User Interface and Work Flow

Like many of you guys, I spend hours each day working in the SPBAS admin area. After so much time invested you begin to clearly see the rough spots that need improvement. I couldn’t think of any better way to mark the v2.0 milestone than to smooth over those rough spots. This gives us a rock solid base moving into the v2.x releases. I won’t be able to cover each change because there are too many, you’ll just have to check it out yourself. I would like to go over a few of my favorite changes though, so let’s begin!
  

1. When we have a new version available this section will slide out with a direct link to the release highlights.

2. We now have drop menu navigation. This has to be my favorite feature. It makes using SPBAS noticeably faster.
  

3. We moved the auto-complete search over to a more natural right position.

4. The search results now include the helpdesk. It also persists until you click the X button.
  

5. The toughest part of using SPBAS is getting started with the initial configuration. We’ve added a built in Quick Start guide to help with this. Clicking on each of the five panels will take you to documentation for that section.

6. Old pros won’t need the Quick Start guide so we’ve provided a way to disable it. Simply click the X button to hide it forever. You can re-enable it at anytime by clicking the Quick Start link in the footer.
  

7. We converted all of the quick reports from the v1.x dashboard to widgets.

8. The widgets are sortable and persistent so they stay where you put them.
  

9. In this example, we are looking at a select box that contains the different licensing methods you’ve setup. It enables you to flip between each method while staying at the same tab. In this case, the Advanced Settings tab. We use this type of navigation throughout SPBAS where applicable.

10. You will consistently find actionable items like add, edit and delete buttons at this location throughout SPBAS.

11. We use tab style navigation in the editor views throughout SPBAS. With v2 we’ve switched from horizontal tabs to vertical tabs positioned on the right hand side of the screen. We made this change because it enables us to add more tabs than would fit horizontally and we can now better describe each tab.

12. Clicking on the settings tab will show all menu options at once on a single page. The settings tab is where you configure everything from software licensing to KB so there are dozens of direct links on this page.
  

Code Hooks

With v2.0 we’ve standardized the process of adding new trigger points for code hooks. This improvement enables us to create new code hooks anywhere in SPBAS in minutes. Expect to see many new hook points in future releases.

We’ve introduced four new code hooks for v2.0:

1. *_helpdesk_before_user_delete
2. *_admin_before_user_delete
3. *_at_phpaudit_license_invalid
4. *_at_license_key_creation

Click here to learn more about SPBAS code hooks.
  

Joomla! Login Share Module

The Joomla login share module has arrived! I know many of you guys use Joomla and have requested this module for quite some time, I’m glad it has finally here.

The module works with Joomla v1.5 & v1.6 and offers login share with SPBAS acting as the controller. This means that SPBAS will handle things like account updates, password changes and user registration. It currently does not support session share or the advanced ACL introduced in Joomla v1.6.

You can install the login share module at this location in the SPBAS v2.0 admin:

Settings -> Application -> Custom Modules -> Add New -> Joomla!
  

Framework Upgrades

We are pleased to announce that we’ve also implemented a series of framework upgrades.

First, we no longer require php short tag support, we replaced all of the short tags with regular tags.

The next upgrade was of the admin area directory structure. We made it even more modular by moving all module specific components to a central spot in admin/modules/*module*. This creates a new standard for module creation that simplifies the process and better organizes functionality.
  

Notable Changes

We also implemented the following notable changes with v2.0:

- You can now add invoice line items with $0.00 amounts.
- Improved license instances support for the SPBAS method. ( no integration code update required )
- Fully implemented wildcards for domain, IP, server hostname and server IP. ( e.g. *.domain.com, 192.* )
- Ability to define the cookie domain in the m3_configuration.php. ( e.g. $conf['use_cookie_domain']=’.url.com’; )
- Added helpdesk to the global auto-complete search in the admin area.
- Switched javascript frameworks in the admin area. Moved from Prototype to jQuery.
- Updated the installer to have the look and feel of the v2.0 admin.

These are optional, but do require an integration code upgrade if you plan to use them:

- Added the license key string to the local key cache for the SPBAS method.
- The customer and user data is now available in the local license key cache for the SPBAS method.
  

In Closing…

I’m very proud of the v2.0 release. It’s a milestone release that has improved the core product in ways that will benefit everyone for years to come. I hope you enjoy using this release as much as I enjoyed developing it.

