Managing a campaign
Every campaign has a management view — a frontend screen for working with one campaign: reviewing its pledges and posting updates. It is the companion to the wp-admin Campaigns screen, which is where you find and oversee campaigns in the first place.
Reaching the management view
Section titled “Reaching the management view”Open a campaign from Ignition → Campaigns in wp-admin, then use the buttons in the campaign header:
- Manage on Dashboard — opens this management view for the campaign.
- View Campaign — opens the public campaign page.
- Edit Campaign — opens the campaign form wizard to change the campaign’s details.
You can also reach the management view directly at the dashboard page with a campaign_id query parameter — for example https://example.com/dashboard/?campaign_id=42. The dashboard page must be configured in Ignition → Settings; the management view renders automatically when campaign_id is present.
Who can manage a campaign
Section titled “Who can manage a campaign”The management view is available to whoever authored the campaign and to staff who have permission to manage other people’s campaigns. Anyone else who opens the link sees a permission error.
Header
Section titled “Header”The header shows the campaign’s key information at a glance:
| Element | Description |
|---|---|
| Title | The campaign name, shown as a heading. |
| Status badge | A color-coded badge for the campaign’s current status (Draft, Preview, Active, Paused, Ended, Closed). |
| Goal | The funding target with currency symbol (e.g. “$5,000”). |
| End date | The campaign deadline, formatted to the site’s date settings. Shown only if an end date is set. |
An Edit Campaign button in the header opens the campaign form wizard pre-filled with the campaign’s data.
Sections
Section titled “Sections”Below the header, the view is divided into sections:
| Section | Description |
|---|---|
| Updates | The campaign’s updates, with a form for posting new ones. See Campaign Updates. |
| Pledges | Every pledge on the campaign, with per-status totals. The list is read-only — you can review pledges and export them, while recording payments, cancelling, and refunding are done from the wp-admin Pledges screen. |
Add-ons may add sections here, and may extend the pledge list with actions of their own.
When the free Better Sharing plugin is active, a share surface appears on the management view so you can share the campaign directly. Separate toggles in Sharing control whether it appears on active and preview campaigns.
Reviewing pledges
Section titled “Reviewing pledges”The Pledges section lists every pledge on the campaign. The section heading counts pledges by status, giving a quick read on funding progress.
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Date | When the pledge was made |
| Backer Name | The backer’s display name |
| The backer’s email address | |
| Amount | The pledge’s live contribution to the campaign, net of any refund. Where an add-on let the backer add something on top of their pledge, that extra is not part of this figure — it was never destined for the campaign. The backer’s own screens show the whole charge instead |
| Status | Lifecycle badge (Pending, Succeeded, Canceled), with a Partial / Full Refund chip when refunded |
A refunded pledge stays counted under Succeeded — refunds show as a per-row chip and a “refunded across N pledges” note in the funding summary, not as a status of their own. See Refunds.
If any pledge on the page nets out below zero, a short note above the list explains why: when a card payment is refunded the payment processor keeps its fee, so a refunded pledge can leave you slightly under zero. The negative figure itself is in the Net to You column of the export rather than in this table. See When a refund leaves you below zero.
On a phone the table becomes one labelled card per pledge, carrying every column rather than dropping any.
Exporting pledges
Section titled “Exporting pledges”An Export Pledges button in the pledges section header downloads a CSV of every pledge for the campaign — one row per pledge, ordered for fulfillment:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Pledge ID | Unique pledge identifier |
| Backer Name | The backer’s display name |
| The backer’s email address | |
| Reward Title | The selected reward tier (empty if PWYW) |
| Amount | Pledge amount |
| Status | Current pledge status (Pending, Succeeded, or Canceled) |
| Reward Minimum Amount | The tier’s minimum amount (empty if PWYW) |
| Date | When the pledge was made |
| Currency | Three-letter currency code |
| Payment Method | The method the backer chose |
| Display Preference | Anonymous or Public |
| Campaign ID | The campaign’s post ID |
| Reward ID | The reward tier’s post ID (empty if PWYW) |
| Processing Fee | What the payment processor kept out of the charge, as reported by the gateway. Empty when no fee was ever recorded — that is not the same as a fee of zero — and always empty for an offline pledge |
| Net to You | What the pledge leaves you after refunds and any processing fee. Can be a small negative number on a fully refunded card pledge — see When a refund leaves you below zero |
| Refund | “Partial Refund” or “Full Refund” when refunded, empty otherwise |
The filename follows campaign-{slug}-pledges-{date}.csv. It opens in any spreadsheet application and includes a UTF-8 BOM for Excel compatibility.
Staff also have a wider pair of exports — Export Pledges and Export Backers — on the wp-admin Pledges screen that span every campaign. See Settings — Admin pledge and backer exports.
Related
Section titled “Related”- Creating a Campaign — the campaign form used to create and edit campaigns.
- Campaign Updates — posting updates from the management view.
- Campaign Lifecycle — status definitions and transitions.
- Managing Campaigns — the wp-admin Campaigns screen.
- Pledging — how pledges work across the site.