Admin Menu Structure

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Admin Menu Structure

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Admin Menu Structure #

DMSI DDLS adds a new menu section to your WordPress admin called “DDLS”. As of v1.2.0, all pages are served through a unified 3-column admin shell with section/view-based navigation.

3-Column Admin Shell (v1.2.0) #

The DDLS admin interface uses a 3-column layout:

  • Left column: Primary navigation (sections)
  • Center column: Secondary navigation or list view
  • Right column: Detail or edit view (when applicable)

Navigation uses URL parameters (?page=ddls§ion=licenses&view=list) so all states are bookmarkable and browser-history compatible.

Dashboard #

Location: DDLS > Dashboard

Purpose: Overview of your licensing business

What You See:

  • Total licenses (Active, Expired, Suspended)
  • Total activations used
  • Total customers
  • Recent activity
  • Revenue statistics
  • Expiring licenses (requires action)
  • Failed subscription payments (requires attention)
  • Extension Status widget (v1.2.0) – shows which extensions are installed

When to Use: Daily check-in to monitor business health and catch issues.

Licenses #

Location: DDLS > Licenses

Purpose: View, create, edit, and manage all licenses

What You Can Do:

  • View all licenses (filterable by status, product, customer)
  • Search licenses by key, customer email, or product name
  • Create new license manually
  • Edit existing license (extend expiration, change status, reset activations)
  • Delete license (careful – this breaks customer access)
  • Bulk actions (activate, suspend, delete)
  • Export licenses to CSV

When to Use:

  • Customer support (extend license, reset activations)
  • Manually creating licenses (gifts, migrations, special deals)
  • Auditing license usage

License Types (v1.2.0) #

Location: DDLS > License Types

Purpose: Create and manage admin-defined license categories with preset defaults

What You Can Do:

  • Create license types (e.g., “Standard”, “Professional”, “Enterprise”)
  • Set default activation limits, durations, and support levels per type
  • Mark a type as lifetime (is_lifetime flag)
  • Assign types to products and variations

When to Use:

  • Setting up your licensing tiers
  • Standardizing settings across multiple products

Activations #

Location: DDLS > Activations

Purpose: View and manage all product activations

What You See:

  • All activations across all licenses
  • Which customer, which license, which site/device
  • When activated, last checked
  • IP address, user agent
  • Status (Active or Deactivated)

What You Can Do:

  • Deactivate installations (free up activation slots)
  • View activation history
  • Detect suspicious patterns (too many from same IP)
  • Bulk deactivate old/stale activations

When to Use:

  • Customer moved sites and needs activation reset
  • Investigating activation abuse
  • Cleaning up old activations

Customers #

Location: DDLS > Customers

Purpose: Manage customer records

What You See:

  • All customers who purchased from you
  • Email, name, company
  • Total licenses owned
  • Total lifetime value
  • Status (Active, Suspended, Cancelled)

What You Can Do:

  • View customer details
  • See all licenses owned by customer
  • Edit customer information
  • Change customer status
  • Import customers from CSV
  • Export customers to CSV

When to Use:

  • Looking up customer purchase history
  • Updating customer details
  • Importing customers from old system

Products #

Location: Uses WooCommerce > Products

Purpose: Configure licensing settings per product

What You See:

Regular WooCommerce product edit screen with added DMSI DDLS tab

What You Can Do:

  • Enable/disable licensing for product
  • Assign a License Type
  • Set product-level override for activation limit
  • Set license duration (lifetime, annual, monthly, custom days)
  • Configure subscription settings
  • Link support contract template
  • Set license key pattern
  • Configure per-variation settings (for variable products)
  • Select files from Media Library (v1.2.0)

When to Use:

  • Creating new product
  • Changing licensing terms for existing product

Versions #

Location: DDLS > Versions

Purpose: Manage product versions and files

What You See:

  • All versions across all products (WordPress CPT)
  • Version number, product, release date
  • Status (Published, Draft, Beta, Deprecated)

What You Can Do:

  • Create new version
  • Upload files (ZIP, PDF, etc.) or select from Media Library (v1.2.0)
  • Edit changelog
  • Set version status
  • Deprecate old versions
  • Delete versions

When to Use:

  • Releasing new product version
  • Updating existing version files
  • Managing version history

Subscriptions #

Location: DDLS > Subscriptions

Purpose: Manage recurring billing subscriptions

What You See:

  • All active, cancelled, and expired subscriptions
  • Next payment date, billing amount
  • Payment method (tokenized – not raw card number)
  • Linked license

What You Can Do:

  • View subscription details
  • Process payment manually (if failed)
  • Cancel subscription
  • Pause/resume subscription
  • Change billing amount or period
  • Update payment method

When to Use:

  • Subscription payment failed (dunning exhausted)
  • Customer requested cancellation
  • Adjusting subscription terms

Support Contracts #

Location: DDLS > Customers > [Select Customer] > Support Contracts tab

Note: Support Contracts do not have their own top-level menu. They are accessed through Customer or License detail pages.

Purpose: Manage time-based support agreements

When to Use:

  • Customer purchased support separately
  • Extending support for good customer
  • Tracking support usage

Email Logs #

Location: DDLS > Settings > Email tab

Note: Email Logs do not have their own top-level menu.

Purpose: View all emails sent by DMSI DDLS

What You See:

  • Email subject, recipient, date sent
  • Status (Sent, Failed, Queued)
  • Template used (license-generated, renewal-reminder, etc.)
  • Email UID for cross-referencing (v1.2.0)

What You Can Do:

  • Search logs by email UID (v1.2.0)
  • View email detail including full rendered content (v1.2.0)
  • Resend failed emails
  • Debug email delivery issues
  • Clear old logs

When to Use:

  • Customer claims they didn’t receive email
  • Debugging email problems
  • Audit trail

Settings #

Location: DDLS > Settings

Purpose: Configure plugin behavior

What You Find:

  • General settings (license key format, activation behavior)
  • Email settings (enable/disable templates, customize content)
  • Customer portal settings (enable/disable portal, page selection, Portal Page Title)
  • Subscription settings (dunning schedule, retry logic)
  • API settings (enable/disable API, authentication)
  • Extension settings tabs (added by installed extensions, v1.2.0)
  • Advanced settings (debug mode, cleanup schedules)

When to Use:

  • Initial plugin setup
  • Customizing email templates
  • Configuring customer portal
  • Troubleshooting

Related Topics #

  • [Dashboard Overview](#)
  • [Complete Workflow](#)
  • [Settings Configuration](#) (Part 9)

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