Thank you guys for your continued support. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Local License Key Grace Periods

Let me start by explaining how the SPBAS licensing method works. We provide integration code that embeds into your application. This integration code will contact your remote SPBAS licensing server once for initial activation. Upon successful activation the licensing server will return a local license key. The local license key will then be stored in the file system or the database (your choice) and will act as a cache. Each subsequent license validation will try the cached key first and only go remote for a new key if there’s a problem. Most commonly problems are that the cached local key has expired or the customer has moved the installation. In any case, it’s very important that your licensing server be online to serve out a new local license key on demand.

Imagine that your licensing server has been down for 3 days due to a hardware issue. Most of your customers are running your application on a cached local key and are experiencing no problems. However, one customer in particular has a local license key cache that has just expired. Your licensing server is down so a new local license key cannot be obtained. Luckily, you’ve configured the integration code in your application to use our new grace period feature. You’ve specifically configured it to try again for the next 10 days. So once a day, for 10 days, the integration code embedded in your application will try to contact your licensing server for a new local key. If the integration code is unable to obtain a new local key within the 10 day grace period then on the 11th day the customer will be presented with a licensing error. If your licensing server comes back online within the 10 day grace period a new key is fetched automatically without any interruption of service for your customer.

As you can see with the example above, this is a very important feature that we’ve introduced here. We hope you’ll never need it, but isn’t it nice to know that it’s there for you in case you do?

Take a look at the Optional Parameters section of our integration guide to see just how easy it is to implement.
  

Enhanced Performance

As many of you may know, our storefront packages (order/, kb/ and customers/) work around a writable/REST API which makes integration possibilities endless. It comes with a cost of though, that cost is the added overhead of the HTTP connections from the storefront to the SPBAS API server. Most of the time this isn’t a noticeable overhead, but on rare occasion it can be.

Many times the storefront and the API server are located on the same physical server. In this situation there’s really no need to connect through the writable/REST API. So what we’ve done is enabled an additional configuration to cover this situation. It is now possible to configure SPBAS to bypass the writable/REST API in favor of working with the local API directly. Enabling this configuration will eliminate the HTTP calls to the API server which results in a nice performance gain.

By default, all new installations of SPBAS from this point forward will have this configuration enabled by default.

Just to note, if your storefront is on one physical server with the rest of SPBAS on another server you must use the writable/REST API. Also to note, all installations of SPBAS before v1.9.1 are setup to use the writable/REST API by default.

Click here for documentation on how to enable or disable this new feature.
  

Code Hooks and Modules

We’ve added two new code hooks with v1.9.1. The first code hook is triggered to run with each API request, before the request has been processed. The second code hook is triggered to run after a package is created. Code hooks help you extend SPBAS by creating 3rd party modules set to run as the code hook is triggered.

We’ve also introduced new 3rd party login share modules for WordPress and Simple Machines Forum. If activated, the modules will keep the SPBAS user data in sync with WordPress and/or Simple Machine Forums.
  

Other New Features

Other new features include improvements to our addon system making it possible to require addons for specific purchases and we’ve added V.A.T. consumption tax support for our international customers.
  

In Closing…

Over the past 8 weeks we’ve managed to turn out a really nice release with v1.9.1. If you are an existing customer we encourage you to upgrade. If you’ve tried SPBAS before, now would be a great time to try it again.

As always, thank you guys for your support and feedback. Let me know what you think in the comments.

In the past 12 weeks we’ve managed to implement 7 new features, 15 improvements and 32 bug fixes. This release comes after one of our longest release cycles on record, we hope you will agree it was worth the wait.
  

Login and Session Share API

At the core of this new API is the ability to validate an e-mail address and password from your 3rd party application against the SPBAS database. You can optionally extend this API to create the user account and/or customer account if one does not exist already. On success the API returns an array of data related to the user account.

If your 3rd party application is written in PHP you can use our standard libraries for integration which makes using the API extremely simple. If your application is not written in PHP then you can parse the raw XML response.

You can read more about this new API here.
  

Code Hooks & 3rd Party Modules

We’ve added two new code hooks that you can take advantage of. The first hook is triggered just before making payment and allows you to change the item name. The other hook is triggered just after the license is created. Both are great additions to the code base making SPBAS just a little more powerful.

This release also offers two new 3rd party modules, reCaptcha for the customer area registration form and Disqus comments for KB articles. You can see reCAPTCHA in action here and Disqus comments on most of our KB articles here. You can turn Disqus on/off at the KB site level or for specific articles only.
  

Sell Product in Units

This very powerful feature enables you to sell units of product. This means that you can now sell GBs of bandwidth, hours of development service or anything that would be sold in units. When you enable units at the product price tier level in SPBAS admin the quantity ordered is converted to units with only one set of assets issued (license, download, etc), one order part, one package and one invoice created. Standard products create one of each of these for each quantity ordered.

