Getting Started
Overview
Unilevel MLM Pro is a plugin which enables you to run a full blown Unilevel structure based MLM Network within the WordPress CMS.
We suggest you read the following article to better understand the Unilevel Structure and the nature of compensation plan supported in the Unilevel MLM Pro plugin.
Installation
WordPress Installation
- Go to Plugins > Add New.
- Under Upload, click Browse, locate unilevel-mlm-pro.zip in your plugin download package and click Open.
- Click Install Now to install the WordPress Plugin.
- If successful, click Activate Plugin to activate it.
FTP Installation
- Using a FTP program, upload the plugin folder unilevel-mlm-pro to the /wp-content/plugins folder of your WordPress installation.
- Go to Plugins screen in your WordPress admin and find the newly uploaded Binary MLM Pro plugin in the list.
- Click Activate Plugin to activate it.
WP Admin Settings
Dashboard
Immediately, after activation of the plugin, you would need to visit the dashboard page in order to activate your license key. Our blog article explains the process of generation of license key.
The dashboard also shows the plugin version information and validity of the license.
Information about obtaining Support and relevant articles from our Support Site / Blog are also shown on the Dashboard page.
Create First User
As the first step towards configuring the plugin and start building your network you are required to create the First User of your network. The first user would typically be the company account and all others users would utlimately be in the downline of the first user.
To create the first user account you are required to choose a username, password and email address. Once the necessary fields have been filled up click the Submit button. This would create a new user in your WordPress database. This user would also show up in the default Users -> All Users interface.
Please note that the default WP admin user which you created while installing WordPress is NOT an MLM user. Hence none of the features and pages in the Member’s Area would work while you are logged in as the default WP Admin user.
To start testing and building your network you can use the username of the first user as the sponsor username on the front end registration form / Join Network page.
Settings Overview
Use the main menu of Unilevel MLM Pro to configure the settings. Go to Unilevel MLM -> Settings to open the Settings Page. The settings page has the following sections / tabs.
Let’s understand the features and functions of each of the tabs.
General Settings
The General Settings tab is a very important page as the basic parameters of your network are defined here.
As the first step you are required to specify the Eligibility Criteria in terms of the number of referrals required before a member can start earning commissions in the network. If you do not have an Eligibility Criteria you can set this value to 0.
Next specify the base currency of your MLM Network. This option is very important as all calculations will be performed in this base currency. Once you have chosen the currency and saved the options, it CANNOT be changed later. The entire network will need to be reset if you decide to change the currency at a later date.
Next setting in the depth of the network. It is the number of levels for which a member would receive commissions from his downline. Please note that the network would continue to grow for an unlimited number of levels. This setting just relates to the number of levels in the downline for which a member would receive commissions.
In case you would like to use your own custom registration page (and not our default register-new-user page) for registering users on your site, please check the option Use WP registration Page
If you are using a custom registration page you would need to specify the URL of your custom page in the option URL of registration page.
Each member in the network gets an affiliate URL in the format:
http://www.yourdomain.com/u/{username}
{username} is dynamically replaced with the username of every user. We had to introduce the /u/ in between so that our plugin does not interfere with the default Permalink structure for WordPress.
The affiliate URL redirects the prospective visitor by default to the registration page. If you would like the affiliate URL to redirect to another page on the site you can specify the URL in the Redirect Affiliate URL option. We suggest that you read our Blog article on Replicated Sites to understand this functionality better.
At the top of the General Tab there is an information blurb which gives instructions on how to enable User Friendly Affiliate URLs. The line of code starting with RedirectMatch needs to be copied and pasted in the .htaccess file of your WP installation. Preferably, place that line after the #End WordPress in the .htaccess file. In case you make any change to the Redirect Affiliate URL field in the General Settings you would need to replace the revised RedirectMatch code in your .htaccess file.
Next you are required to choose whether you would like to Activate ePin based registrations on your site. In case you would like to Activate ePin functionality on your website, set this value to Yes.
In case members can only register on your site via ePin, set the Sole Payment Option to Yes. This would make the ePin field mandatory on the user registration form and a visitor would need a valid unused ePin to complete his registration. If this value is set to No, a visitor will be able to register on the site even without specifying a valid ePin. In this case you would need to manually mark the member as Paid / Unpaid under Users -> All Users or assign a valid ePin to the user on that page. Alternately, the user can also input a valid ePin and upgrade his account to a paid account from his Member’s Area.
Choose the length of the generated ePins from the ePin length field. Though our routine generates random ePins, we would recommend a mimum length of 8 characters for security reasons. Choose your option from 8 characters long to 15 charactes long.
Payout Settings
The payout settings tab is where you would setup the compensation plan for your network.
First you would need to select whether the commissions payable are a fixed amount or a % amount. If you have setup multiple products in the Manage Products Tab, logically the commission type should be set to %.
