This document explains how to sign up new users from the admin control panel.

• How do I sign up new users?
• How can I signup users from my own page?
• How do I activate accounts?
• How do change plan for an account awaiting moderation? (version 2.3 and higher)
• How do I ensure that nobody signs up with a stolen credit card?
• Signup Guard Settings
     - Setting Signup Guard Black List
     - Country Codes for the Signup Guard Black List
• How do I know which computer signup came from? (version 2.1 and higher)
• What if there are any errors while the user is trying to sign up?
• How do I track my signup statistics?
• Moving users from Trial to Paid

How Do I Sign Up New Users?

There are two ways of customer registration - "from the street" and from the admin control panel. The registration "from the street" can be performed by the the customer without admin's interaction. The registration from the admin control panel goes through exactly the same steps, but can be performed only by the administrator. Signup from the admin control panel is also the one and only way to create accounts that are unavailable "from the street", regardless of whether they are tagged available or unavailable for signup, for instance admin and technical support accounts.

To sign up a new user from the admin control panel:

1. Select Signup in the Signup menu:



2. On the page that shows, click Select next to the plan for the new account:



3. Signup Wizard page appears. Go through Signup Wizard. Click arrows in the right lower corner of the page to proceed signup.
• Enter your contact info in the form that shows (name, e-mail, address, etc.).
• Select payment type in the drop-down box (credit card, check, online payments) or trial hosting.
• Enter payment information: credit card numbers, expiry date and etc. - for credit cards; address where the bills will be sent - for checks.
• Enter username and password for this account.
• Choose the type of domain you want to sign up with (or sign up without domain).
• Agree to charges if any, and complete the creation of account.
When you are through with the Signup Wizard, account will be either created or assigned for activation. Read below on account activation.

How Can I Signup Users from My Own Page?

Sometimes, you need to put signup links on your own page so that users would sign up directly from the website instead of entering your Hosts of America start page.

To allow signing up users "from the street", make sure that:
- Signup for a plan is turned ON in the list of plans;
- Plan has access set FULL.
Note: To set FULL access for a plan, go to the Access section of the plan and leave all boxes unchecked. For details go here.

To find out what URL starts signup wizard for a particular plan, do the following:

1. Go to the list of your plans in the INFO menu -> Plans.
2. At the bottom of the page, click Signup Links and the list of links that launch signup "from the street" will appear.
   Note: To retrieve a link to a specific plan, click the "lens" icon to the left of a plan's title and copy it from the address line.
3. Once you have signup links for plans, publish them on your website and allow users to go directly to the SignUp wizard of the chosen plan.

How Do I Activate Accounts?

Newly registered accounts do not get activated immediately. Some of them need to be activated manually by admin. This procedure is called account moderation.

  In version 2.3 and higher, in addition to check pay accounts, when trial account is put under moderation, customer will receive two moderated email notifications: one is sent upon signup and states that account soon will be activated. Second one is sent upon activation, stating that account has been registered and can be accessed by the user.

By default, the following accounts are automatically moderated upon signup:

• Check pay accounts
• Electronic payment accounts: WorldPay and PayPal networks.
• Credit card pay accounts that experienced some errors with processing centers (version 2.3 and higher). More >>
• Any accounts that experienced internal errors during signup process.

Other accounts can be automatically moderated on your request:

• Credit card accounts can be moderated when Moderated CC Signup is turned on. To do this, go to Merchant Gateway in the Settings menu. More>>
• Trial accounts can be moderated if Signup Guard in the Settings menu is configured to put all trial accounts on moderation.
• Finally, all accounts can be moderated through Signup Guard in the Settings menu. Read below on Signup Guard.

To activate accounts:

1. Select Moderate in the Signup menu. The list of accounts awaiting moderation shows:



2. Click the name of the account.
3. On the page that shows, check all information about the owner of the account.
4. Click the Create link at the very top of the page to activate the account.

1. Select Moderate in the Signup menu.
2. On the page that shows, click the name of the account.
3. View the account's registration data
4. Click the Delete link at the very bottom of the page. The account is removed.

