You may desire your users to have access to your system for a specified amount of time after which their security level will be dropped. The users can then follow further instructions to gain access again. This is called subscription mode.

You can assign a date in the user record after which the user will become expired. When the user is expired, their security level is dropped to their expired security level. By dropping their security level, you can perhaps reduce the commands or functions they can access when they logon the system.

Enabling subscription mode is very easy. Load PCBSetup, and select Subscription from the Main Menu. The first option on the screen asks if you wish to enable subscription mode.

If you enable subscription mode, PCBoard will pay attention to the expiration date and will also assign the default expiration length to all new users who call into the system.

When you enable subscription mode, new users will be assigned the default expiration length. However, you may have existing users on the system who logged in before you enabled subscription mode. This is one reason you may need to manually set the expiration dates. Another reason you may need to manually set expiration date is when your users expire and follow the instructions you provide them to renew their subscription

If you need to manually edit the expiration date of a user so it is a non-expiring account, load System Manager, select Users File Maintenance, then Edit Users File. You will now see record number one on your screen.
Next, locate the user name you need to update by pressing ALT-F. Cursor down to the expiration date field and type in the date the user will expire. If you enter 00-00-00, the user will be set to never expire.

Sometimes you may need to modify the expiration date of an entire group of users. Within System Manager there is a function which allows you to change the expiration date of users based on their security level.

To access this function you need to load System Manager, select Users File Maintenance and then select Adjust Expiration Dates. Your screen should resemble the following:

If you want to adjust everyone with a security level between 20 and 30 to an expiration date of 05-05-94, modify the following fields:

Once you press PgDn, all users with a security level between 20 and 30 will be assigned an expiration date of 05-05-93.

If the expiration date in the user record is equal to or prior to the current date, the user is considered expired and will be given the expired security level as shown in the user record by the following field:

Expired Sec :

When a new-user logs into the system, they will be given the default expired security level as defined in PCBSetup | Subscriptions. If you would like to assign a different expired security level to a user, you will need to manually edit the expired security field in the user record.

Another option you can configure within PCBSetup > Subscription is the number of days prior to expiring that users will be warned. For example, if you set this value to 30 and a user is due to expire on 03-31-94 a notification of expiration will be displayed from 03-01-94 all of the way up until the expiration date.

PCBoard provides a file called WARNING which may be edited in PCBSetup > File Locations > Display Files. This is a display file which you can customize to suit your own tastes. As described in the Customizing Your BBS chapter of this manual, you can make security, language, and graphic specific versions of this file because it is a normal display file.

If a user has expired, PCBoard will display the EXPIRED file. This file location can be found in PCBSetup > File Locations > Display Files. Like the WARNING file, you can make security, graphic, and language specific versions of this file.