Self-hosted remote campaign hub for plugin and theme authors. Push notices to unlimited sites via a PHP SDK — no SaaS needed.

Spider Themes

Muaz BK

Al Imran

<p><strong>NoticePilot is not another admin notice plugin.</strong> It is a <strong>self-hosted remote campaign distribution platform</strong> built specifically for WordPress plugin and theme authors.</p>
<p>If you maintain a WordPress plugin or theme that runs on hundreds or thousands of sites, you need a reliable way to push announcements, update prompts, sale banners, or deprecation warnings to your users — without shipping a new plugin release for every message. NoticePilot solves this with a <strong>hub-to-remote architecture</strong>: you manage campaigns centrally on your own site, and a lightweight PHP SDK bundled in your plugin automatically fetches and displays them on every remote installation.</p>
<h4>Who Is This For?</h4>
<p>NoticePilot is purpose-built for <strong>WordPress plugin and theme developers</strong> who need to communicate with their users across multiple remote installations from a single, self-hosted dashboard. It is <strong>not</strong> a tool for managing or suppressing admin notices on a single site — there are many plugins already serving that purpose.</p>
<h4>What Makes It Different?</h4>
<p>Unlike most admin-notice plugins, NoticePilot is a complete developer communication platform:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Hub-to-Remote Architecture</strong> — One central dashboard pushes campaigns to unlimited remote WordPress sites via a REST API. No third-party SaaS, no external dependencies — everything runs on your own WordPress installation.</li>
<li><strong>Single-File PHP SDK</strong> — Bundle one PHP file into your plugin or theme. Initialize with a single line of code. The SDK handles fetching, caching, rendering, and dismissal automatically.</li>
<li><strong>Privacy-First Analytics</strong> — Track impressions, clicks, and dismissals across all remote sites without collecting personal data. Remote site URLs are MD5-hashed before storage — no IP addresses, usernames, or cookies are ever saved.</li>
<li><strong>Audience Targeting</strong> — Deliver the right message to the right users by targeting campaigns based on plan type (free or pro), plugin version (with comparison operators like <code><</code>, <code>></code>, <code>=</code>), and WordPress user roles.</li>
<li><strong>Campaign Scheduling</strong> — Set start and end dates for time-sensitive campaigns. Expired campaigns are auto-disabled via WP-Cron — no manual clean-up required.</li>
<li><strong>Rich HTML Support</strong> — Write full HTML including inline CSS, <code><style></code> blocks, and custom layouts. Your content renders exactly as authored on every remote site.</li>
<li><strong>Smart Dismissal Handling</strong> — Users who dismiss a notice won’t see it again for a configurable duration. Dismissals are stored locally on the remote site using a FIFO strategy, keeping only the 20 most recent dismissed IDs.</li>
<li><strong>Scalable Analytics Engine</strong> — Raw events roll up into daily summaries via an hourly WP-Cron job with automatic pruning. Built for scale — no unbounded table growth.</li>
</ul>
<h4>How It Works</h4>
<ol>
<li><strong>Create a Product</strong> — Each product represents a plugin, theme, or service you maintain. NoticePilot generates a unique REST API endpoint for it automatically.</li>
<li><strong>Add Campaigns</strong> — Write rich HTML content, set optional scheduling and audience-targeting rules, then enable the campaign.</li>
<li><strong>Integrate the SDK</strong> — Download the single-file PHP SDK from your product card, bundle it with your plugin or theme, and initialize it with one line of code. The SDK polls your hub on a configurable schedule and renders active campaigns as WordPress admin notices on remote sites.</li>
<li><strong>Track Performance</strong> — Monitor impressions, clicks, dismissals, and click-through rates from the analytics dashboard. Drill down by product or by individual campaign with daily breakdowns.</li>
</ol>
<h4>Real-World Use Cases</h4>
<ul>
<li><strong>Plugin authors:</strong> Push update prompts, deprecation warnings, or feature announcements to all users of your plugin — without shipping a new release.</li>
<li><strong>Theme authors:</strong> Announce seasonal sales, new theme versions, or compatibility updates directly inside the WordPress admin on every active installation.</li>
