Blackboard, think something like that with a LOT less other school-related features.)


• Finally, I'm always VERY conservative when talking to clients about how successful their sites are going to be, so don't take it likely when I say we could be looking at hundreds, maybe thousands of users in the year after launch. Very active users.

And my other big concern, students LOVE to hack. That's the big reason I'd really like the whole payment/account management part to be someone else's problem. There's more than enough content to keep us busy.

So, and be honest, is MODX right for this? Integrated subscription validation? Parent/child accounts? Huge numbers of users? I've already talked to the client about a dedicated server, but given that we're going to mostly be serving static pages (with some very minor custom functions), I wonder of the overhead of MODX serving every page will slow things down too much.

If anyone knows of any companies that offer this kind of framework (hosted or not), I'd LOVE suggestions. Don't worry, I still use MODX for everything else. (Two more installs this morning. Otherwise, if anyone has done anything remotely like this before, suggestions on HOW are very welcome.

I think MODx Revo would handle this nicely.

http://modx.com/why-modx/applications/versioning-enterprise-search/
http://rtfm.modx.com/display/revolution20/Hardening+MODX+Revolution

I guess that answers my "huge number of users" question. Now if I could just find an easy solution to parent/child accounts and integration with a subscription service, I'd be set.

Most subscription services have APIs using REST or SOAP or something similar. You would need a snippet for Revo to provide/consume the services of the subscription service. Details would depend on the service you use. I'm playing around with a Salesforce developer's account at the moment; most services do have free developer or sandbox accounts.

Oh, God. Salesforce. RUN. ;-) (I've done development on Salesforce. Hated every second of it. But they kept changing the code and breaking things, which didn't help.)

Salesforce has a similar account/sub-account methodology, as does Blackboard. Thing is that the services I find that offer that kind of stuff also offer WAY more that I don't need. I don't need forums, calendars, action items, contact lists, gradebooks, any of that kind of stuff. I just want something that will manage user accounts and subscription payments and let me create the content.

I have found a few services with APIs to handle the subscription part, I'm just still not wanting to deal with hacking the MODX user functions to handle parent/child accounts.

There are a couple of subscription add-ons for Revo; they may at least give you some ideas.

http://modx.com/extras/package/usersubscriptionsignupsystem
http://modx.com/extras/package/subscribeme

I've used Paypal subscriptions to manage memberships on a MODX site, using Paypal IPN messages to trigger users moving in and out of Groups.

Haven't checked this, but how about creating a new Group (eg Alpha) each time a Teacher (User with Role Teacher) takes out a subscription, then you build an admin page that enables Teachers to add students which autocreates accounts for those students (User, Role Student, makes them Member of Alpha and CurrentStudents).

Listen for subscription messages from your payment provider, and when you reach the end of trial or subscription, remove group CurrentStudents from members of group Alpha. Then you check that someone is a member of CurrentStudent to display them anything, and then check which Teacher-related group to display.

I could have got this wildly wrong.... ;o) But as ever with MODX, there are multiple ways to consider, depending on how much extending you want to do....

Well, after much (MUCH) research on the subject, we have decided to go with MODX for the user management and integrate it with a payment system of some kind. (At this point, it's looking like CheddarGetter or Recurly.) Account validation seems like it should be able to be handled via a simple API call in a plug-in.

I've used users and groups before, obviously, but not in the way described here, so I suspect I'll be referring quite a bit to your comment, odeclas. One added difficulty to the requirements now, though, students will be able to be associated with multiple teachers. But I guess that just means that CurrentStudents could be members of multiple groups?

You guys would not believe the many MANY hours spent discussing the requirements of just this one part of the project. The fact that we've gone over things so much, and evaluated so many different options, and still eventually came back around to MODX as the best solution really says a lot.