phpCOIN version 1.2.

2 Installation and Configuration Guide

Written and edited by William Jordan

Installation procedure based on the 'install' guide by Norm (a.k.a. trminatr in the phpCOIN Support Forums)

Copyright 2005

Table of Contents:
Install phpCOIN v1.2.2: _______________________________________________________________ 3 Prepare your MySQL Database ________________________________________________________ 3 Download and configure phpCOIN before you upload ______________________________________ 3 Upload your new folder to your host using FTP____________________________________________ 4 Finish Installation ___________________________________________________________________ 5 Admin Login Other Installs might only take you to the main page____________________________ 6 Configure phpCOIN v1.2.2: ____________________________________________________________ 9 Step 1 - Change Company Information _________________________________________________ 10 Step 2 - Edit Server Info _____________________________________________________________ 12 Step 3 - Edit SiteInfo pages __________________________________________________________ 13 Step 4 - Edit eMail Contacts __________________________________________________________ 16 Step 5 - Create Products _____________________________________________________________ 17 Step 6 - Create vendors______________________________________________________________ 19 Step 7 - Create paylinks _____________________________________________________________ 21 Step 8 - Add Metatags ______________________________________________________________ 23 Step 9 Invoice/HelpDesk Automation _________________________________________________ 26 Step 10 Change the Fine Print _______________________________________________________ 28 Step 11 Make Order Process Changes _________________________________________________ 29 Step 12 - Test everything ____________________________________________________________ 34 Step 13 - Add existing clients via the order process ________________________________________ 35 Step 14 Turn off Demo and/or Test Mode______________________________________________ 36 Conclusion:_________________________________________________________________________ 37 Appendix: __________________________________________________________________________ 38 Upgrade phpCOIN:_________________________________________________________________ 38 Changing Themes: _________________________________________________________________ 39 Working with the FAQ System: _______________________________________________________ 39

Install phpCOIN v1.2.2:

This guide is designed to help you get version 1.2.2 of phpCOIN installed and configured for simple operation of your business. Youll find this guide is structured in a simple step-by-step fashion with emphasis placed upon necessary changes and how to make them. Before starting there are some tools you will need and some expectations of your ability. You must have a good text editor (pspad - http://www.pspad.com or ultraedit), some understanding of PHP & SQL, it is also assumed that you have a good knowledge of web-based applications. The manual install is the preferred method of all as it ensures that you have the actual phpCOIN files. If you install this software from anywhere other than phpCOINs website it is recommended that you check the version and if necessary upgrade. You can obtain the latest version from here: http://www.phpcoin.com/auxpage.php?page=download Although the first part of the install requires some manual intervention phpCOIN is relatively easy to install. A working install of phpCOIN requires the following process:

Prepare your MySQL Database

You will need to create one MySQL database for phpCOIN to use. If you do not have the ability to create a database, you will need to consult your hosting provider or server administrator. You will create a database name, a database username (a user of the database) and a password. Generally people have access to phpMyAdmin or other such web-based interfaces to help them work with their MySQL server. You can also do this directly from the command line on a Linux/Unix or similar servers. With a Windows Server you can use the MySQL Administrator. When you create the password be sure to use at least 6 characters and do not use common dictionary names. For example phpcoin is a bad password, 1q$Q76 is a better one. Be sure to write the information you enter down as you will need it for the next step.

Download and configure phpCOIN before you upload

Go to phpCOINs download page http://www.phpcoin.com/auxpage.php?page=download and get the Full Package install of version 1.2.2.

Click the zip

link to download phpCOIN to your desktop.

Figure 1 - This is a screenshot of the download from IE6 on Windows XP Pro so yours may differ.

Make a new folder on your desktop and extract the phpCOIN zip file to this new folder. Youll find this document and others in the coin_docs folder. In the root of the folder you will find the config.php. You now need to change three fields in this file. Windows can make things look confusing when opening this file for editing. Please use a good editing tool like pspad or similar. We will now enter the information we used when configuring the MySQL database earlier.

