WordPress

Plenty of clubs already have a WordPress website they want to keep: a committee member built it, a local agency looks after it, or it has years of search history behind it. You don't have to choose. Keep WordPress as your website and run your members, payments, events and competitions in ClubHelix. The two are joined by the free ClubHelix plugin for WordPress. You'll find this screen under Website management → WordPress in the admin sidebar, next to Migration and Redirects.

The WordPress integration is being released to a small number of pilot clubs first. If it isn't on for your organisation yet, you'll see a preview of the screen rather than a working one. There's nothing for you to set up; it unlocks when it reaches you.

Who can use this

Admins only. Moderators don't see it in the sidebar. A connection can start checkouts on your club's behalf and decides what your public website is, so it sits with the same people who manage your API keys and payments.

What's on the page

• Needs your attention. Shown only when something does. It comes first because each item means part of the connection has stopped working, or is waiting for you:
  • New site waiting for you to confirm it. A site has connected and proved it controls its address, and an Admin needs to confirm it's your club's. This is always first.
  • The person who connected the site is no longer an Admin.
  • The site isn't verified.
  • The plugin hasn't checked in for more than three days.
  • The plugin reported an error.
• Connected site. For each connected WordPress site:
  • its address, whether ownership is verified, and whether an Admin has confirmed it
  • Public website next to the one visitors are sent to, when WordPress is your public website
  • what it may do, in plain words
  • which plugin features are on
  • the plugin, WordPress and PHP versions it last reported
  • when it last checked in and last made a request
  • its last error, and who it acts for
• Recent updates sent to WordPress. The last few notices ClubHelix sent your site, such as a news post published or an event changed, and whether each arrived. The plugin uses these to refresh its copy straight away instead of waiting for its next scheduled check.
• Your public website. Whether visitors see your ClubHelix site or your WordPress site, which confirmed WordPress site they're sent to, the switch between the two and a preview of where club pages will send people.
• Members address. Shown once WordPress is your public website. Sets up members. on your own domain for joining, checkout and member pages.
• Connect your WordPress site. The steps to connect, and a setup link you can make for someone else.

Step by step

Connect your WordPress site

1. In your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins → Add New, search for ClubHelix, then install and activate it.
2. On the plugin's welcome screen, choose Connect. A ClubHelix window opens.
3. Sign in to ClubHelix. If your account uses two-step sign-in, you'll be asked for it, because this is an admin action.
4. Check the website address in the yellow box. Only approve if you recognise it as your club's own site. If someone sent you a link and you don't recognise the address, choose Cancel.
5. Pick your organisation and read what the site will be allowed to do. Approve.
6. The window closes. The plugin then proves it controls the site's address, which takes a few seconds. There's no key to copy or paste.
7. Back on this page, New site waiting for you to confirm it appears at the top. Tick I recognise … as our club's WordPress site and choose Confirm this site.

Until an Admin confirms it, the site can show your public club content but payers aren't sent back to it, your widgets won't show on it, it can't become your public website and it can't set up a members address. Confirming is recorded in your organisation's audit log.

Set it up for someone else

If someone else will install the plugin, such as your web person or the agency that runs your site:

1. Choose Make a setup link on this page and send them the link. It works once, for one day.
2. They open it, type the WordPress site's address, and land on that site's plugin installer with your organisation already chosen.
3. They still have to sign in to ClubHelix as an Admin of your organisation and approve. The link only saves them picking the organisation.

Make WordPress your public website

Once a site is connected, verified and confirmed, you can make WordPress the only public website:

1. Under Your public website, pick the WordPress site visitors should go to (it's already picked if you have only one), then choose Make WordPress our public website.
2. From then on, your club's public pages here (news, events, the home page and the rest) send visitors to the matching page on WordPress, or to its home page when there's no match.
3. Joining, checkout, sign-in, member accounts, registrations and bookings stay on ClubHelix. A visitor who presses Join on your WordPress site comes here to pay, then goes back to your WordPress page.
4. To undo it, choose Bring back our ClubHelix site. Your ClubHelix pages come straight back, and nothing in them was deleted.
5. If your members domain (such as members.yourclub.org) is your ClubHelix site's main address, you're asked to tick a box first. Bringing the ClubHelix site back makes all its pages public on that domain, where they can compete with your WordPress site in search.

If you reconnect the same site later (after reinstalling the plugin, say), confirming the new connection keeps it as your public website. Until you confirm it, your ClubHelix site is shown.

