Group subscriptions¶

Target Audience: Users, Customer service

Introduction¶

A group subscription lets a single subscription grant access to several people — for example a company that pays for one subscription and wants a number of employees to read with it. Each person is added as a member, and every member gets their own access — and, when the subscription includes a print product, their own print delivery. Members always get exactly what the subscription's package contains. A member's access follows the subscription: it is valid for as long as the underlying subscription is valid.

Group functionality is only available when the group subscriptions feature is enabled for the organisation. A subscription is marked as a group subscription when it is created (see Create a group subscription); its detail view then shows a Subscribers link in the action menu for managing members.

Group members vs. sharing

Group membership is a different mechanism from package sharing. Sharing ("share with a friend") continues to work unchanged for individual subscriptions. A subscription is either managed as an individual subscription (with sharing) or as a group subscription (with members) — package sharing is not available for group subscriptions.

Create a group subscription¶

Group-ness is chosen when the subscription is created. On the first step of the create subscription flow, enable the Create as group subscription toggle. The toggle only appears when the group subscriptions feature is enabled for the organisation. The resulting subscription is a group subscription from the start and its detail view immediately shows the Subscribers link.

For a group subscription, the last step of the flow differs from an ordinary subscription: there is no delivery address to enter, since the owner gets no delivery of their own. The members' delivery addresses are entered when they are added.

The first invoice of a group subscription¶

When the group subscription has a later start date, it is handled like any other subscription starting in the future: it waits as a pending subscription, and on the start date the first invoice is sent automatically and every member gets their access and deliveries.

When it starts today, it does not send an invoice when it is created. It is created in the Incomplete state and gives no access to anyone until the first invoice has been sent. The customer's subscription list marks it as Incomplete, and the subscription's page and its Subscribers view show a reminder.

Add the members you have (one by one or by bulk import). Members added while the subscription is incomplete get their access and their deliveries once the invoice has been sent.
Choose Send invoice in the Subscribers view when you are ready. The first invoice is created and sent, the subscription becomes active from today, and every member gets their access and, for a print product, their delivery.

Members can be added and removed at any time — while the subscription is incomplete, pending or active alike. Nothing is locked once the subscription has started.

If Do not send invoice to customer was chosen when creating the subscription, Send invoice still creates the first invoice, but it is not delivered to the customer — the same as for an ordinary subscription.

A group subscription can only be paid by invoice. When the toggle is enabled, the next step only offers the invoice payment periods.

The Subscribers view¶

A group subscription's action menu shows a Subscribers (N) link, where N is the current member count. It opens the group overview, where you manage members and adjust pricing.

The overview lists every member with their e-mail address and name. Members have no per-member validity dates or status of their own — every member's access is derived from the subscription's own validity.

Subscribers across the account¶

The customer's account menu also has a Subscribers entry (shown only when the group subscriptions feature is enabled). It lists all group members across every group subscription the account owns, in one searchable table — search by member name, e-mail, delivery recipient name or subscription number, sort by column, and edit or remove any member directly from the list (each row shows the subscription and its subscription number, and the member's e-mail and name). Use this when you need to find or manage a member without first opening the specific subscription they belong to.

Add a member¶

From the group overview, choose Add member and follow the steps:

E-mail — enter the member's e-mail address. Every member needs one. You do not need to create an account first: if no account exists for that address, one is created automatically and the new member is e-mailed a link to set their password so they can sign in. The confirmation step shows whether an existing account was matched or a new one will be created.
Distribution — when the subscription includes a print product, enter the member's delivery address. This step is skipped when the subscription is digital only.
Confirm — review and save.

A member's access starts as soon as they are added and follows the subscription — there are no per-member start/end dates to set. When the subscription includes a print product, the member's distribution is activated as part of adding them.

Edit or remove a member¶

Edit opens the member's distribution management. The receiver is fixed once created; from the edit view you can edit the delivery address and manage the member's distribution — pause (intermission), set a temporary address, stop and restart — the same actions available on the subscription's distribution list, scoped to that one member. The member's own Remove action is also available here, in the options (⋯) menu at the top right.
Remove permanently removes the member and stops their distribution. It can be triggered from the Subscribers overview, the account-wide Subscribers list, or the member's edit page. The change is recorded in the subscription's history, but the member is not kept — to re-add someone you removed by mistake, add them again.

Bulk import members¶

To add many members at once, use Bulk import from the group overview. Download the CSV template, fill it in, upload it, and review the preview. When you confirm, the import is queued and processed in the background, so you do not have to wait for large files to finish. A scheduled job picks the import up shortly after you confirm, so there may be a brief delay before it starts. You are returned to the group overview, where a progress banner shows the import advancing (rows processed, and any errors so far); when it finishes, the banner clears and the members list reflects the result. You can leave the page — the import keeps running — and the banner reappears if you return while it is still in progress.

The template is semicolon-separated (so address fields may contain commas). Its columns are:

email;distribution_first_name;distribution_last_name;distribution_co_address;distribution_company_name;distribution_company_reference;distribution_company_department;distribution_street;distribution_zip_code;distribution_city;distribution_country_code;distribution_method;distribution_copies

Every row needs an email. When the subscription includes a print product, every row also needs a delivery address: distribution_street, distribution_zip_code, distribution_city, distribution_country_code and distribution_method are all required. When the subscription is digital only, leave the distribution columns empty.

The upload must be a .csv file and is limited to about 400 rows per import. A file that is the wrong type or too large is rejected right on the upload page, so split larger member lists into several imports or contact support for a one-off larger load.

The bulk-import page also shows a CSV import history: every past (and in-progress) import for the subscription, newest first, with its status and counts. Open an entry to see its detail — the rows that failed (listed first, so they can be acted on) and the rows that were created. Both tables show at most the first 50 rows, while the counts above them stay accurate for the whole file.

Pricing¶

The group overview shows the subscription's current price. When the member count or the agreement changes and the price needs to be adjusted, use the adjust price link (available when subscription terms are enabled) to set a subscription-term price override for the subscription.

Whether a subscription is a group subscription is decided when it is created. The subscription's own distribution and package sharing entry points are therefore hidden for group subscriptions in both the admin and the customer portals — distribution is managed per member (from the Subscribers view, see Edit or remove a member), and package sharing does not apply.

The subscription owner does not get access to the content through a group subscription, digital or print. Only the members do. The owner can be added as a member like anyone else, and then gets access as that member. The members also receive the paper instead of the owner. As a result:

creating a group subscription sets up no delivery for the owner,
changing the delivery address on the subscription itself does not change any member's delivery address. Edit a member's address from their edit view instead, and
when a deactivated group subscription is reactivated, the members' deliveries resume. No delivery resumes for the owner.

Changing the package of a group subscription¶

When a group subscription changes to another package or campaign (for example an upgrade or downgrade, or a campaign moving on to its package), it stays a group subscription. All members, and their deliveries, move along to the new subscription automatically. Nobody needs to be added again. If the new package has no print product, the members keep their access but their deliveries end.