Note: If you are using cPanel to create the database, remember to always append the database name and username with your cPanel username. i.e.: username_databasename, username_databaseusername. Once you have added the correct info please be sure to save the changes. Continue to the next step.

Upload your new folder to your host using FTP

Login to your web space using your favorite FTP software. You can either upload your new folder as a new directory in your current www (or public html folder) directory, or

upload only the contents to make phpCOIN your default website. If you want phpCOIN to be your default website be sure to delete any index.html/php files first. Make sure to upload image files in Binary mode and all other files in ASCII mode. Once the upload is complete, we can continue on to the installation.

Finish Installation
Open your favorite Internet browser and choose the appropriate link: http://yourdomain.com/coin_setup/setup.php Or if you uploaded the entire folder, then of course use this link: http://yourdomain.com/foldername/coin _setup/setup.php If all information is correct with your database username and password, you will be prompted to enter your database password to complete the installation.

The installation process will now complete and you should be at the Company Information page if so please proceed to Step 1 Change Company Information on page 10. If not please continue reading If you dont see the Company Info page then the button will be displayed at the bottom of the screen. During testing 90% of the time once the install completed it ended at the edit Company Info page. In 10% of the cases the result was as described below. Click on the admin button, and login with the username webmaster, and your MySQL database password. You have now installed phpCOIN please proceed to Step 1 Change Company Information on page 10 to start the configuring phpCOIN.

Admin Login Other Installs might only take you to the main page
In some cases especially with other types of installs you are taken to the main page. So youll have to login into the Admin section manually.

If you type your admin id and password into this box you will be taken to the Client Login page below. This error is because phpCOIN defaults to expecting a Client ID & Password. There are two easy ways to avoid this problem: 1) One is to simply click the login button It will take you to the screen on the next page 2) You could also type this link into your URL bar yourdomain.com/phpcoinlocation/login.php?w= admin&o=login If you choose option 2 youll go directly to the Admin login. If you choose option 1 or tried logging in at the main page youll get this screen:

From this screen you click the Admin button to get to the Admin login screen below:

Now type in your Admin ID & password, click Log In and youll see this screen:

This is the Admin Summary page to access the Admin Menu page click on the Admin button in the upper right. Here is the Administrators Menu screen:

From here you can access all of phpCOINs functions, operations and content and make the necessary changes for your business.

Configure phpCOIN v1.2.2:

This next section deals with the changes you must make to the system and some of its files before launching your install of phpCOIN. Please note that the first step is crucial as we sometimes get calls and emails asking about someone elses business. This is because our contact info is on a companys website instead of their own. On occasion we have even received cheques; some of them are for $500 & $600 dollars.

Step 1 - Change Company Information

Enter the Parameters area from the Admin menu: Click on the parameters link and youll be taken to the editor area. For our purposes choose user from Group and click Do It. The resulting screen is this one:

Now you will need to click on the Edit links beside the various elements. If you click on Company Info 01: Name youll get this screen on the next page. Note its format most of the variable editing screens are similar.

In the Value: portion you will enter your Companys name then click save; nothing else needs to be touched. Repeat this process for the remaining values. In the Parameters Section there are many other values that you will want to change so you can decide at this point to look up those or proceed to Step 2. Well be coming back here in later steps but for now we are done. Note: To return to the Admin Menu click the button from any page.

Step 2 - Edit Server Info

Your select Server Info from the Admin Menu this will take you to the Server Info editor. Two servers are predefined already the names are alpha & beta but could anything. You can skip this step if you dont provide web hosting services.

As always you have the choice of adding a new server or editing an existing one. We are going to edit Alpha in this example. You might have more than 2 servers but the process of adding isnt significantly different than the changes youll make to an existing one so this example should suffice for both situations.

The server name is whatever you call you server however its IP address and name server (DNS) entries are important so make sure they are correct. The control panel URL is so you can log into the server. For users of WHM/cPanel its the URL to your WHM account. If you use H-Sphere or Plesk or other product the URL is your admin area where you manage accounts etc. It is not the URL to your website control panel (cPanel or similar) for managing your website.