So for example, if the customer ordered 10 standard product licenses then 10 licenses would be created. If the customer ordered 10 unit product licenses then only one license would be created.
  

Other Notable Features

SPBAS v1.9 brings with it a handful of other very useful features which include extensive improvements to the order system for addons, the ability to e-mail individual invoices from the admin area, the ability to force a SSL connection for the admin area and user download logs with UI elements added to both the admin & customer area.
  

Site Redesign

If you haven’t visited us in a while you might notice that we have redesigned our website here at www.spbas.com. We feel it better represents what SPBAS has to offer as opposed to the old site. I thought I would mention this as we are still in the process of compiling testimonials, featured design integrations and case studies. If you would like to participate then please contact us.
  

That’s it for now, let us know what you think in the comments.

No more back and forth between the 3rd party helpdesk and SPBAS, now your data is only a click away. Using the integrated desk will save you time and money. Not to mention, no more dual logins for your customers.

Let’s face it, the software business is all about customer support. Providing quality support in a timely manner will give customers confidence in choosing you over your competition. With the release of SPBAS v1.8 you now have a competitive advantage. The helpdesk is included with every SPBAS license at no extra cost.
  

Quick Tour Screencast

Feature Complete Helpdesk

We’ve made the helpdesk very feature complete while leaving out the clutter that a standalone helpdesk can sometimes bring. Here are only a few of the main features the new helpdesk has to offer:

Departments
- Multiple departments & staff assignments
- Optionally, force tickets to be created from the customer area (per department)
- Assign departments to multiple storefronts

Tickets
- IMAP based e-mail import
- Create/reply to tickets from the SPBAS admin interface or your e-mail client
- Auto-complete search for tickets & replies
- Tickets grouped by status: “New”, “Open”, “Closed” and “My Tickets”
- Ability to quote the last reply on a new reply
- Auto-inserted signatures per staff member
- Multiple attachments per reply
- Quick links bar per ticket: view customer/user, add invoices, add packages, change passwords, etc.
- Change the subject of a ticket
- Assign the ticket to a specific staff member
- Ability to change the ticket department & the ticket priority
- Automatic e-mail flood protection to catch e-mail loops
- Add notes per ticket
- Quick stats showing packages w/ expiration dates, total tickets opened per user/customer and an audit log
- Support history tab to quickly switch between tickets a customer/user has opened in the past

Support Packages
- Create and assign support packages to price tiers. (e.g. 6 month support access)
- Require non-expired support package for new ticket creation (per department)
- Offer paid renewal options for expired support packages before a ticket can be created

Customer Interface
- Integrated in the SPBAS customer area
- Customer can view open & closed tickets or start a new ticket
- Tickets can be created from the customer area or direct e-mail to the department address
- Customer can purchase support renewals for expired packages
- Standalone contact form assigned to a specific department

Be sure to check out docs/Quick_Start_Guide.txt, section 8 specifically. It’s a guide to configuring helpdesk.

In Summary

What a busy four weeks it’s been since our last release. I’ve worked long hours to make the helpdesk a reality so I really hope you guys find it useful. We switched over last week and so far it’s been great. Well worth the time investment, I hope you will agree! Please be sure to let people know about SPBAS if you find it useful.

Also, hang on tight guys, this next release will knock you out of your chair. Great things to come.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Admin UI Changes

We have really simplified the admin UI for licensing with the release of v1.7. I think it’s best if I just show you:

SPBAS Licensing Method

The SPBAS method was designed with the best of PHPAudit & Iono in mind and built upon our years of experience with licensing. The idea going into the build was to solve complex problems and to package the solution in such a way that makes it really simple to integrate with your application.

Features Include:

- It’s an easy to implement class with configurable options.
- Checks the local key first with each validation, only going remote if the key is expired or missing.
- When it does go remote it tries sockets, cURL and then fopen. The order is configurable.
- Local license keys are stored in the database or file system, your choice.
- We have true support for instances now, so 1 license key can be installed at X locations.
- We have support for lists of predefined license keys – think retail/boxed software.
- Plus a whole lot more…

So while it is not required that you take advantage of the SPBAS licensing method, we do encourage everyone currently running either the PHPAudit or Iono method to consider upgrading to the SPBAS method as soon as possible. It’s quite simply the best licensing available and we want you to enjoy the benefits it will bring.
  

3rd Party Modules & Code Hooks

We have made significant investments in the 3rd party modules system with this release. We’ve introduced 14 new code hooks that will enable developers to tightly integrate SPBAS with other applications.
  

