# How to know Discourse user is unapproved in Wordpress?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-know-discourse-user-is-unapproved-in-wordpress/193228
**Category:** WordPress
**Created:** [June 9, 2021, 12:22am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-know-discourse-user-is-unapproved-in-wordpress/193228 "2021-06-09T00:22:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Himanshu\_Singh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Himanshu_Singh)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2021, 12:22am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-know-discourse-user-is-unapproved-in-wordpress/193228/1 "2021-06-09T00:22:50Z")
I want to create a user automatically in Discourse when new registration happens in WordPress but I don’t want to give them access before they complete an application form.
I am able to use `sync on login` and `must approve users` settings to achieve most of this but I don’t know how to retrieve if the user is approved in Discourse?
Is there a WP user meta field that Discourse uses to store Discourse user approved status? If not, do I need to use an API to get the information from Discourse?
My goal - I want to show a button on my dashboard in WP with a dynamic link that changes based on approved or unapproved status.
Unapproved user - dynamic link directs to application form on WP
Approved user - dynamic link directs to the discourse community.
I looked at a few posts but could not find a solution. Help appreciated!
---
### Author:  [@Himanshu\_Singh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Himanshu_Singh)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2021, 11:25pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-know-discourse-user-is-unapproved-in-wordpress/193228/2 "2021-06-09T23:25:14Z")
I figured out how to make this happen by writing a [data explorer](https://meta.discourse.org/t/32566?silent=true) query and calling it via API. It works fine but now I am making a call between two systems which is obviously slower than having the data saved in WP.
If the page load is slow, I would use a hook to store the approval data in user custom field on my own. Before I go ahead, it would be good to know if WP-Discourse Plugin already does that.
---
### Author:  [@angus](https://meta.discourse.org/u/angus)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2021, 12:15am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-know-discourse-user-is-unapproved-in-wordpress/193228/3 "2021-06-14T00:15:29Z")
Hey @Himanshu_Singh, the short answer is that the [WP Discourse](https://github.com/discourse/wp-discourse) plugin does not store the approval status of the Discourse user.
I’d suggest you take a look at the `wpdc_after_sync_sso` action, which is fired after the user record is synced after a user logs into Wordpress.
If you stick a log in there, e.g.
```plaintext
function wpdc_after_sync_sso_callback($discourse_user, $user_id) {
error_log(print_r($discourse_user, true));
}
add_action( 'wpdc_after_sync_sso', 'wpdc_after_sync_sso_callback', 10, 2 );
```
You’ll see that the `discourse_user` object contains the approval status of the user, e.g.
```plaintext
stdClass Object
(
[id] => 43
[username] => angus4
[name] => angus4
...
[approved] =>
)
```
Which you could then store yourself in a user custom field and use to create your dynamic link.
---
### Author:  [@Himanshu\_Singh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Himanshu_Singh)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2021, 2:52pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-know-discourse-user-is-unapproved-in-wordpress/193228/4 "2021-06-15T14:52:46Z")
Thank you, Angus. Your solution is elegant. I followed a slightly longer path -
1. I used the [Data explorer](https://meta.discourse.org/t/32566?silent=true) API to get the approval status
2. Link it to the template\_redirect hook to check the approval status on login
3. Update the custom field in WP on login
4. Prevent the API to run again if the user is approved.
```plaintext
add_action('template_redirect', 'update_discourse_approval_status',1);
function update_discourse_approval_status () {
global $post;
$post_slug = $post->post_name;
if ($post_slug == 'page-slug'){
$current_user_id = get_current_user_id();
$approval_status_stored_in_wp = get_user_meta($current_user_id, 'custom-field', true);
if( $approval_status_stored_in_wp != 1) {
$user_discourse_id = (int)get_user_meta($current_user_id,'discourse_sso_user_id')[0];
//api credentials,
$api_key = 'api-key';
$api_username = 'name';
$discourse_user_param_string = 'params={"user_param":';
$discourse_user_param_string .= '"';
$discourse_user_param_string .= $user_discourse_id;
$discourse_user_param_string .= '"}';
//header is a must for Discourse API.
$headers = array("Content-Type: multipart/form-data;","Api-Key:$api_key","Api-Username:$api_username",);
$url = 'https://community.showprowess.com/admin/plugins/explorer/queries//run';
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url );
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POST, true );
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true );
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers );
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $discourse_user_param_string);
$result = curl_exec( $ch );
if ( curl_errno( $ch ) !== 0 ) {
// Handle error, call curl_close( $ch ) and return.
echo 'error';
curl_close ($ch);
return;
}
curl_close( $ch );
$decoded_result = json_decode( $result, true );
$user_approved = $decoded_result['rows'][0][0];
$updated = update_user_meta( $current_user_id, 'custom-field', $user_approved);
}
} //close if statement to check data stored in custom field
} // close if to check the right page
?>
```