WordPress plugin

The plugin is the easiest way to connect a WordPress site to Rutba CRM. You install it once and paste one code. It then adds the tracking code to every page, sends every enquiry from your forms, connects your WooCommerce store and adds a WhatsApp consent box at checkout. There are no webhooks to copy, no code to put in your theme and nothing to set up for each form.

Before you start

• Who can do it: in Rutba CRM, owners and administrators of the company. In WordPress, an administrator.
• Plan: the plugin's page is there when your plan includes Website forms, Store connections or Tracking and customer journey. Each part of the plugin works only when your plan includes it.
• A pipeline: form enquiries and store connections need a sales pipeline. If the company has none yet, create one first. See Deals and pipelines.
• Sites: a company can connect up to 10 sites.
• Requirements: see the requirements near the end of this page.

Connect your site

1. In Rutba CRM, click Team in the sidebar, then WordPress at the top of the page.
2. Under Connect a site in four steps, click Download the plugin. The button also shows the plugin's version. The file's name carries the version too, for example crm-connect-1.0.0.zip, so an older download is never mistaken for the new one. Keep the file as it is: WordPress installs the zip file itself.
3. In WordPress open Plugins, then Add New, then Upload Plugin. Choose the file, install it and activate it.
4. Back in Rutba CRM, enter your site in Site address, for example example.com, and click Make a connection code. You can paste a whole address: only the domain is kept, without www..
5. A box titled Your connection code appears. Click Copy the code: the whole code is copied in one go, so nothing is left out. It is shown only this once.
6. In WordPress, open the new Rutba CRM item in the admin menu. You can also click Settings under the plugin in the plugins list.
7. Under Connect this site, paste the code in Connection code and click Connect.

The page then says Connected. Each part below is ready. and lists each part with its state. Nothing is sent to Rutba CRM before you connect.

Connect the store

On a WooCommerce site, click Connect the store on the plugin's page. The page says The store is connected. New orders now reach the CRM. Once the store is connected, the button is called Check the store connection.

You do not need to set up anything in Store connections first. The plugin adds the store there for you.

Did you connect this store by hand before, with four webhooks you added yourself? The plugin takes over that connection in Store connections and gives it its own secret, so your hand-made webhooks stop working. Remove them under WooCommerce → Settings → Advanced → Webhooks, so that only the plugin's four remain.

What each part does

Each part follows your plan. On the plugin's page, the site owner can switch any part off: clear its box under On and click Save. A part your plan does not include shows Not in your plan, and its box cannot be ticked.

Visit tracking

The plugin adds the tracking code to the head of every page. You do not edit the theme or add any code by hand. If you added the tracking line to your site yourself before, remove it, so that visits are not counted twice.

• If the company already tracks this domain under Tracking, the plugin uses that site and its consent setting.
• Otherwise a tracking site is added for the domain when you connect. If the plugin found CookieYes, Complianz or Cookiebot on the site at that moment, the new site waits for consent. If it found none of them, the new site runs for all visitors; if your visitors must agree first, open Tracking and click Require consent on the site's card.

When the site asks for consent, the plugin listens to the CookieYes, Complianz and Cookiebot cookie banners. When a visitor accepts statistics or marketing cookies in one of them, visits count from then on. The plugin does not pass on a later withdrawal. With another banner, call crmConsent() from it, as described in Tracking.

Form enquiries

Every enquiry sent with Elementor Pro, Contact Form 7 or WPForms becomes a contact and a deal in Rutba CRM. You do not add a webhook to any form.

• In the background: the visitor never waits for Rutba CRM. Each enquiry is queued and sent at once in the background. If Rutba CRM does not answer, it is tried again after 5, 10 and 15 minutes.
• No per-address limit: your web server sends every enquiry, but each one is known by the site's signature, so the limit of 30 an hour for one address does not apply. You do not need to enter your server's address. The form's own limit of 120 enquiries an hour still applies. See Website forms.
• The form they go to: the first enquiry adds a website form called WordPress forms (example.com), with your domain, in the first stage of your first pipeline. You find it under Website forms, with its enquiries.
• Fields: the fields go as they are, label and value, and the common names in English, Arabic, Turkish and French are recognised. See the fields table in Website forms.
• Consent: each form needs a consent box: an Acceptance field in Elementor Pro, an acceptance tag in Contact Form 7, or a GDPR agreement field in WPForms. In WPForms, a checkbox whose label speaks of agreeing, consent or privacy also counts. Without a ticked consent box, the enquiry is refused.
• Visits: the visitor's tracking cookie goes with the enquiry, so the enquiry is linked to the visits that led to it.

If a form also has an older webhook to your form address, remove that webhook, or each enquiry arrives twice.

To stop enquiries from the site, switch Form enquiries off on the plugin's page. If the WordPress forms form is turned off under Website forms, the site's enquiries are refused, and the plugin shows Not in your plan under Form enquiries until you click Turn on there.

WooCommerce store

When you click Connect the store, the plugin:

1. Makes a signing secret for the store and tells it to Rutba CRM once, over the signed connection.
2. Uses the store's connection under Store connections: the WooCommerce connection for the same domain, or else the company's only WooCommerce connection. If there is none, it adds one, named after your domain, in the first stage of your first pipeline and with the store's currency.
3. Makes the four WooCommerce webhooks: order created, order updated, product created and product updated. You find them under WooCommerce → Settings → Advanced → Webhooks. Their names end with the topic, such as order.created.

