1. Manual Method (one-by-one)
What is it: Manually adding a subscriber's details via YUDU Publisher, one subscriber at a time.
Pros: Great for one-off access and editing existing subscribers (say you need to add yourself so you can access your login-protected publications, grant similar access to an advertiser or edit an existing subscriber).
Cons: Only creates one subscriber at a time, not suitable for large batches.
Cost: Free.
2. Manual Method (bulk csv upload)
What is it: Uploading a csv list of multiple subscribers to YUDU Publisher.
Pros: Upload once and leave YUDU to process them. It can take around 10-15 minutes for larger csv lists with many thousands of subscribers. This is because all records are encrypted.
Cons: Requires someone to manually upload the list and ensure it’s in the correct format.
Cost: Free to use.
3. Automated Method (YUDU API implementation)
What is it: Our recommended approach when it comes to automating the creation, reading, updating, and deleting of subscribers. The API takes the information that a subscriber has entered when purchasing a magazine or subscription from your website, and passes it over to YUDU Publisher automatically. It’s fully documented here: https://github.com/yudugit/rest-api-documentation
Pros: Once set up, you can leave it operational with peace of mind knowing it will continue to handle all future purchases automatically. We regularly update the API and it is fully documented. We’ve helped many clients in the past with the set up and, when we make updates to the API, we don’t roll out changes that will break our clients' code.
Cons: Requires a professional web developer to set up.
Cost: You may need to contract a web developer to do this for you, unless you already employ someone inhouse who is capable of writing the script. Please provide our API docs to your chosen web developer to get a quote on this integration and feel free to put them in touch with us (at no extra cost) should they need any guidance. We can offer support but can’t write the code for you because every website/ecommerce platform has a unique set up, and the script needs to be incorporated into your site.
4. Automated Method (Third-Party Subscription House Integration)
What is it: A more specialized approach, whereby we can integrate YUDU Publisher with a third-party subscription house. Subscriber information and permissions are stored on the subscription house's database and YUDU Publisher will check with the subscription house to authenticate access - with this method, subscriber data is not stored on Publisher. We need one of our development team to configure YUDU to correctly communicate with the third-party database. If we already have an integration with the subscription house, this is a quick process. If not, we will need to add the integration to Publisher for which there will be a one-off set up fee.
Pros: Like the YUDU API implementation, this removes the manual management of subscribers and makes life easy for you and the subscriber; everything is handled instantly and automatically.
Cons: It may require contracting one of our developers to work with your web team to set up the integration if it doesn't currently exist.
Cost: The cost can vary depending on the complexity of the integration work. Please provide your subscription house's API docs and a detailed description of the desired user journey and we’ll provide a quote and timeframe. It is a one-off cost for the set-up after which there are no further costs unless there is a change to the integration by the third-party subscription house.
5. Automated Method (FTP CSV upload)
What is it: An automated variation of the bulk csv upload. It’s getting a script to pull data from your database and populate it into a .csv file. This csv file is then uploaded to a separate account on our FTP server where it is processed in a batch.
Pros: A little bit cheaper and quicker to get going than #3. In the past a client has accomplished this on a Woocommerce site with PHP pulling information from the MySQL database, and using a chron job to send that to our FTP server.
Cons: Doesn’t offer all the features the main API route does (option #3). For example it can only grant subscribers access to subscriptions (via a start and end date). It can’t grant access to single-edition purchases. It also requires the csv to be created in the right format. Finally you cannot query data that is sent over. So you can’t check what subscriptions a particular subscriber already has.
Cost: Requires a web developer to be contracted by yourself to ensure your database sends over the correct information to YUDU. These usually charge by hour, and the time it takes one good developer to do this is similar to option #3.