On the sites that you wish to control, you need to have an active copy of UpdraftPlus (the backup/restore plugin) installed.
There are three ways to use UpdraftCentral:
1) Create a new UpdraftPlus account setup option via the UpdraftPlus plugin.
2) Via self-hosting (not via UpdraftPlus.com): Installing the dashboard plugin on your own site.
3) The easiest option: Via your UpdraftCentral dashboard at UpdraftPlus.com (i.e. on our site).
The following video walks you through these three options, or you can read the descriptions below.
1) New UpdraftPlus account setup option via the UpdraftPlus plugin
Make sure you have installed the UpdraftPlus plugin on your WordPress site.
After installing the plugin, press “Settings” in your UpdraftPlus plugin and scroll down to the UpdraftCentral box. Here you can enter and register your email account and password for an UpdraftPlus account and connect your site to the UpdraftCentral Cloud.
Press the “Connect this site to UpdraftCentral Cloud” button, enter your preferred email and password and press “Connect to UpdraftCentral Cloud”. You have now created your own UpdraftPlus account (which can be logged into using the details you just entered) and have connected your site to the UpdraftCentral dashboard.
2) Your dashboard hosted on UpdraftPlus.com
If you want to use UpdraftCentral via your dashboard on UpdraftPlus.com, first make sure you are logged into the UpdraftPlus.com website. Next, navigate to the UpdraftPlus plugin on your WordPress site and press “Advanced Tools”, then “UpdraftCentral”. To connect the site to the UpdraftCentral dashboard in UpdraftPlus.com, just press the blue “UpdraftPlus.com” button to generate a key.
Next, select “Create” and copy the generated key. Finally, go to UpdraftPlus.com/My Account/My UpdraftCentral to access your dashboard. From here you can add a new site using the key you just copied. Just press the plus button, paste the copied key into the box, press “Add website” and your site will be added to your UpdraftCentral account.
You can also purchase some more licences to add to your free allowance!
3) Hosting your dashboard on your own WordPress site
You can also install and activate the plugin in the normal way, via the “Plugins” page in your WordPress dashboard. For the free WordPress.org version of UpdraftCentral, search for the plugin and install (its plugin page is here). For a paid self-hosted version, install via the “upload” facility in that page.
On all the sites that are to be controlled, you will need to install and activate UpdraftPlus via the “Plugins” page in your WordPress dashboard. For the free version you should search in the WordPress.org directory using the search facility on that page – For a paid version, install via the upload facility.
In this plugin, highlight and copy the [updraft_central] short-code and then press the “Pages – > Add New” link. Next, create a short-code widget on your new page and add the copied UpdraftCentral short-code you just copied and save the page. When you visit the new page you just created, it will now show the UpdraftCentral dashboard.
To add your site, go to your UpdraftPlus plugin and and press the “Advanced Tools” tab and the press “UpdraftCentral”.
Press the “Self-hosted dashboard” button, enter your site address and press “create” to generate your UpdraftCentral key. Copy this key and return to your web-page containing the dashboard. In the dashboard, press the plus symbol, paste the copied key into the box and press “add website”. Your site has now been successfully added to your self-hosted UpdraftCentral dashboard.
If you wish non-admin users to be able to use UpdraftCentral (each user has their own list of sites – this won’t give them access to your list of sites), then use the require_role attribute, e.g.[updraft_central require_role="administrator,editor"]
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