Administration Area Instructions

Overview

This administration area enables you to control the sale and distribution of premium digital content and subscription services online. As will as control username and password management, password authentication, real-time payment authorizations, & automated recurring billing operations.

The “Customer Database” statement at the top of your Membership Management administration area provides you a fast view of your current user profile activity.

“Total Active” represents the number of users that have a known active account.
“Recurring” represents the number of active users that are setup to be automatically recur billed when their end date is reached.
“Pending” represents the number of active users that have pending (on-hold) status.
“Cancelled” represents the number of active users that have requested cancellation and will not be recur billed when their end date is reached.
“Expired” represents the number of known inactive/expired users in the database.
“Awaiting Status” represents the number of users who’s account status is in flux (where their end date is today & it is unsure if the profile will expire or not that day). These users will be updated within 24 hours, when we know if their profile expired or was extended if recur billed successfully.

* Note: The total number of users in your database is found by adding the “Total Active” number of users to your “Expired” number of users; then add the “Awaiting Status” number if shown.

Edit Area

The Edit function will allow the merchant to list & select a specific customer’s account from the membership management database. This function is best used on small databases (less then 2000 members). If you have an extremely large database, you should use the ‘Search’ function.

To view a customer’s profile, do the following:

Click the ‘Show List’ button
- This will produce a drop down list box containing an alphabetical listing of all members in their database.
- The list is sorted by the customer’s name & case of the customer’s name.
  
  For Example:
  Atom Green
  Lisa Smith
  joe black
  mary white
Select the customer’s name from the list you wish to view.
Click the ‘Edit Customer Database’ button & it will produce the customer’s summery profile.

Search Area

The Search function does exactly as it states. It searches the membership database for the criteria you have specified. It lists the results as multiple summery profiles on the resulting web page. Depending upon the size of your membership database & the complexity of your search criteria, this may take a few minutes to compile the results. By default the criteria specified has to only make a partial match to produce a result.

(For Example: a search on the name ‘al’ can produce information on that have “al, allen, alessandra, Baldwin, etc.).

If you need an exact match, use the ‘Exact Match’ field.

To do a search:

Enter the criteria you require.
Click the ‘Search Customer Database’ button
The resulting web page are summery profiles of customer’s that match your criteria.

For best search results:

Search on partial information. This will result in more matches.
Start your search with as few fields as possible, using vague criteria. This will produce the largest possible matching results.
Press the back button on your browser & further define your search criteria. This will narrow down your results.
Keep doing this until you have narrowed your results to the information you require.

Fraud Database Area

The Fraud Database function will allow you to enter known fraudulent credit card to our master fraud credit card database.

Merchant’s can only add card to the database. To remove a credit card from the database, please contact us through the Helpdesk.

To add a fraudulent credit card to the database:

Enter the credit card number into the field provided
Enter the reason why you are entering this credit card into the fraud database. Please be as specific as possible.
We use this information to allow or deny a credit card’s transaction if the need arises.
Click the ‘Add To Fraud Database’ button

Add Area

The Add function will create a new customer’s membership subscription to the master database.

To add a new membership account:

Enter a unique username for this customer
Click the ‘Add New Customer’ button & a new screen will appear.
Fill in the necessary information for the customer. Necessary fields are listed below. All other fields are optional.
Click the ‘Send Info’ button to save the information to the master database.
If you are make many changes to the membership database it is better that you skip this step. It is recommended that you make all the changes to your master database; then refresh your web site’s database at the end of your work. This will make all the changes to your local database at one time. This is done through the ‘Update’ function in the Membership Administration Area. If you wish to only update this member’s profile in your database proceed to the below steps.

To add only this member into to the local database on your website:

Click the ‘Add To Password Files’ radio button.
Click the ‘Submit Request’ button.
If you get a success message in the new window, you are finished.
If you receive an error message please contact us through the Helpdesk.
Click The ‘Close’ button. (This closes the window.)

6. Click the ‘Go To Main Page’ button at the bottom of this summery profile page.

Necessary fields for a Recur billing account:


Field	Description
Password	This is customer’s password It does not need to be unique & is case sensitive.
Customer Name	This is the name that appears in the ‘Edit’ list box.
Email	This field is used by our attendant functions.
Start Date	Day you wish for them to gain access It must be in MM/DD/YYYY format. [Example: 02/17/2025]
End Date	Date by which the next billing cycle’s payment should be completed by. It must be in MM/DD/YYYY format. [Example: 03/17/2025]
Recurring Fee	This is the dollar amount you wish to rebill the customer each billing cycle.
Card Number	Credit card number.
Expiration Date	The expiration date must be in MM/YY format. [Example: an exp. date of 08/2025 must be written as 08/25]
Billing Cycle	Must be set to anything but “0 Months” (This means our billing system will recur bill the customer ever X time period.)

