Changing user role in WooCommerce on purchase

Question

I'm working on WooCommerce with two product types. I need some of them ($products_to_check) to create an specific role account (subscriber) and the rest of them another one (customer, which is the default one for WooCommerce).

The thing is, if I have an user who's already a costumer, I don't want him to change its role to subscriber (so I check if he's logged in, which mean he's not a new costumer and have a previous defined role). On the other hand, if a subscriber purchase one of the products not included in $products_to_check, he should get a role upgrade (from subscriber to costumer).

This is my function, which is not working but I don't really know why.

add_action( 'woocommerce_order_status_completed', 'change_role_on_purchase' );
function change_role_on_purchase( $order_id ) {
    $order = wc_get_order( $order_id );
    $items = $order->get_items();

    $products_to_check = array( ... );

    $user = new WP_User( $order->user_id );
    $user_meta = get_userdata( $order->user_id );
    $user_roles = $user_meta->roles;

    foreach ( $items as $item ) {
        if ( $order->user_id > 0 && in_array( $item['product_id'], $products_to_check ) ) {
                if (!is_user_logged_in()){
                        $user->set_role( 'subscriber' );
                }
        }
        elseif ( $order->user_id > 0 && !(in_array( $item['product_id'], $products_to_check)) ) {
                if (is_user_logged_in() && in_array('subscriber', $user_roles)){
                        $user->set_role( 'customer' );
                }
        }
    }
}

I'd really appreciate any help on this issue. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

There are several things you need to take note here.

1. Make sure you hook is invoked after or override the WooCommerce's or any other plugins' hooks that set user roles.
2. Do not use your log in condition to check if users are new. user_register is the hook to use for newly registered users.
3. Your role logic loop here is also flawed. You are iterating through all product orders and attempts to set role on each iteration. This obviously means that each iteration can change the user role if condition satisfies and can override the previous ones. (Though it seems like you are hoping your logged in condition will do the trick, I think that's very error prone even if it could maybe work.)
4. The WooCommerce subscription plugin actually sets the subscriber role to users that have active subscriptions and customer role for expired subscription users. This is configureable but I think that's a more clear assignment.

So first make sure your hook triggers after or overrides the WooCommerce user role hooks. And I think you can do away completely with the new or old user logic, as the only important thing is whether they purchased a product that's going to upgrade them; if not, they should have the default role.