The number of levels shown on this page would depend on the number of levels (depth of the network) setting in the General Tab. The commissions payable are broadly divided into:
- Referral Commission
- Level Commission
- Company Share
If the commission type is set as %, the total of all the figures should always be 100.
Referral Commission in the amount paid to a memeber for sponsoring a new member in the network.
Level Commission is the commission received from his downline at each level. As this is Unilevel structure, all the referrals of a member would always be placed on their Level 1. The referral commission is paid over and above the Level 1 commission. In case you do not have a separate Referral Commission, you can set this to 0.
Company Share is the amount per sale that goes to the company. (first user in the network)
Regular Bonus Settings
Regular Bonus is paid to a member once on achieving a certain milestone, in this case being the number of personal referrals.
Multiple slabs can be added in the Regular Bonus. As soon as a member achieves a particular milestone, eg. 5 personal referrals, he would be paid a one time bonus of 25. On 10 referrals, the member would be paid a one time bonus of 50.
Royalty Bonus Settings
Royalty Bonus is a recurring bonus paid to a member in every payout after he has reached a particular milestone. In this case, it is the number of personal referrals.
Taking the example in the above image, the royalty commissions would be calculated as under:
1. Upon reaching 5 personal referrals, a member would start earning a royalty bonus of 5% of the income of his level 1 team.
It may be noted here that the 5% calculation is applied to the income earned by his level 1 members from their downlines and NOT on the income earned by the member from his level 1 downline.
2. Upon reaching 10 personal referrals, the member would start earning a royalty bonus of 3% of the income earned by his level 2 members.
3. Upon reaching 25 personal referrals, the member would start earning a royalty bonus of 2% of the income arned by his level 3 members.
4. Upon reaching 50 personal referrals, the member would start earning a royalty bonus of 1% of the income arned by his level 1 members.
This could also have been set up as
1. 5 personal referrals, bonus 3% of income of Level 1 members.
2. 10 personal referrals, bonus 5% of income of Level 1 members.
Since in this case the bonus % has increased for the members on the same level, till the time the member has upto 9 referrals he would get a bonus of 3%. As soon as he reaches 10 or more personal referrals, the bonus amount increases to 5% for the same Level. From this point onwards the member will receive 5% of bonus and not 3% bonus on the income of his Level 1 members.
Deductions
The deductions tab lets you setup two things, viz.
- Withdrawal Methods
- Deductions
Withdrawal methods are typically the ways in which member can request withdrawals of their commissions from the MLM Financial Dashboard in the Member’s Area. In the withdrawals section you can setup the withdrawal method, any fee that is applicable for using that withdrawal method and if there is a minimum amount that the member must withdraw if using this withdrawal method. eg. Bank Transfers may have a minimum amount and a fee applicable. Multiple withdrawal methods can be setup and they would all show up on the MLM Financial Dashboard of the member when initiating a withdrawal.
Deductions are generic amounts that are deductible while initiating withdrawals. An example could ba tax deduction on the amount withdrawn or a flat service charge.
The amounts for withdrawal methods and deductions can be a fixed amount or a percentage. All percentages are applied to the actual amount being withdrawn by the member.
Email Settings
Email templates for different activities like
- when a payout is received
- when a new member joins your downline
- when a withdrawal is initiated
- when a withdrawal is processed
are written and managed in this section
Payout Received Mail – When the payout routine is run this email template will be sent to all the members who have earned comissions and bonuses in the payout cycle.
Network Growing Mail – When a new member joins the network this email will be sent to all members in the upline of that user right upto the first user of the network.
Withdrawal Intiated Mail – This is the email that is sent to the site admin notifying him when a member initiates a new withdrawal.
Withdrawal Processed Mail – This email is sent to an individual member once his withdrawal has been successfully processed by the admin.
Manage Products
Adding Product
Use this section to create the various products that you would like to offer on your site. This will not add any e-commerce functionality on your site but would enable you to sell multiple products on your site without the need to install an ecommerce plugin. Each product will be mapped to an ePin. More details about the same is available under the ePins Tab.
Product Name – This is the name of the product.
Product Price – This is the price of the product. The % commission figures will be applied to this price.
Viewing and Editing Products
Regn Form Settings
The fields that appear on the front end user registration form can be configured in this section. First Name, Last Name, Email, Password, Sponsor Name fields are shown by default on the registration form.
Additional fields can be selected from this settings page to be shown on the Registration Form. The additional fields have been logically grouped as:
Personal Details
Date of Birth
Address Details
Address 1
Address 2
City
State
Country
Post / Zip Code
Contact Details
Phone Number
PAN Card (specific to India)
SSN (Social Security Number)
Nominee Details
Nomine Name
Nominee Relationship (relationship of the nominee with the registering user)
Bank Details
Bank Name
Beneficiary
Account Number
Account Type
IFSC Code (specific to India)
ePin Settings
ePin is a mechanism using which users will be automatically marked as paid in the system. If the user registers with a valid ePin he will be registered and marked as paid.