Set up your members address

1. With WordPress as your public website, find Members address and choose Set up or switch over to members.….
2. Add the DNS records shown on the plugin's Domain tab in WordPress, where your domain is managed.
3. Come back and press the button again. ClubHelix switches over only once it can see both records, so nothing breaks in between.

The plugin can show the records and check them, but it can't set the address up itself. That's always an Admin's click here.

When the person who connected it leaves

A connection acts for the Admin who made it. If they leave or stop being an Admin, your website keeps showing club content and keeps taking payments, but anything done on the club's behalf, such as moving content into ClubHelix or updating your colours, stops.

1. The page shows The person who connected … is no longer an Admin here.
2. Any current Admin chooses Reconnect as me. The connection now acts for you, and everything resumes.

Revoke a connection

1. Under the site, open Revoke this connection and confirm.
2. The website stops reading from ClubHelix at once. Its blocks keep showing their last saved copy, and it can no longer start checkouts.
3. If WordPress was your public website and this was the site visitors were sent to, your ClubHelix site comes back automatically, so you're never left without one.
4. If this is your last confirmed WordPress site and your members domain (such as members.yourclub.org) is your ClubHelix site's main address, you're asked to tick a box first. Revoking it makes ClubHelix your public website on that domain, where its pages can compete with your WordPress site in search.

Send WordPress posts to ClubHelix news

1. In WordPress, open Settings → ClubHelix → Sync and tick Send published posts to ClubHelix, then save. It needs the Pro plan.
2. The first time, the plugin asks you to disconnect and connect again, to approve the extra permission.
3. From then on, each post you publish appears in ClubHelix News within a minute or so, marked From your WordPress site. Only the title, excerpt, featured image and link are sent. Updating or unpublishing the post in WordPress updates it here, and so does deleting it, even when you delete it permanently or empty the trash.
4. Posts you'd already published come across too. Turning the setting on sends your 200 most recent published posts in the background, 20 every two minutes, and the Sync tab shows Sending … existing posts while it runs. Older posts stay in WordPress only. If the plugin is still waiting for you to reconnect, they're sent once you do.

Field reference

Tips & FAQ

Do we have to give up our WordPress site to use ClubHelix? No. Keep it, and add club features to it with the plugin's blocks: upcoming events, fixtures and results, the ladder, news, sponsors, membership prices and a Join button.

Does the plugin store our members in WordPress? No. Your member list, payments and consent records stay in ClubHelix. The plugin only shows public club content, plus a signed-in member's own details if you turn on member sign-in later. If you also let it make WordPress accounts for members, which is off unless you turn it on, each member who signs in gets an account holding their name and email address.

Can we put our WordPress news in member emails? Yes. Turn on Send published posts to ClubHelix in the plugin's Sync tab. Each published post then appears in ClubHelix News, and you can build a broadcast from it. The post stays in WordPress and the email links to it.

Does a card payment ever go through WordPress? No. Every payment is taken on a secure checkout page from your club's own payment account, exactly as it is today. WordPress only starts the checkout and gets the visitor back.

What if ClubHelix is down for a moment? Your WordPress site keeps working. The plugin shows its last saved copy and quietly tries again.

Can the plugin move our whole site to ClubHelix instead? Yes, once WordPress migration is switched on for your organisation. Choose Move my website to ClubHelix in the plugin. Pages, news, events, SportsPress teams and fixtures, venues, WooCommerce products and Polylang or WPML translations come across for you to review. Players aren't copied, because in ClubHelix they're member records holding personal details, and menus and forms come in a later update. Migration has the details.

Will two websites compete in search? Not once WordPress is your public website: ClubHelix's club pages then send visitors and search engines to WordPress.

Why can't I switch to WordPress as our public website? You need a connected, verified site that an Admin has confirmed. Connect it from the plugin, then confirm it at the top of this page.

Why confirm a site that's already verified? Verified only proves the plugin controls that address. A connection link can name any website, so someone could trick an Admin into approving their own site. Confirming here is your check that it really is your club's.

Our ClubHelix widgets stopped showing on another site. While a WordPress site is connected, ClubHelix widgets can only be embedded on that site, which protects checkout buttons from being framed somewhere else. Embed them on your WordPress site instead.

Can the Helix Assistant connect our site for us? No. It can explain how everything works, but connecting, reconnecting, revoking and changing your public website are always an Admin's own click.

What does it cost? Showing club content on WordPress is included on every plan. Taking payments and sign-ups through it follows your plan's payment features.