Necessary fields for a Non-Recur billing account:


Field	Description
Password	This is customer’s password It does not need to be unique & is case sensitive.
Customer Name	This is the name that appears in the ‘Edit’ list box.
Email	This field is used by our attendant functions.
Start Date	Day you wish for them to gain access It must be in MM/DD/YYYY format. [Example: 02/17/2025]
End Date	Date you wish for them to stop access It must be in MM/DD/YYYY format. [Example: 03/17/2025]
Billing Cycle	Must be set to “0 Months” (This means a non-recurring membership)

Update Area

The Update function will manually synchronize your web site’s database with the active username & passwords from the master database. If many of your members are having problems accessing the protected section of your web site, it is recommended you run an update to make sure the most current information is in your local database. This generally resolves most members’ access problems. The function does not need to be run each day. In most cases, our system will refresh your local database once a day and appends to the database as each customer signs up for your membership services.

To run an update:

Enter your FTP username & password in the spaces provided.
- This is NOT your merchant login username & password.
- Your FTP username/password IS the username & password you use when you want upload new web pages to your web site.
- If you should require this information, please contact your website hosting company.
- All setups completed on/after March 2005 & all older setups which have been retrofitted, may opt leave the FTP username/password fields blank. In which case, our system will automatically use the FTP username/password info we already have on file.
Click the ‘Update Password Access Files’ button
If the correct information is entered, our service will be able to successfully FTP into your web site & update the necessary database files.

Depending upon the speed of your web site’s server & the size of your membership database, this process may take anywhere from a few seconds, up to a few minutes.
When the process completes, you will see a message stating either success or failure of the database update.
Click the ‘Click Here to Return to Administration Area’ link to return to the main admin area.
If there was a problem with the update, please contact us through the Helpdesk.

Database Export Area

The Database Export functions will FTP or allow you to download a delimited text version of your membership database.

Please Note: When exporting the database, the credit card number field may be unencrypted. Please be careful not to let this information fall in the wrong hands.

Also as a reminder, Email is not a secure way to send private & banking information. Encrypt all credit card numbers & private information before emailing it to anyone.

To export the database:

Select the ‘Output Format’ you wish to transfer the database by.

- ‘FTP’ will upload the file to your web site’s protected database directory.
- ‘Download’ will allows you to download the file to your computer.
Select the ‘Data Delimiter’ format you want the data within your exported database file to be in.
If you have selected to FTP the file to your server, enter your FTP username & password in the spaces provided.
- This is NOT your merchant login username & password.
- Your FTP username/password is the username & password you use when you want upload new web pages to your web site.
- If you should require this information, please contact your website hosting company.
If you have selected to FTP the file to your server, in most cases the ‘File Directory’ & ‘File Name’ fields do not require changing.

If you have problems exporting the database or finding the exported file, please contact us through the Helpdesk.
Select if you want all customers, only active or only expired customers to be exported.
Select (check) the fields you wish to have included in the exported database file.
Deselect (uncheck) the fields you wish to exclude from the exported database file.
Press the ‘Export & Upload Member Database’ button.
If you have selected to FTP the file to your server, the file should now reside in the database directory of your web site. To get the file to your computer, you need to FTP into the site & download the file to your hard drive.

If you selected to download the file, you will be presented with a link and the instructions on how to correctly save the file to your computer’s hard drive.

IP/Domain Blocking Area

You use this feature to manually add & remove IP addresses from your Bandwidth Sentinel’s Blocked IP Address list. All IP addresses/subnets listed in this section will receive a ‘403 Forbidden’ error message from your web site’s protected membership section when they attempt to login.

This feature will not prevent people from seeing the publicly viewable sections of your web site. Further, this feature does not prevent people from purchasing subscriptions. This feature only prevents that specified IP addressed from logging into the password protected sections of your web site.

This feature only appears for those merchants which use certain versions of our Bandwidth Sentinel on their web sites.

To block an IP Address or IP Subnet.

Enter the IP address or IP submit into the “Blocking IP/Domain” field
Select the “Add” radio button
Click on the “Update IP/Domain Block List” button.
The IP address is instantly added to the blocked IP address list and is immediately denied access to the site until the IP is unblocked.

To unblock an IP Address or IP Subnet.

Enter the IP address or IP submit into the “Blocking IP/Domain” field
Select the “Remove” radio button
Click on the “Update IP/Domain Block List” button.
The IP address is instantly removed from the blocked IP address list and will be prompted to login normally.

Every once in a while it may be a good idea to clean house and unblock all the IP addresses & subnets. This process will help prevent support requests after new subscribers are denied access after newly signing up.

Enter a “*” (without the quotes) into the “Blocking IP/Domain” field
Select the “Remove” radio button
Click on the “Update IP/Domain Block List” button.
All IP addresses & subnets are instantly unblocked and will be prompted to login normally.

The “View IP/Domain Block List” button will allow you to review all currently blocked IP addresses & subnets. This provides you a list of all blocked IP addresses with an NSLOOKUP for each IP address. This in many cases helps you identify & verify the IPs and companies whom the IP belongs to. This list will take several minutes to generate, so please wait when doing this operation. The longer the list, the more NSLOOKUPs needed and will take longer to process the full listing.

The “Rebuild .htaccess Files” button will rebuild the .htaccess files in your site’s membership areas. The forcing of this operation is rarely required, however if you somehow overwrote the .htaccess file when publishing documents to your membership section of your site or if customers are not being prompted to login, clicking this button will force the system to dynamically rebuild the .htaccess file from our internal .htaccess file template. This effect is instant.