<li><strong>Agency developers:</strong> Broadcast maintenance windows, policy changes, or onboarding tips across all client sites from a single central hub.</li>
<li><strong>Freemium plugins:</strong> Show upgrade prompts exclusively to free-plan users while displaying different messaging to pro users — all without code changes on the remote site.</li>
</ul>
<h4>A Self-Hosted Alternative</h4>
<p>Plugin authors today face a difficult choice: build a custom notice system from scratch for every product (duplicating effort), or rely on third-party SaaS platforms (adding external dependencies and data-privacy concerns). NoticePilot offers a <strong>self-hosted, privacy-respecting, zero-external-dependency alternative</strong> that runs entirely on your own WordPress installation — giving you full control over your data and your users’ experience.</p>
<h3>SDK Integration Guide</h3>
<p>This section explains the complete end-to-end workflow for wiring the NoticePilot SDK into your own plugin or theme. Follow these steps in order — they cover everything from creating your first product on the hub through to verifying notices appear on remote sites.</p>
<h4>Step 1 — Set Up the Hub</h4>
<p>Install and activate the NoticePilot plugin on your <strong>central management site</strong> (not on the sites of your customers). This is the one WordPress installation that will act as your private campaign server.</p>
<p>Once activated, navigate to <strong>NoticePilot</strong> in the WordPress admin sidebar. This is where all products and campaigns live.</p>
<h4>Step 2 — Create a Product</h4>
<p>A “Product” is the bridge between the hub and one of your plugins or themes.</p>
<ol>
<li>Click <strong>+ Add New Product</strong>.</li>
<li>Enter the name of your plugin or theme (e.g. <code>Super SEO Form</code>). NoticePilot automatically generates a URL-safe slug (e.g. <code>super-seo-form</code>). This slug is the identifier your SDK will use when polling for campaigns.</li>
<li>Toggle <strong>Enable this site</strong> to ON.</li>
<li>Click <strong>Save Site</strong>.</li>
</ol>
<p>Each product gets its own REST API endpoint in the form:</p>
<pre><code>https://your-hub-site.com/wp-json/noticepilot/v1/content/your-product-slug
</code></pre>
<h4>Step 3 — Add a Campaign</h4>
<p>With your product created, you can add one or more campaigns (notices) to it.</p>
<ol>
<li>Click <strong>+ Add Content</strong> on your product card.</li>
<li>Fill in the fields:
<ul>
<li><strong>Content Title</strong> — Internal reference only (e.g. <code>Black Friday Sale 2025</code>).</li>
<li><strong>HTML Content</strong> — The full HTML notice rendered on remote sites. Supports inline styles, <code><style></code> blocks, and any custom layout.</li>
<li><strong>Enable this offer</strong> — Toggle ON to make the campaign live immediately.</li>
<li><strong>Start / End Date (Optional)</strong> — Schedule the campaign for a specific window. Expired campaigns are auto-disabled by WP-Cron.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Click <strong>Save Content</strong>.</li>
</ol>
<p>You can attach multiple campaigns to a single product. All active and in-schedule campaigns are returned together when the SDK polls the endpoint.</p>
<h4>Step 4 — Download the SDK</h4>
<ol>
<li>On your product card, click the <strong>How To Integrate</strong> button.</li>
<li>Click <strong>Download SDK</strong> to download <code>class-remote-notice-client.php</code>.</li>
</ol>
<p>Alternatively, copy the file directly from the <code>sdk/</code> directory of the NoticePilot plugin.</p>
<h4>Step 5 — Bundle the SDK Into Your Plugin or Theme</h4>
<p>Copy <code>class-remote-notice-client.php</code> into your plugin or theme directory. A recommended location is an <code>includes/</code> subdirectory:</p>
<pre><code>your-plugin/
├── your-plugin.php
└── includes/
    └── class-remote-notice-client.php
</code></pre>
<p>The SDK is fully self-contained — no Composer, no external libraries, no additional files required.</p>
<h4>Step 6 — Initialize the SDK</h4>
<p>Add the following code to your plugin’s main PHP file (or to your theme’s <code>functions.php</code>). Replace the placeholder values with your own product slug and hub URL:</p>
<pre><code>// Load the NoticePilot remote notice SDK.
require_once __DIR__ . '/includes/class-remote-notice-client.php';