You need to activate ePins at General setting page for ePins tab visibility.
A new tab “ePins” is added instantly in MLM Settings option tabs after ePin activation.
New ePins are generated using this section.
Select the type of ePin to generate. ePins can be of two types, viz.
- Free
- Regular
Any member registering on the front end using a regular ePin will automatically be marked as paid. Thus he will receive commissions from his downline and his upline will receive commissions from his joining.
Free ePins are a special type of Regular ePins. Any member registering on the front end using a Free ePin will be marked as paid. He would receive commissions from his downline but his upline would not receive commissions from his joining. This is because this member has not actually paid to join the network.
Select the product this set of ePins will be mapped to.
Number of ePins to generate. A maximum of 999 ePins can be generated in one run.
Reset All MLM Data
If you wish to erase all MLM Data, click the “Reset All MLM Data” button. This will erase all users (except your WP Admin), all MLM Settings, Commissions, Bonuses, Payouts, etc.
CAUTION: Be very sure that you would like to erase all MLM data and start afresh. There is no way to get your data back once erased (unless of course you have a backup).
WP Admin Run Payout
Run Payouts
Use this screen to run the Payout routine for your network.
As and when members are marked as paid (either by virtue of ePin Registration or manual status change by the admin) commissions and bonuses are credited to member accounts in the upline. However, these amounts do not show up in their accounts till the time the Payout Routine is not run.
This script can be run manually once every week, every fortnight or every month depending on the payout cycle of the network. Alternately, please schedule (cron job) the following URL as per the frequency of the payout cycle.
http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-content/plugins/unilevel-mlm-pro/cronjobs/paycycle.php
When you click the Run Payout routine, the system will show a list of all members who would receive commissions and bonuses in this payout cycle. If everything is correct, you will need to click the All is Well, Commit button to Commit the Payout.
WP Admin User Report
User Report
Use this section to get complete information about a member’s account.
Input a member’s username or email address in the input box to see a dashboard summary of the user’s account.
WP Admin Withdrawals
User Withdrawals
Use this section to get list of all pending User Withdrawals. Click at “Export to CSV” button to export list of data as CSV format.
Process – Input the payment details for the withdrawal. These payment details would also show up on the User’s Financial Dashboard Page.
Delete – This would mark the withdrawal as deleted. The user would need to initiate a fresh withdrawal for this payout from his interface.
WP Admin Reports
Earnings Report
This reports shows a summary of total earnings for the company / first user.
ePin Report
Shows a list of all ePins generated. If ePins have been used, the usage details (username, date used) would also be shown.
The report can filtered, searched and exported to CSV.
Withdrawal Report
Registration Form
User Registration Form
General information like username, password, email, first name and last name are collected at Registration form page.
The registration form displays 3 important fields like – Enter ePin (if activated), Product and Sponsor Name.
The registration form fields “Enter ePin” and “Product” drop down are visible when under General Settings in the WP Admin “Sole payment method” is set to OFF. New user can select either the Product or enter an ePin at the time of registration.
When the “Sole Payment Method” is set to ON, the registration form will only show the “ePin” field. It will be mandatory for the user to enter an ePin at the time of registration.
In case a user comes to the website using an existing member’s affiliate URL, the Sponsor Name field will be automatically filled (like in the image above) with the username of the user whose affiliate URL was used. In case the user comes to the website directly, he will be required to input the username of an existing member who referred him to the network.
The additional fields shown on the form will depend on the fields selected under the Registration Settings tab in the WP Admin.
Member's Area
Dashboard
The user’s dashboard shows a summary of the user’s network status. The user’s affiliate URL, his personal information, payouts summary and personal referral summary is shown on the Dashboard page.
Financial Dashboard
This page shows the user’s financial summary.
The user can also initiate a withdrawal from his account from this page.
Clicking on the View Transaction History would show details of all transactions in the user’s account. Currently the transaction history shows a credit of $140 in the user’s account in Payout ID: 1.
After the user has initiated a withdrawal and it has been successfully processed by the admin, the transaction history looks like the image below.
My Payouts
This page shows a list of all payouts where the member has earned commissions.
Clicking on the View Link against a particular payout would show the complete details of that payout.
Genealogy
Clicking on Genealogy / Network link would show a level wise summary of the user’s downline. Levels where the user has members in his downline would have a hyperlink which opens the Member Listing on that level.
As the structure of the network is Unilevel, using the tree layout to depict genealogy was not possible as theoretically and practically there is no limit to the number of members that a particular user can have in his downline. Therefore the genealogy display in Unilevel MLM Pro is Tabular.