How Do I Change Plan for an Account Awaiting Moderation?
(version 2.3 and higher)

When an account gets to the Moderate signup section, a plan for this account can be changed. You can chose a plan if it's grouped with other compatible plans. To change a plan for moderated account:

1. Select Moderate in the Signup menu.
2. On the page that shows, click the name of the account.
3. Scroll down to the Plan name and billing period section.



4. Click the Edit icon next to the plan name and the following page shows:



5. Chose a new plan from a drop-down box and click Save.
6. On the page that appears, chose a new billing period for this plan and click Save.

Thus, you have changed a plan before activating it for the user.

How Do I Ensure That Nobody Signs Up with a Stolen Credit Card?
(version 2.08 and higher)

When the attempts to use stolen credit cards become frequent, the online processing center may close or suspend your account. To prevent this, you can switch to the moderated credit card signup mode and manually check each credit card, including its authenticity, address info, and other details, before allowing to create the account and charging the registration fee.

To enable moderated credit card signup, select Merchant Gateway Manager in the Settings menu. On the page that appears, switch Moderated CC signup ON:

Signup Guard
(version 2.1 and higher)

You can create smart rules (filters) to moderate accounts matching specific criteria. Once configured, this utility decides if the new account will be created right away or will be placed into the awaiting moderation list on the SIGNUP->Moderate page with appropriate comments/warnings.

To configure moderation rules, do the following:

1. Select SignupGuard in the Settings menu.



2. On the page that appears, select which accounts will be placed in the awaiting moderation list and click Submit.
   Note: Max Amount - accounts will be moderated if the total price for such signup is bigger than this amount.

Setting Signup Guard Blacklist

If you wish, you can blacklist certain parameters and accounts with such parameters will be moderated as well. To do it:

1. On Signup Guard page, in the Black Lists section, choose the parameters (e.g: countries) to be tracked during signup:



2. On the page that shows, enter parameters, delimiting them with semicolons+white spaces.
3. Click Submit Query.

From now on, make sure to check the awaiting moderation list regularly. It is available on the SIGNUP -> Moderate page.

Note: SignupGuard will never reject client signup, it will place all suspicious signups into the awaiting moderation list on the SIGNUP->Moderate page.

Country Codes for the Signup Guard Blacklist

Here is the list of country codes for the Signup Guard blacklist:

How Do I Know Which Computer Signup Came From? (version 2.1 and higher)

Tracking down signup IPs is useful when verifying order info to prevent fraud. You would pay closer attention to orders having US contact information and other country's IP address. Tracking down signup IPs is available only for moderated accounts. To learn the IP which moderated account order came from, go to SIGNUP -> Moderate. Click the accounts name link to view account related info. In the Other signup information table REMOTE_ADDR entry reads this account signup IP:

* Besides that, signup IP is also displayed to subscribers on the last page of the signup wizard.

What If There Are Any Errors While the User Is Trying to Sign Up?

Even if a signup fails, the user is still allowed to complete the registration procedure. The potential customer is notified of the temporary problems and the signup request lands in the moderate section:

• signups that experienced Hosts of America system errors will be placed into a regular Moderated Signup sections, so when you fix the internal errors that happened while the user was registering with the system, his account can be activated.
  * available in 2.2 and higher
  You will be notified of the internal error with Trouble Ticket System.
  
• credit card signups that experienced errors with processing centers will be placed into a Signups failed to the unknown reason section, Moderated Signup, Signup menu.
  * available in 2.3 and higher versions
  To see what was the problem was, go to Reports -> Charge Log -> Error Message.

How Do I Track My Signup Statistics?

Signup statistics includes data about accounts created and deleted by each admin. Signups "from the street" are not included into this statistics. To read about overall signup reports, click here.

To view the Signup statistics, choose Stats from the Signup menu. Clicking on the underlined number in the Live accounts column will display details on these accounts. Click the underlined columns' captions to sort the entries.

The Export link under the chart enables you to save the chart data in *.csv format that is supported by numerous spreadsheet and database programs. Commas are used as delimiters.

Moving Users from Trial to Paid

To make a trial user a pay customer, it is usually enough to go to the Billing menu in the user's control panel and create a billing profile for this user. In case of checks, the user will become a pay customer after:

1. you receive the check payment;
2. you credit the amount to user's account;
3. you resume the account.

In case of credit cards, Hosts of America resumes the account automatically.