Once completed with your changes move on to Step 3 by clicking the

button.

Step 3 - Edit SiteInfo pages

From the CONTENT section of the Admin Menu select SiteInfo Edit. This is will take you to the SiteInfo editor: You will notice there are 9 pages that are predefined. You will use the same procedure described below to edit all of these pages as required for your purposes. You can also choose to turn off pages that arent relevant.

In this example well only be dealing with the Index page please select 001-index from the drop down list. This will bring up the Edit SiteInfo Entry page (see next page). While we will only dealing with the Index page in this step you must add your content to the policy pages as none is provided. This is due to the fact that such policies are affected by the laws of your country and are therefore not universal nor necessarily enforceable everywhere. Once you have completed your edits you then decide if more pages are needed. The button you see on many pages throughout phpCOIN is used for this purpose. The Edit SiteInfo Entry screen (see next page) is used for editing existing pages and is similar to the format used for creating new ones. To change the text of the index page, which by default states: Welcome to your phpcoin v1.2.2 install at www.yourdomain.com. Installation should be completed, so be sure to read all associated docs. Your administrator username is webmaster and your password is your database password ~ you should login and change the text of this page immediately. Thank you for trying out phpcoin.

 you would change the Code: portion accordingly. You can enter plain text (phpCOINs, or the theme you choose, style sheet will handle it) or HTML code here but not PHP or other such code.

You may notice that Status: is set to ON naturally setting this to OFF means the page will not display. It is therefore a better idea to edit the default Index page rather than create a new one. But for other pages you do not require you can simply select them from the SiteInfo editor and change their status to OFF. This area is perhaps the most important because it directly affects what content the public sees. Please ensure you are comfortable with everything being displayed before proceeding to the next step.

As a side note you should be aware of the Components Section of phpCOIN and how it relates to the SiteInfo Edit section. First Components contains all the pages pre-built and defined in phpCOIN but only control who sees them (Admin and/or User), what their Title is and such. However it does not contain the content of those pages. That is what SiteInfo Edit does as we discussed earlier in this step. The Components section is also used for working with Modules and Addons and for creating AUXillary Pages. These two items arent discussed as steps in this Manual but you can find some information about them in the phpCOIN Forums and Docs sites. For newly created pages you might want to create a Component equivalent especially if the Title of these pages is important. Title here refers to the text that displays in the upper most section of a browser; commonly referred to as the Title Bar. Below is a title bar from Internet Explorer - you can read what website you are at and in this case what specific forum topic you are looking at.

In the Components section once you have selected the page to edit or created a new one the screen below is what youll see. In Page Title: you will enter what text you wish to appear in a browsers title bar.

Click the

button to continue.

Step 4 - Edit eMail Contacts

From the EMAIL section of the Admin Menu select eMail Contacts. There are four email contacts by default within phpCOIN. You need to change these to match your own email addresses. Like in other steps there are multiple items to edit. Again this example will only show one of them but you must change all four accordingly. Please select Billing for the drop down list. In this example we are assuming that you already have a billing@yourdomianname.com set-up and will want to use it.

You could if you choose change the Name: to anything you like a person or Billing Department. The Email portion by default is billing@yourdomain again this could a specific persons e-mail address or the word billing in your language, whatever you choose. Likewise you can leave the other email names: Orders, Support & Webmaster alone or change them to any e-mail address you wish. Just make sure that the e-mail addresses used actually exist. Again if need be you can add more e-mail contacts than the four defined. To do this click and create the new contact be sure to click save once completed. The create new entry screen is similar to the editor screen shot above. eMail Templates is not discussed in this guide but you might want to look at them before proceeding to the next step. The default ones are generally appropriate for most purposes but if you arent running a web hosting service you may want to edit them accordingly. Further help on this subject can be found on the main Documents website http://docs.phpcoin.com and in the Support forums http://forums.phpcoin.com. Click the button to Continue.

