Post-Installation Steps

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Revision as of 18:17, 23 March 2009 by TMMKevin (talk | contribs) (New page: {{NATS4 Manual}} This guide is intended for '''NEW''' clients who are looking to take the necessary steps to bring their fresh installation "live." It outlines the steps needed to make s...)
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This guide is intended for NEW clients who are looking to take the necessary steps to bring their fresh installation "live." It outlines the steps needed to make sure that the core aspects of their installation are set up properly.

Please note that your first month's lease starts as soon as the initial installation is complete, so it is very important that you follow these next steps in order to move your install to a "live" status as soon as possible.

Here are the next steps you need to take to go live (steps marked with a "+" indicate that this step can be done at any time and are not dependent on the other steps):

  • Schedule your Part I walkthrough with Michelle. She can be reached at (732) 385-1536 x1116 10:00AM - 5:30PM US Eastern time Monday - Friday. Alternatively, she can be reached via ICQ at 215542318 during the same hours.

  • Input all of your Billers, Sites, Programs, Join Options, and Payvia Types into NATS.

  • + Start templating your NATS affiliate area and join pages. The amount of time you spend on this can vary greatly depending on how much you want to customize.
    • If you like our default templates and simply want to put your logo at the top of the page, changes in the affiliate area can take as little as a day.
    • If you have your own design concept and want to build your affiliate area from the ground up, the process can take weeks or even months depending on how much you want to do, how much time you devote, and how many people you can put on the task
    • If you already have an existing HTML design that you want to integrate with Smarty (the templating engine NATS uses), we can provide a value added service where we will add the Smarty to your HTML design at an hourly rate. If you are interested in this service, please submit a support ticket.
    • Complete documentation on how to properly construct your NATS templates can be found at http://wiki.toomuchmedia.com

  • + Alter your tours and adtools to point to any NATS signup pages instead of your old join pages and pass along the NATS code in the URL where appropriate. We recommend you make copies of your tours/adtools, edit the copies, then move these tours/adtools to your live URL's when you are ready to go live.

  • **IF YOU HAVE AFFILIATES THAT NEED TO BE IMPORTED** We will help you import your affiliates from your previous affiliate tracking program. The cost for the initial import is included in your setup and training fee.
    • We need AT LEAST the following information in order to properly import your affiliates:
      • username
      • password
      • email
      • payvia type
      • programs they belong to
        ******Optional information:******
      • Referring affiliate
      • Name, address, and any other personal info
    • We will either need this information via a flat dump file, or via a direct connection to your old database. A Web admin access will NOT work in this case.
    • Once you have all of this information available, please open a support ticket stating you would like your affiliate imported and where we can find this information.
    • We will also redirect any links from your old affiliate program to your NATS installation. Please provide an example of an old linkcode as well as any details regarding the example in your affiliate import ticket
    • ASSUMING WE HAVE ALL OF THE DATA WE NEED IMMEDIATELY, the affiliate import process takes approximately 1 week from the time we start working on the import.

  • **IF YOU HAVE MEMBERS THAT NEED TO BE IMPORTED** We will also help you import your members who joined your sites previous to NATS. Please note the following:
    • The affiliate import MUST be completed first if you wish to import both members and affiliates. This is so we can accurately tie members to referring affiliates.
    • Obtain a dump of your members from ALL of your billers. We need AT LEAST the following information on each of your members in order to properly import them:
      • username
      • password
      • referring affiliate (if any)
      • site
      • program
      • join option (a.k.a. price point)
      • biller subscription id
      • expiration date
      • status (active or expired)
    • Once you've obtained ALL of this information, please place a SEPARATE support ticket asking to import your members and how we can gain access to this information (Please do not post SSH information to the ticket directly).
    • ASSUMING WE HAVE ALL OF THE DATA WE NEED IMMEDIATELY, the member import process takes approximately 1 week from the time we start working on the import.
  • Once these steps are completed, your next step is to test your tracking/signup/cascades/billers. We ask that you run transactions using LIVE credit cards. Test credit cards will not work. This is because many billers do not post complete information back to NATS when using their test credit cards. Make sure that the sale gets associated with the correct affiliate. Also make sure you test rebills, credits, and chargeback transactions as well for ALL of your billers.

  • The next step is to set up your member authentication software to work alongside NATS.
    • If you plan on doing 100% of your traffic through NATS, it's probably best that you set up your member authentication software to query the NATS database directly using a method similar to what is outlined in this article: http://wiki.toomuchmedia.com/index.php/NATS4_MySQL_Auth
    • If you are doing something that requires outside actions on your members, or for some reason you need to manage an access list outside of NATS, then you will have to configure NATS to post user management calls to your outside system. Details on how to do this can be found at: http://wiki.toomuchmedia.com/index.php/NATS4_Site_User_Management

  • After you've tested your billers and your member-related items, its time to go through your NATS affiliate areas, tours, and signup pages to make sure they look and behave as you want them to.

  • You're almost done! Your next step is to follow the NATS Go Live Checklist found here: http://wiki.toomuchmedia.com/index.php/NATS_Go_Live_Checklist . You'll notice that there are some things in this list that you've already done in previous steps, but this guide is meant to double-check the important stuff, so check it again. :)

  • A TMM tech will have to import any affiliates and/or members that joined from the time we did the import to the time you go live. Please place support ticket at least 2 BUSINESS DAYS in advance of you going live so we can import any missed affiliates/members "just" before you go live. Any imports done after this "catch up" import will be charged at the hourly rate.

  • When you are ready to go live, have your host switch any DNS/tour settings over to NATS as necessary.


We hope that you find this guide helpful and informative in setting up your NATS installation as a powerful reporting tool. Please schedule your walkthroughs as soon as possible, and we look forward to working with you!

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