add_action( 'plugins_loaded', function() {
    Noticepilot_Remote_Notice_Client::init( 'your-product-slug', [
        'api_url'          => 'https://your-hub-site.com/wp-json/noticepilot/v1/content/your-product-slug',
        'schedule'         => 'daily',
        'capability'       => 'manage_options',
        'dismiss_duration' => WEEK_IN_SECONDS,
    ] );
} );
</code></pre>
<p><strong>Copy the exact URL from your product card’s “How To Integrate” panel</strong> to avoid typos — the slug in <code>api_url</code> must match the product slug precisely.</p>
<h4>SDK Configuration Options</h4>
<ul>
<li><code>api_url</code> <em>(required)</em> — The full REST URL to your product’s content endpoint on the hub. Find it in the <strong>How To Integrate</strong> panel on the product card.</li>
<li><code>schedule</code> <em>(optional)</em> — How often the remote site polls the hub for new campaigns. Accepted values: <code>hourly</code>, <code>twicedaily</code>, or <code>daily</code>. Default: <code>daily</code>. Use <code>hourly</code> for time-sensitive campaigns; use <code>daily</code> to reduce server load.</li>
<li><code>capability</code> <em>(optional)</em> — The WordPress capability a user must have to see notices. Default: <code>manage_options</code> (administrators only). Change to <code>edit_posts</code> to show notices to editors as well.</li>
<li><code>dismiss_duration</code> <em>(optional)</em> — How long (in seconds) a dismissed notice stays hidden before it can reappear. Default: <code>WEEK_IN_SECONDS</code>. Pass <code>0</code> to make dismissals permanent for that campaign ID.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Step 7 — (Optional) Pass Targeting Context</h4>
<p>If you use the audience-targeting feature (plan type, plugin version, or user roles), pass a <code>$context</code> array as the third argument to <code>init()</code>:</p>
<pre><code>Noticepilot_Remote_Notice_Client::init( 'your-product-slug', [
    'api_url'  => 'https://your-hub-site.com/wp-json/noticepilot/v1/content/your-product-slug',
    'schedule' => 'daily',
], [
    'plan'    => 'free',            // 'free' or 'pro' — matches Plan Type targeting on the hub.
    'version' => '2.3.1',          // Your plugin's current version string — matches Version targeting.
    'roles'   => wp_get_current_user()->roles,  // Current user's roles array.
] );
</code></pre>
<p>The SDK sends this context to the hub, which filters campaigns before returning them. Campaigns with no targeting rules set are always returned regardless of context.</p>
<h4>Step 8 — Verify the Integration</h4>
<ol>
<li>
<p><strong>Trigger the first fetch manually:</strong> After adding the initialization code, log in to a remote WordPress admin that has your plugin active. The SDK registers a WP-Cron event on first load (<code>plugins_loaded</code>). To force an immediate fetch without waiting for the cron, use WP-CLI on the remote site:</p>
<p>wp cron event run noticepilot_rnc_fetch_content_your-product-slug</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Check the stored contents option:</strong> In the remote site’s database, look for the option <code>noticepilot_rnc_your-product-slug_contents</code>. It should contain the JSON-encoded campaign data returned by the hub.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>View the notice in the admin:</strong> Navigate to any admin page on the remote site. Active campaigns appear as standard WordPress admin notices at the top of the page. Each notice has a dismiss (✕) button.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Check the analytics:</strong> Go back to your hub site <span aria-hidden="true" class="wp-exclude-emoji">→</span> <strong>NoticePilot <span aria-hidden="true" class="wp-exclude-emoji">→</span> Analytics</strong>. After a page load on the remote site triggers a beacon, you should see an impression logged against your campaign within the hour (after the next rollup cron runs), or immediately after clicking <strong>↻ Refresh Data</strong> on the Analytics page.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<h4>How the SDK Works at Runtime</h4>
<p>Understanding what the SDK does automatically helps you diagnose issues:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Cron registration</strong> — On <code>plugins_loaded</code>, the SDK schedules a repeating WP-Cron event (e.g. <code>noticepilot_rnc_fetch_content_your-product-slug</code>) on the remote site if one is not already registered.</li>
<li><strong>Remote fetch</strong> — When the cron fires, the SDK sends a <code>GET</code> request to the <code>api_url</code> endpoint on your hub. The hub checks each campaign’s <code>enabled</code> flag and schedule, then returns the active ones as JSON.</li>
<li><strong>Local caching</strong> — The fetched campaigns are stored in the remote site’s <code>wp_options</code> table (key: <code>noticepilot_rnc_your-product-slug_contents</code>). Notices are rendered from this local cache on every page load — no live HTTP request is made on each admin page.</li>
<li><strong>Rendering</strong> — On <code>admin_notices</code>, the SDK outputs each cached campaign as a standard <code>.notice</code> div. Campaign HTML is filtered through <code>wp_kses()</code> before output to prevent script injection.</li>
<li><strong>Analytics beacons</strong> — Immediately on render, and on link click or dismiss, the SDK fires a <code>navigator.sendBeacon()</code> call to the hub’s analytics tracking endpoint. This is fire-and-forget and does not block the page.</li>
<li><strong>Dismissal</strong> — When a user clicks the ✕ button, an AJAX call stores the campaign ID in <code>noticepilot_rnc_your-product-slug_dismissed_ids</code>. Only the 20 most recent IDs are kept. After <code>dismiss_duration</code> seconds, the campaign can reappear.</li>
<li><strong>Cron cleanup</strong> — On plugin deactivation (your plugin), the SDK’s cron event is automatically unscheduled.</li>
</ol>
<h4>Developer Notes</h4>
<ul>
<li><strong>Namespace safety</strong> — The SDK class is named <code>Noticepilot_Remote_Notice_Client</code>. It checks <code>class_exists()</code> before declaring itself, so it is safe to bundle in multiple plugins on the same site without conflicts.</li>
<li><strong>No singleton collision</strong> — Each <code>init()</code> call is keyed by its product slug. Multiple plugins on the same remote site can each run their own SDK instance independently.</li>
<li><strong>Hub availability</strong> — The SDK caches results locally, so if your hub server is temporarily unreachable during a cron run, the last successfully fetched campaigns continue to display until the next successful poll.</li>
<li><strong>Detecting the hub</strong> — In your plugin’s own code, you can detect whether the hub is installed on the current site with <code>class_exists( '\NoticePilot\Core' )</code>. This is useful for offering hub-specific admin links in a bundled UI.</li>
<li><strong>Forcing a re-fetch</strong> — To trigger the fetch action programmatically (e.g. after a plugin update), use: <code>do_action( 'noticepilot_rnc_fetch_content_your-product-slug' );</code></li>
</ul>


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