Step 5 - Create Products

You access the Products editor from the Admin Menu:

button to create a new product or the edit ( You can either click the to change a product. In this example well edit Sample Product 01:

) button

As you can see there are several options and all of them are required. However, taxes and groups can be either selected or not selected also the parameters for web hosting can be left at zero if they arent applicable. It is a good idea to name your products keeping in mind that you might want to sort later. Regardless of the kinds of products you are going to sell, web site hosting or clothes, youll want to make sure like products are named alike. Like other items in phpCOIN, products can be turn on or off. Also the group function can be used to determine what clients (also has the group function) see what products. If you decide to use the Group function then Client Scope: should be set accordingly. By default it is set to All Visitors. There are 3 choices for Client Scope: and all are pretty much self-explanatory. Choose the one most appropriate for your purposes or leave alone if unsure. If you are providing web hosting servers then the Domain Type: options are obvious. The best choice for non-web hosting users of phpCOIN is set this to n/a and skip the remaining choices. You can now save your newly created product and edit the second sample and then create more as required. Otherwise choose the most appropriate value. These choices were created based on the needs of the original creator of phpCOIN and you may not require the options. For instance you could set this product to Domain - Hosted and still let customers who will only Park their domain use it. As for the remaining sections they can be set using the numbers you have defined for your hosting services. Although an explanation is not required Domains: is the number of domain names your product allows to be hosted. The same goes for Sub Domains, Databases and Mail Boxes (POP). The exceptions are the Disk Space and Traffic/BW variables as both of these are the number of megabits given to each. Now that this product is completed click Save and either edit the second sample and/or create new products as required. We are done with this step please click the button to Continue.

Step 6 - Create vendors

There are 2 pre-defined vendors Pay Pal & Credit Card. Credit Card uses 2Checkouts payment service. However, you can add any payment method or provider you wish. To start adding your own Vendors, select Vendors from the Products section of the Admin menu.

Please select Paypal from the list of existing Vendors. If you plan on using Paypal and/or 2Checkout then you might want to skip ahead to the next step and make the pay links. However, we are going to take a look at the Paypal Vendor (or payment method) to help us understand the process of editing an existing one or adding a new one.

Vendors are basically your third party billing solution. For example, Paypal is a vendor. It might be easier to think of Vendors as payment methods for instance Cheque/Money Order would be a Vendor although it is more precisely a payment method. The most important part of Vendor creation are the Buy Return Param Name and Value variables. These are usually specified by your billing vendor as a name and value that will be passed back upon a successful payment. In your Pay Link you must ensure to use the same Name and Value in your return code. This is will make more sense when you make your first pay links. Again you will notice that you have the option of turning your Vendor options on or off, and of course delete Vendors. The URL and notes field are for information purposes only and are not required by phpCOIN. Also you are not going to add the actual payment process here, (ie: your Paypal address to receive payments) we will do that in Pay Links. If youve completed creating all the Vendors you require for accepting payments then lets proceed to the next step. Please click the button to Continue.

Step 7 - Create paylinks

Pay links are phpCOINs way of accepting a payment for an order or an invoice. Paylinks and Vendors are connected in that the Vendor is the name of the payment method and the pay link is the functional part of the two. Click on Admin, and in the products list click on pay links. You will see four pre-determined links there. Lets change the first product id (Paypal) to reflect our earlier web hosting product.

Click on the edit (

) link and you are presented with the following:

As we are using Paypal, please open a browser and login to your Paypal account. In Paypal, click on Merchant Tools at the top, and then go to Buy Now buttons. Enter the necessary information, then click create button now. Simply copy and paste the newly created html into the Order Link: and we have created our first paylink. The Order Link: portion of a typical Paypal pay link may look this: <form action=" https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post"> <input type="image" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/x-click-butcc.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="Make payment - it's fast, free and secure!"> <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_xclick"> <input type="hidden" name="business" value="YourPaypalEmailAddress@YourEmailsDomain.com"> <input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="<prod_desc>"> <input type="hidden" name="item_number" value="<prod_desc>"> <input type="hidden" name="no_shipping" value="1"> <input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="1"> <input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD"> <input type="hidden" name="amount" value="<ord_unit_cost>"> <input type="hidden" name="return" value="<return_link_buy>"> <input type="hidden" name="cancel_return" value=<return_link_cancel> </form>

