How does the Magnet system determine if a user is a "current" member who has access to member-only privileges. Here is the way the system logic works:

First, the system looks at whether a user's "Active/Inactive" field is set to "inactive." If it is set to "inactive," then the user does not have access to members-only functionality on your system. (More on this in a moment as to why we have this field here.)

If that field is set to "Active," though, then the system looks at the "Membership Level" field and the "Expiration Date" field. If the "Membership Level" field has a valid "membership level" number and the "Expiration Date" is sometime after "today," then the user is recognized as a member. Otherwise, the person is not recognized as a member.

Why do we have the "Active/Inactive" field?

This is a convenience for you. Let's say that you have a person who signs up for membership but you realize that they _may_ not really be entitled to sign up or perhaps they have "misbehaved" in some way, and at least temporarily you want to block them from having member privileges while you investigate. The "Active/Inactive" field lets you do so without having to change their membership status fields by just toggling this switch to "inactive."