Getting started

Introduction

After you've installed TC (see the installation guide), you will start trading with it. This document will explain the basics of how to setup and manage TC.

Add you ip to the global whitelist

To start with, you should add your ip, or ip range to the ip whitelist. To do so, go to the server->configuration screen, and add your ip in the "Global IP Whitelist".
Optionally, you can use ranges eg. 1.2.3.[4-10] or 1.2.3.*

Advanced vs Basic mode

In the top-right, you are able to switch from advanced mode to basic mode, and vice-versa. The basic mode hides some features, which you probably wont need most of the time.

Creating an account

After you've logged into TC, go to the servers->accounts screen. This will display you a list of domains running on this server, and the licenses which exist.
To create a new account, enter the 'Add an account' form, to create one account, or, fill in the 'Bulk add accounts' textfield, so import a bunch at the same time.

Activating a license

In the account screen, fill in your license/ controlscripts.com password, and hit validate. If the username/ password validates, hit the reload button. This will synchronize the domain with the license server.

To activate a license for an account, login to the license manager, at http://license.controlscripts.com/. Go to the 'My domains' screen, and select the domains you wish to activate the licenses for.
At the bottom, select the licenses you want to activate, and hit the 'Add licenses' button. The licenses should now appear in the my domain screen.

Reloading licenses

TC automaticly checks for license updates every hour, but you can force it to reload your licenses by hitting the 'Reload' button on the accounts screen.

Setting up trades

In the trades->bulk add trades screen, you will find 2 import systems. You can either import from a textfield, with pipe (|) delimited values, or, you can import from an external system directly, using the bottom form.
Optionally, you can add trades with the quick add screen, or with the 'trades->add trade' which shows more fields to add.

Setting up your site

After adding accounts, and trades, you will need to install the tracker, and click scripts (see the 'Configuring your sites' chapter for full details)

To activate TC on your site, first, add the tracker

In the pages you want to track, add the following code, beneith the body tag:

PHP

<?php include('/home/tradecontrol/client/site/ssi.php'); ?>

or

for server side includes

<!--#include virtual="/TC/site/ssi.php"-->

This will TC start tracking visitors that are coming in.

Before changing clicks to go through TC, test if the tracking of incoming visitors work.

Testing if it works

Log into the TC admin. Switch to the account you want to test, and select the logs->activity log screen (switch to advanced mode if this isnt available).
The activity log shows you whats going on at this moment. If the tracker is configured properly, you should see visitors coming in. If you dont see any visitors coming in, check the page you added in the tracker, and check if the source code contains a script tag which loads an /TC/site/i.php. If not, the tracker wasnt installed properly.

Tracking clicks

If the tracker installed properly, you can setup the tracking of clicks. The format of clicks through TC is:

Content clicks

/TC/site/c.php?U=[url]

Toplist/ static clicks

/TC/site/o.php?U=[url,domain,id]

Optionally, you can add in the following extra parameters:

link=[name of link] (see the account->links screen)
p=[custom skim percentage] (c.php only)

Limiting trades

Though TC algorithms will balance out which trades to send to, you might want to limit the amount of traffic sent to a trade.
Per default, trades are capped on 135% in 24 hours, meaning, that if you send out 135 uniques, and the trade hasnt send you 100 uniques back, TC will keep that trade off the out lists (slots).
To limit trades even further, go to the statistics screen, and select the trades you want to limit (select the checkboxes in front of it). Open up the trade option menu (top right) and hit 'edit selected trades'.

Instant forces

To get some trades going, you can force it some traffic. Edit a trade/ multiple trades, and edit the following fields to start forcing:

Free - Instant force of 'free' traffic. Free traffic is not counted as out
Normal force - Instant force, with moderate priority
Boost force - Instant force with increased priority
Ultra force - Instant force with dominating priority (use with care)

Force priorities can be changed in the slots screen (see the slots chapter).

Timed force

The above forces can optionally be set for a period of time, for a given amount.
To set a timed force, insert a value eg. 10 in the 'per hour' field, and select which type of force you want to give it. Then activate the 'Timed force for' checkbox, and enter the amount of hours you wish to enable it for.

If you've set the amount per hour field, without the timed force enabled, it will force that amount forever througout the hour.

TC forces are 'throttled', meaning it will spread out the forces througout the hour, removing 'spikes' of forced traffic.

Minimum out

When you set the 'Minimum uniques out per day', TC will calculate automaticly, how much to force to that trade, to send that trade the minimum uniques out. It spreads additional forces, if the minimum out isnt reached.