Please note that although the Order Link: allows the use of HTML code it cannot accept PHP Code. If you must call a PHP file to interact with your Credit Card processing, or other payment gateway, service you will need to make the form using HTML, then post to your PHP file. When the PHP file is complete, it can redirect the user back to phpCOIN with the buy=1 or buy=0 depending on if the credit card was charged or not. Please Note: Due to a design constraint from earlier versions of Pay links you must create a pay link for each product and Vendor (payment method) you have. So if you have 10 products and 3 payment methods youll need to create 30 pay links. There are numerous examples of Pay Links in the Documents website. Further help and assistance on Pay Links can also be found in the phpCOIN forums. For Steps 8 & 9 you need to edit some files in phpCOIN and wont need to be logged into the Admin Command Centre except where noted. Please proceed to Step 8.

Step 8 - Add Metatags

This step, and the next one, requires editing files as well as changes within the Admin Command Centre. Since you are editing PHP files it is recommended that you use a *nix style editor - pspad is a freeware product that works very well. http://www.pspad.com Meta-tags are in /coin_lang/lang_english/lang_base.php near the bottom. If you arent using English then the lang_base.php file you need to edit will be the folder of your chosen language. The array element names must match the page name as setup in Admin -> Components. ie: If the page name for "index" in Components is "Index" then the $_LANG['META_DESCRIPTION']['Home_Page'] = 'Welcome to phpCOIN'; $_LANG['META_KEYWORDS']['Home_Page'] = 'phpcoin'; must be changed from 'Home_Page' to 'Index'. In the /coin_themes/xxxxx/core.php file the first part of function do_page_header must look like this: function do_page_header($acomp_ptitle='phpCOIN', $aret_flag=0) { global $_CCFG, $_TCFG, $_DBCFG, $_UVAR, $_LANG, $_PACKAGE, $_GPV, $_nl, $_sp; $newTitle = str_replace(" ","_",$acomp_ptitle); $newTitle = str_replace(strtolower("phpcoin:_"),"",$newTitle); $_out .= '<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">'; $_out .= '<html>'.$_nl; $_out .= '<head>'.$_nl; $_out .= $_CCFG[_PKG_DOC_META_TAG].$_nl; $_out .= '<meta name="description" content="'.$_LANG['META_DESCRIPTION'][$newTitle].'">'.$_nl; $_out .= '<meta name="keywords" content="'.$_LANG['META_KEYWORDS'][$newTitle].'">'.$_nl; $_out .= '<meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="TRUE">'.$_nl; $_out .= '<meta name="generator" content="phpcoin">'.$_nl; $_out .= '<title>'.$acomp_ptitle.'</title>'.$_nl; IF ( $_CCFG['_IS_PRINT'] != 1) { The description and keywords are displayed based on the page title.

