Overview

Connecting the BrightTally WordPress plugin requires a short, one-time OAuth handshake between your WordPress admin dashboard and the BrightTally application. Once you finish the handshake the plugin stores encrypted tokens on your site, keeps polls in sync, and unlocks editor tooling for your authors.

Heads up for multisite installations: The current integration targets single-site WordPress installs. Multisite support is on our roadmap—reach out if you need early access.

Prerequisites

• You are an administrator on the WordPress site.
• You have an Owner or Admin role inside BrightTally.
• Your hosting environment allows outbound HTTPS requests to brighttally.com.
• Optional but recommended: enable HTTPS on your WordPress site for the callback endpoint.

Step 1 — Install & Activate

1. Upload the bright-tally.zip package to Plugins → Add New → Upload and activate it.
2. After activation you will see a BrightTally top-level menu in your WordPress dashboard along with two sub-pages: Settings and Polls.

Step 2 — Quick Connect via OAuth

1. Navigate to BrightTally → Settings.
2. Click Sign In to BrightTally under Quick Connect. A popup window will appear.
3. Log into BrightTally (or create an account inside the popup). Review the requested permissions and approve the connection.
4. When the popup closes you will see a Connected badge in Settings and the main dashboard will refresh with live stats.

Optional: Manual API token

You can still paste an API token if your account uses legacy credentials. Enter the token in the API Token (Optional) field and click Save. OAuth is preferred because it refreshes tokens automatically and supports granular access control.

Step 3 — Verify the Sync

1. Head to BrightTally → Polls.
2. Use the Refresh button to force a sync.
3. Confirm that your published polls appear with the right status and response counts.

If you have no polls yet, click Create New Poll to launch the builder on brighttally.com. Newly created polls appear in WordPress within a few seconds.

Troubleshooting Tips

• Popup blocked: Allow popups for your WordPress admin domain and retry.
• OAuth state mismatch: Clear your browser cache for the WordPress admin domain and restart the flow. The plugin stores the state in bright_tally_oauth_state.
• Staging vs production: Set the Documentation Base URL and API URL in Settings when you are testing against staging or a local environment.

Next Steps

• Embed polls & forms in WordPress
• Review plan-based permissions
• Bookmark the troubleshooting checklist