Omnis docs — set up your fleet in minutes.

How Omnis works

Omnis is two lightweight WordPress plugins:

• Omnis Dashboard — installed on one central WordPress site. This is your control panel: the site registry, scheduled checks, health flags, alerts and the admin UI.
• Omnis Child — installed on each site you want to manage. It exposes a single secured endpoint the dashboard talks to.

The dashboard always initiates traffic. Uptime is measured by the dashboard requesting each site’s public URL directly — so an outage is caught even if WordPress is fully down — while everything else (updates, backups, health) is pulled from the child’s signed endpoint.

Requirements

• WordPress 5.8+ and PHP 7.4+ on both the dashboard and the managed sites.
• The OpenSSL PHP extension (standard on virtually every host).
• HTTPS on the managed sites — recommended; Omnis warns if a site isn’t on HTTPS.
• A working cron. WP-Cron works out of the box; for accurate timing we recommend a real system cron (see Uptime & alerts).

1. Install the dashboard

1. On your central WordPress site, go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, upload the Omnis Dashboard zip, and Activate.
2. A new Omnis menu appears in wp-admin. Open it — the overview is empty until you connect your first site.
3. Optionally open Omnis → Settings to set check intervals, retry counts, alert recipients and thresholds. You can do this any time.

2. Connect a site

1. On the site you want to manage, install and activate Omnis Child.
2. Go to Omnis Child → Connection and copy the site’s REST URL and its one-time connection key.
3. Back on the dashboard, open Omnis → Add Site, paste the URL and key, and click Connect.
4. The dashboard generates a keypair, completes the handshake, and runs a first sync. The site now appears in your overview with its status and flags.

Your fleet at a glance

The overview shows a live summary bar — Sites, Online, Down, Updates, Attention — and a row per site with its status pill, response time, pending updates and health flags. From here you can:

• Sync a site on demand, or let the scheduled sync keep it fresh.
• Open a site’s detail page for its full update list, latest backup, cron health and uptime history.
• Spot problems fast via colour-coded flags: down, slow load, updates available, no / stale / failing backup, failing cron, connection error and critical error.

Running updates

Open Omnis → Updates to see every pending core, plugin and theme update across your whole fleet. You can:

• Review updates by plugin / theme (update one item everywhere) or by site.
• Select what to update and run it — a live progress modal shows each item completing in real time.
• Update a single site from its detail page.

Updates run sequentially per site and in parallel across sites, so large fleets finish quickly. After each run Omnis re-checks the site, so any critical error surfaces immediately.

Uptime & alerts

The dashboard checks each site’s public URL on a schedule. To avoid false alarms it retries before marking a site down, then alerts you on the transition — down, and again on recovery — not every cycle.

• Configure intervals, retry count and the slow-load threshold in Settings.
• Add email recipients and / or Zapier webhook URLs for alerts.
• For precise timing, add a real system cron and disable WP-Cron — Omnis shows a notice with the exact line to add, and warns if the dashboard’s own cron falls behind.

Critical-error detection

Omnis detects when a site is broken even if it still returns a page: HTTP 5xx errors, WordPress’s “critical error” white screen, recovery mode, and plugins WordPress has auto-paused. The site is flagged and, where possible, Omnis names the plugin or theme that caused it — so you know exactly what to roll back.

Backups

Omnis reads UpdraftPlus backup status from each site and surfaces it on the dashboard, with flags for no backups, stale backups (older than your threshold) and failing backups — so a missing backup never surprises you at restore time. More providers are on the roadmap.

One-click WP Admin login

Every connected site has an Open WP Admin button — on its overview row and on its detail page. Click it and Omnis logs you straight into that site’s wp-admin in a new tab, with no stored passwords. Each login link is signed by your dashboard, single-use, and expires within a couple of minutes.

Licensing & Pro

The free Omnis Dashboard covers uptime monitoring, fleet updates, critical-error detection and email alerts for a starter number of sites. Pro unlocks unlimited sites plus backup & cron health flags and Zapier alerts.

1. Open Omnis → License, paste your license key and click Activate.
2. Once valid, click Download & install Pro — Omnis fetches and installs the Pro add-on, which runs alongside the free plugin.
3. Pro updates then arrive through the normal WordPress updates screen, gated by your license.

Keeping Omnis updated

The free dashboard and child plugins update through WordPress like any other plugin. The Pro add-on self-updates from the Omnis update server, validated against your license key — you’ll see its updates on the dashboard’s Plugins / Updates screen.

Troubleshooting

A site won’t connect

Check the child is on HTTPS, the REST URL is reachable, and the connection key hasn’t already been used — regenerate it on Omnis Child → Connection and retry.

Uptime says “down” but the site loads for me

Something is blocking the dashboard’s requests — often a firewall, security plugin or rate-limit. Allow the dashboard’s IP, or raise the slow-load threshold if the site is simply slow.

Pro features aren’t showing

Activate your license first, then use Download & install Pro. The Pro add-on must be installed for backup / cron flags and Zapier to appear.

Still stuck?

Email jason@lifering.co.nz and we’ll help.

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