Below is the meta-tags section of the lang_base.php file some default entries are listed as a guide. $_LANG['META_DESCRIPTION']['Home_Page'] = 'Welcome to phpCOIN'; $_LANG['META_KEYWORDS']['Home_Page'] = 'phpcoin'; $_LANG['META_DESCRIPTION']['Site_Info'] = 'About Us'; $_LANG['META_KEYWORDS']['Site_Info'] = 'phpcoin'; $_LANG['META_DESCRIPTION']['Articles'] = 'View news and other helpful articles'; $_LANG['META_KEYWORDS']['Articles'] = 'news,articles,phpcoin'; $_LANG['META_DESCRIPTION']['Mail'] = 'Contact Us'; $_LANG['META_KEYWORDS']['Mail'] = 'mail,phpcoin'; $_LANG['META_DESCRIPTION']['Search_Site'] = 'Search our site'; $_LANG['META_KEYWORDS']['Search_Site'] = 'search,phpcoin'; $_LANG['META_DESCRIPTION']['Orders'] = 'Order Form for products and services'; $_LANG['META_KEYWORDS']['Orders'] = 'order,phpcoin'; $_LANG['META_DESCRIPTION']['FAQ'] = 'View answers to Frequently Asked Questions'; $_LANG['META_KEYWORDS']['FAQ'] = 'FAQ,help,support,phpcoin'; $_LANG['META_DESCRIPTION']['HelpDesk_Support_Tickets'] = 'Enter and view support requests and resolutions.'; $_LANG['META_KEYWORDS']['HelpDesk_Support_Tickets'] = 'help,support,trouble,ticket,phpcoin'; $_LANG['META_DESCRIPTION']['Site_Login'] = 'Login to our site'; $_LANG['META_KEYWORDS']['Site_Login'] = 'login,phpcoin'; $_LANG['META_DESCRIPTION']['WHOIS'] = 'Domain Name Lookup'; $_LANG['META_KEYWORDS']['WHOIS'] = 'whois,phpcoin'; $_LANG['META_DESCRIPTION']['Comand_Center'] = 'Summary'; $_LANG['META_KEYWORDS']['Comand_Center'] = 'cc,command center,summary,phpcoin'; It should be noted that the above only adds Metatags to pages predefined in phpCOIN. To add meta-tags to pages that you created in Site Info you do this by adding the array elements in /coin_lang/lang_xxxxx/lang_base.php. For example: $_LANG['META_DESCRIPTION']['PAGE_NAME'] = 'A SiteInfo Page Description'; $_LANG['META_KEYWORDS']['PAGE_NAME'] = 'A SiteInfo Page Keywords'; You MUST ensure that you have a matching 'PAGE_NAME' value as the "Page Title". If you are in the Admin Command Centre then you can take a look at the Components section and verify what is the Page Title (& add Title bar text as mentioned in Step 3) for the given Site Info page for which you wish to create Meta-tags.

Naturally, replace PAGE_NAME with whatever you need. The Component may have spaces in the name, but the array element must have spaces replaced by underscores Please proceed to Step 9 to Continue.

Step 9 Invoice/HelpDesk Automation

To automate the sending of Invoices and Helpdesk entries you need a scheduler to handle two files within phpCOIN. Both invoices and help desk import can be triggered on a Linux/Unix type server by cron jobs either as a direct PHP call or by some other means such as wget or curl; dependant on availability. On a Windows server you can perform the same function by setting up a scheduled task. All scheduling methods require that the cron_config.php file be edited correctly. If you are unsure about the correct method and/or syntax for setting up your cron/scheduled task, please contact your server administrator. Cron is a timer/scheduling daemon that runs in the background on some web (and other) servers. Scripts or other programs can be registered with the Cron daemon to run "every so often". phpCOIN has a couple default PHP scripts that can be called by Cron at regular intervals to handle automatic processing of Invoices and Helpdesk entries. This is how invoices can be automatically generated for your customers. Edit the following lines of the /coin_cron/cron_config.php file: $_SERVER["SERVER_NAME"] = 'www.phpcoin.com/phpcoin'; $_SERVER["SERVER_PORT"] = ; $_SERVER["HTTPS"] = 'off'; NOTE: the next fix-file for v1.2.2 will reduce the three variables to a single variable. See http://forums.phpcoin.com/index.php?showtopic=4715&st=30 for more info. Change the 'www.phpcoin.com/phpcoin' to the actual location of your phpCOIN installation. You must keep the single quotes in place. If you placed the phpCOIN files in a directory called billing, then Example: 'www.yourdomain.com/billing' Add The Following Lines to your crontab - This is just an example 0 6 * * * curl -s http://localhost/phpCOIN/coin_cron/invoices.php 0,10,20,30,40,50 * * * * curl -s http://localhost/phpCOIN/coin_cron/helpdesk.php This will run the invoices daily (at 6 am) and helpdesk scripts every 10 minutes. Please note that running invoices more often than daily is not advised as it will result in multiple invoices and overdue notices being sent out to the same client. Try looking up cron on Google and use your own time intervals if you want them to run at different times. curl is just a plain text web browser. If curl doesn't work you can try lynx (though the -s may not be appropriate for lynx. More help on this topic can be found in the Forums. For those of you using a web hosting reseller account on a web host provider, you may have a cPanel entry named "Cron". You can go in there and use the GUI to select how often you want the scripts called. Make sure you enter:

curl -s http://localhost/phpCOIN/coin_cron/invoices.php and curl -s http://localhost/phpCOIN/coin_cron/helpdesk.php for the commands for the 2 cron tab entries. You can also edit the helpdesk.php file to make it run in silent mode by changing: $Silent=0; To: $Silent=1; Note: For further assistance of this topic please search the Forums for CRON and/or INVOICE. This is perhaps the most technical of steps and depending on your server environment you may have issues getting this working properly. Support with phpCOIN is second to none so youll find a solution quickly. Please proceed to Step 10 to continue.

Step 10 Change the Fine Print

On the Place Order page youll see this text at the bottom of the screen:

To change this to something more appropriate use your editor (pspad or similar) to open the lang_orders.php file located in the coin_lang/lang_english folder. Naturally if you arent using English then edit the file in the lang_xxxx folder appropriate for your language.

As you can see there are several places the fine print shows up and can therefore be different for each place. If you dont have anything thats needs to go here then a Thanks for your Business might be appropriate. Remember to save your file and then upload it to your host provider. Please log back into the Admin Command Centre to continue.

Step 11 Make Order Process Changes

From the Admin Menu select the Parameters link. This time we are going to look at the Orders SubGroup so we could select All in the Group option and get all the Orders parameters. However, there are only two Groups that have Orders as their subgroup and those are Automation and Common. We will deal with Automation + Orders first.

The choices to make here are fairly obvious and by now you are most likely familiar with the how phpCOIN allows you to edit it various variables, settings and options. While it is possible that the default settings will work for your requirements you should review the options here and make sure they meet your needs. As an example lets edit the Invoice Auto-Pay From Order variable as by default it is set to No. It should be changed to Yes useless you plan on using the IPN add-on. The resulting screen is on the next page.

One thing not pointed out previously is that in this editor window Group:, SubGroup:, and Type: are changeable. This generally would be used when creating new variables and most likely something that wouldnt be done. After you click Save you are taken to this screen:

If you click Edit youll be taken back to Edit Parameter Entry screen. If you click youll taken back to the Automation + Orders screen and its list of parameters. Once you are comfortable that Automation + Orders are set correctly for your needs then move on to Common + Orders.

This section is much larger so well break it up into smaller groups of parameters. Again some or all of the default settings may fit your needs perfectly but you should still confirm this. The more familiar you are with the inner workings of phpCOIN the more successful your use of it will be. The first sets of options are related to several different types of operations. Here is the screen:

All of phpCOINs options have a brief description that is helpful is determining what it for and why you might need to change. This first one here, Add $xxx.yy to Order as Order Setup Fee, is commonly used with Domain Registration fees. Also some Web Hosting companies charge a fee to set-up a hosting account. If any of your products need some sort of surcharge like a set-up fee then put that amount here. There is no way in version 1.2.2 to have multiple set-up fees. Youll most likely want to set the two Email options to Yes instead of No and the other choices are again self-explanatory.

The next sets of options all deal with the various policy statements: should they appear with the order and which SiteInfo IDs they are.

If you require these types of policies then youve edited them accordingly and this is the way to get new clients to accept your policies. If, however, policies and such are not important to your business or you dont (want to) require your clients to accept them then you can set the first 4 options to No. You will only need to change the last 4 options if you changed SiteInfo IDs in Step 3.

On the previous page you saw the third set of options. Most likely you will want to change the first 2 to Yes. The 3rd option relates to orders that arent related to products youve defined. Does your company do any custom work or provide quotes? Then leave COR set as is. You will probably not need to change the last 4 options. For the last set of options we have mixture. Upon review you may find that leaving these alone works for your immediate requirements. As mentioned before the brief descriptions are helpful in determining what these options are and what they do. However, if youve turned off policies or dont require customers to accept them during purchasing you can set items 3 and 4 to No.