* Note: Rebuilding of the .htaccess files is not necessary when blocking or unblocking IP addresses, as our system automatically performs this operation during the Block IP address Add/Remove operation.

Web900 Area

This feature allows for administration & support for IBill’s Web900 pin code verification and distribution interface. Merchants are still required to have an account with IBill’s Web 900 services to obtain & distribute the pin codes. Our membership management service is able to verify the pin codes provided by IBill and control the customer’s membership activity (including username/password activation).

This feature will only appear for those merchants which have elected to use IBill’s Web900 services with our Membership Management services. To have this feature activated, please make your request via the online Helpdesk.

To upload a Web900 Pin Code file:

Under the “Choose File:” field, enter the full path to the Web900 pin code file on your computer that will be uploaded. To make step this easier, click the “Browse” button and simply navigate/select the file using your mouse.
Under the “Pin Cost no $:” field, enter the dollar amount each pin is worth. The price you provide should match how much you are charging the customer via the Web900 service.
Click the “Upload Per-Paid PIN #’s” button.
The file is uploaded from your computer to our secure server and checked for correct format.
If the file is accepted by our server, our system will import/append the new pin codes into the database for that specific pin code price.

For additional information regarding setting up Web900 with your web site & our membership services, please see QA number “QA20011210175236” in the online FAQ.

Import Area

This feature allows you to upload a file of users to be imported or updated to your Membership Management database.

To import a group of users:

Follow the instructions under the “Required Format” link, to create a correctly formatted file contains the users you want to import or update.
Under the “File” field, enter the full path to the file on your computer that will be uploaded. To make step this easier, click the “Browse” button and simply navigate/select the file using your mouse.
If you are updating existing users & adding new users, select (check) the “Check to allow update if record already exists.” check box. This feature provides our system the permission to overwrite a profile in your Membership Management database if the profile already exists.

If you are importing ONLY new users, DO NOT select this option. This will protect your existing profiles and will import only those new users, which do not already exist in the database. (Existence of a user is based on the username field.)
Click the “Upload User Database” button.
The file is uploaded from your computer to our secure server and checked for correct format.
If the file is accepted by our server, our system will import each user profile from your uploaded file & show you a success response for each imported profile.
When the import process has completed, the users that were imported &/or updated successfully will instantly appear in your database. All other rejected user profiles will need to be reviewed, fixed and then reimported in a new import file.

Payment Plans Area

These features are for creation, updating, viewing and deleting payment plans.

The payment plans defined here are only used when using our Smart Screen & Direct HTML methods of payment. These methods use our secure billing pages to accept & process your customer’s credit card & billing information.

For those merchants using an API or another more advanced method of payment processing (including any API, Cold Fusion Tags, Remote Auth, etc.), you will need to defined the payment plan parameters in your POST to our system from your secure be server.

This feature will only appear for those Membership Management setups that support a merchant definable payment plan structure. For those merchants which do not see this feature, you need to make your payment plans change requests via the online Helpdesk.

Before making changes to your payment plans, you need to have an understanding of how we structure the payment plans and how they are recur billed. Please read the “Membership Management Payment Plans Setup Instructions” document before proceeding.

For the novice user, using our online payment plans wizard is your easiest way to implement changes to your offered payment plans. Simply click the “Payment Plans Wizard” button to access the wizard.

For those advanced users, you can download the payment plans file to your computer, make changes to the file offline & then upload the file back to our server. We HIGHLY recommend backing up your payment plans file before making any changes.

To upload the payment plans file:

Under the “File” field, enter the full path to the file on your computer that will be uploaded. To make step this easier, click the “Browse” button and simply navigate/select the file using your mouse.
Click the “Upload Payment Plans” button to upload the file to our server.
. The file will saved and then our system will perform a view operation so you can see the plans that are available.

To download the payment plans file:

Right click the “Download Payment Plans” link and choose the “Save …” option.
Save the file as usual to the location on your hard drive.

To view your payment plans file, simple click the “View Current Payment Plans” button.

Graphs Area

The Graphs function will allow the merchant to graphically show Recur Billing & Membership Activity status. This is done though bar graphs. Graphs can be broken down by Daily or Monthly intervals over a specified time period. Using the graph function is the easiest way to check on your recur billing.

To produce a graph:

Select the type of interval you wish to see.
- ‘Daily’ will show the total for each day
- ‘Monthly’ will show the total for each month
Select the database type you wish to view.
- ‘Billing’ will produce a graph which shows the total recur billing done over the specified time period.
- ‘Customers’ will produce a graph which shows total recur billed, new memberships & memberships ended over the specified time period.
Select the start date (month & year)
- This will be the starting time frame for the graph.
select the end date (month & year)
- This will be the ending time frame for the graph.
- The graph function will include this month.
Click the ‘Generate Graph’ button
When you have finished viewing the graph, click the ‘Main Page’ button.

Logs Area

The Logs functions will allow you to easily view the billing history of a member in your membership database.

To view a customer’s billing history:

Put in the customer’s username in the field provided
Click the ‘View Customer Logs’ button