WooCommerce turns a webhook off after repeated failed deliveries, for example during an outage. Once a day the plugin checks its four webhooks and turns them back on. You can also do it at once with Check the store connection.

The plugin also puts the visitor's tracking cookie on each order, so the order meets the visits that led to it.

Orders and products arrive from now on. To bring in past orders, use Import past orders and products on the store's card, as described in WooCommerce.

WhatsApp consent at checkout

The plugin adds a box at checkout: Send me updates about my order on WhatsApp. It works on the classic checkout and on the checkout block. The box is shown in the site's language when that is English, Arabic, Turkish or French, and in English otherwise.

When the customer ticks the box, the order carries the field whatsapp_opt_in. When you connect the store, the plugin fills in whatsapp_opt_in in Order field that holds WhatsApp consent, unless your company already entered another field name there. If you did, change it to whatsapp_opt_in, or the box is not read. The consent is read on every order, paid at once or not. See Alerts and digests for the WhatsApp reminders that use it.

This part is available when your plan includes Store connections.

Read the states

In WordPress

The plugin's page shows a table with each Part, whether it is On, and its State:

Below the buttons, Recent problems lists the last failures with their times. The page also warns about two WooCommerce settings that undo part of the work; see the troubleshooting table below.

The plugin's page uses the WordPress user's language when it is English, Arabic, Turkish or French, and English otherwise.

In Rutba CRM

On WordPress, each connected site has a card with its domain and a state:

The card also shows Last heard from, Last enquiry, Versions (the plugin, WordPress and WooCommerce) and Found on the site: the form plugins, WooCommerce and the cookie banners the plugin found. Once the site has reported, each part is listed as Working, Needs a look or Off, with the plugin's note under it. Needs a look means the part is on but has not reported a success, or its last check failed: for example, tracking without a tracking site, fewer than 4 active store webhooks, or WooCommerce not active for the WhatsApp box. Last problem: shows the last error the platform saw, with its date.

The site reports once a day, and each time you click Connect, Save or Refresh in the plugin.

Send a test enquiry

1. On the plugin's page, click Send a test enquiry. The button is there when your plan includes Website forms.
2. The test is sent at once, so the answer shows straight away: The test enquiry arrived. Look for "Test from WordPress" in the CRM.
3. In Rutba CRM, find the contact Test from WordPress with your WordPress user's email address, and its deal under Deals.

The test is a real enquiry, so it creates a real contact and deal. If your email already belongs to a contact, the enquiry is added to that contact instead. If the test fails, the page shows why.

Replace the code, turn off, disconnect

Replace the code

If the code was lost or shared, click Replace the code on the site's card in Rutba CRM. A new code appears once, and the old one stops working at once. Then, in WordPress:

1. Click Disconnect on the plugin's page. On a store, this also removes the plugin's four webhooks.
2. Paste the new code and click Connect.
3. On a store, click Connect the store again. The plugin makes four new webhooks, so there are no duplicates.

Turn a site off

Turn off on the site's card only refuses the plugin's calls: enquiries and the daily report stop, and the plugin shows that the code is not valid. Turn on lets them in again. Visit tracking and the store's orders keep their own switches: to stop them too, use Turn off under Tracking and Store connections.

A site cannot be deleted. Only active sites count toward the 10 sites a company can connect, so a turned-off site frees its place.

Disconnect in WordPress

Disconnect on the plugin's page forgets the code and stops tracking and form enquiries. On a store, it also removes the plugin's four webhooks from WooCommerce, so orders stop arriving. The plugin says Disconnected. Nothing more is sent, and the store webhooks were removed. In Rutba CRM the site becomes Quiet after two days; use Turn off there as well.

Deleting the plugin in WordPress removes everything it saved, but not the store's webhooks. Click Disconnect before you delete it, or remove the webhooks under WooCommerce → Settings → Advanced → Webhooks afterwards.

Updates

Once the site is connected, WordPress checks Rutba CRM for a new version of the plugin, at most every six hours. A new version shows on the Plugins page like any other plugin update, and you update it there. You can also download the latest version again from WordPress in Rutba CRM.

Privacy and security

• Signed calls: every call from the plugin is signed with the connection's secret and carries the time it was made. Rutba CRM refuses a call that is not signed with the right secret, that is more than five minutes old, or that was already received once.
• The secret is shown once: the code holds the address of Rutba CRM, the connection and its secret. After you paste it, the plugin stores it in the WordPress database. It never shows it again, never sends it again and never writes it to a log. In Rutba CRM the secret is stored encrypted and never shown after the code.
• The store's secret: the plugin makes the store's signing secret itself and tells it to Rutba CRM once, over the signed connection.
• The status page keeps the last outcome of each part, never a visitor's details.
• Your privacy policy: enquiries, customers and orders move into Rutba CRM. Say so in your site's privacy policy, and mention the tracking, before you go live.

Requirements

The site must be able to reach https://rutbacrm.com over HTTPS.

Troubleshooting