The last two options are often changed based on need. The 6th one is changed due to the number and/or type of products for sale. If you have few products a radio button (set option to 0) beside each might make more sense. Likewise a drop down list might also work. The last option is generally set to Yes but usually changed only after testing is complete and you are ready to start using phpCOIN. We are done with configuration setting changes and now should test out phpCOIN to make sure everything works ad we expect. Please proceed to the Step 11.

Step 12 - Test everything

Please note there is no need to perform a complete test of every feature, function and operation within phpCOIN. With the previous steps you have almost completely tested the entire administration side of things. Things you should do are create a client to test ordering and related activities. Try putting in a helpdesk ticket and of course test any activity that should result in an e-mail being sent. Also try all the links. Heres a few to start with:

Fix any errors you come across and dont be shy to ask for help in the Support Forums. If you are confident that everything is working please move onto Step 12.

Step 13 - Add existing clients via the order process

This step is only required if you have existing clients and wish to add them to phpCOIN. If you dont then please move onto the next step otherwise follow the procedure below. Please be aware phpCOIN wasnt designed with this situation in mind so there is no easy way to populate the database with existing clients. If you have a lot of them this may seem tedious but it is a great way to get to know the system and completely test it before going live. The easiest way to add exiting clients is place an order for them. Most likely theyve paid their most recent invoice and even if not you can worry about payments later. It is a good idea to make the first client in the system yourself especially if you are a web host. That way you can see things from client point of view. The advantage of this is all items get created: client profile, order, domain, server account etc. If you are migrating from another Client Management/Billing system existing clients have IDs & Passwords they will most likely want to reuse. Youll want to make their transition as smooth as possible. If client has multiple domains or more than one product/service, then login as them and place another order as required, that way their information is already filled in. Once this is done please move onto the last step in the guide. Hey you made it! See it wasnt that tough after all!

Step 14 Turn off Demo and/or Test Mode

Confirm that phpCOIN is no longer in DEMO &/or TEST mode (admin -> parameters -> common + operation) then Launch website.

Conclusion:
There are more configuration choices you can make like changing your theme. These and other changes are discussed in the phpCOIN documentation website http://docs.phpcoin.com and the forum site - http://forums.phpcoin.com. Please note this document will be updated as necessary. So if you have suggestions, additions, corrections, errors and/or omissions that you think need to be included please let me know. http://forums.phpcoin.com/index.php?act=Mail&CODE=00&MID=2450

Appendix:
Some of these items may be required for your purposes but most are not so that is why they are not in the basic steps.

Upgrade phpCOIN:
Some Fantastico installations are the original or less recent version 1.2.2 some are even older versions prior to version 1.2.2. Also updates are released as required so if you havent looked in a while there maybe a new fix file. At the Admin Control Center you see this screen if you need to perform updates:

As mentioned you only need to download the latest Fix-File to get all the updates. Click the link of the newest fix this is the one at the end of the list.

From the example on the previous page it is this one: Clicking the link will bring up a download dialogue box similar to this one:

This was captured from Windows XP Pro using Internet Explorer 6 so yours may differ. Click Save and choose a directory to put it in. Note: I keep a phpCOIN specific folder on my computer so I save fixes there first before coping them over to my local copy of my website. This way I prevent any overwrite of files I have changed without first making those changes in the new fix-file versions. In your case this precaution may or may not be relevant but it makes sense even if all you need to do is the read the fix file instructions. Once this is downloaded and youve read the instructions (usually in the coin_docs folder) you can copy the files over to your local website folder. Obviously this will overwrite existing files so make sure you have taken this into account. If you can test this updated version before uploading it to your web server then do so otherwise when you are ready upload the new files.

Changing Themes:
Please see the online docs and forums for advice http://docs.phpcoin.com/index.php?title=Setting_up_Themes

Working with the FAQ System:

There is an excellent article on the docs site that explains this well. http://docs.phpcoin.com/index.php?title=FAQ_System