Storefront API Wrappers

All of the storefront packages are based on a writable/REST API. They require no database connection and can be used anywhere on the web. This makes the integration possibilities endless.

To encourage developers in extending SPBAS to work with other applications we’ve written simple API wrappers for every call, over 60+ total. This should enable developers to quickly and easily integrate any aspect of any storefront package into other applications. The documentation can be found here (see Storefront_API*).
  

Complete API Documentation

We are pleased to announce that we have now have complete API documentation. It’s done in PHPDoc format and can be found here. We’ll build new documentation for each release to retain history between versions.
  

In Closing…

It’s been a great summer. The work completed improves our core product in ways that will benefit us all for years to come. We hope you take full advantage of the change that v1.7 brings.

Thanks for reading, let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Mass Mail Overview

Our goal with SPBAS is to make every module as complete as possible. We understand that the best things in life are often the hardest to come by. So while we could have implemented a half baked mass mail solution just to say we have the feature, we didn’t. Instead, we researched the market and consulted with serious e-mail marketers to create a very solid mass mail application. We hope you will agree.
  

Mass Mail Lists

Lists enable you to create groups of customers that meet specific criteria that you define. For example, say you have a release notice or policy change and you need to contact all customers. You’d create a list for that.

Lists are essentially a set of rules that you assign to a campaign. Each time you send a campaign the mailing list is generated based on the predefined rules. Approaching it this way results in a list that is dynamic and always automatically up to date.
  

Mass Mail Campaigns

For each mass mail campaign you can edit the e-mail copy, view it online or send it to yourself for testing. We provide several built in replaceable tags that you can use like {first name}, {last name}, etc.

We also support the inclusion of an Alt Body to accompany your HTML e-mail copy. The Alt Body is designed to be the plain text version of the HTML e-mail. Not everyone can receive HTML e-mails so it’s important to send a plain text copy along too so your message isn’t lost in a tangle of HTML markup.
  

After you’ve created your e-mail copy, you need to assign the campaign to one or more lists using the Assign Lists tab. Don’t worry, we’ve got duplicates covered. Even if a customer matches the criteria to be assigned to both lists, they’ll only receive one copy of your campaign.
  

Finally, we are ready to send the campaign using the Send Mail tab. This is where it gets really interesting. You have the following options to choose from:

- Max to send per hour
- Who to send to? every customer in the list or only customers who have never received the campaign before.
- When to send? Now, Per Schedule (date & time), Periodic Schedule (interval in days & time)
  

Imagine what you can do with that! Here at SPBAS, we’ll use the Periodic Schedule feature to e-mail our free version customers a few days after signup to make sure everything is going ok. Just to see if we can help with anything or if there are questions. It will help us stay in touch with you guys and hopefully make us better at what we do.

How will you use the mass mail features? Let me know in the comments.
  

Suspension Logic

Have a look at SPBAS Admin -> Settings -> Billing & Invoice. I’d like to touch on two new features today.

The first is invoice reminders which you can set to automatically send at your desired interval. For example, if I entered 30,60,90 the customer would get a reminder on the 30th day, the 60th day and finally the 90th day. The 90th day would be the final notice. The e-mail template used for these notices can be found at Admin -> Settings -> Templates -> Invoice, Invoice Reminder.

The second new feature is the ability to suspend the package for unpaid invoices after x days have passed. You could set this to be in sync with the invoice reminders. For example, using the 30,60,90 interval again, you could set the packages to suspend on the 97th day, 7 days after the final invoice reminder. How you configure it is up to you, tailor it to fit your exact business needs.
  

In Closing…

With this release SPBAS has become more stable and feature rich. We hope you enjoy the software.

Before we begin…

We would like to thank our sponsors for this release. Their contributions will benefit the entire community so please take a moment to show your support.
  

One size does not fit all

SPBAS is unique in the fact that it was designed to have multiple storefronts that all work from a single admin installation. Each storefront offers a fully branded e-commerce engine.

Before v1.5 we presented the storefronts in our standard data grid which was designed to display hundreds of records at once. We took a different approach with v1.5 based on the fact that most of you guys don’t utilize hundreds of storefronts. Now when you go to edit a storefront you are put directly into the edit view with the option to change to another storefront from a select box.

The select box approach wouldn’t work for other sections of SPBAS like customers, orders or invoices because you have the potential for many thousands of records. For things like storefronts, you’ll only ever have a few so it makes sense to use the select box to switch between them.

Combine & Consolidate

With v1.5 we’ve taken extra effort to combine & consolidate work flow throughout SPBAS. A great example of this, before v1.5 when manually adding a new customer you had to add the customer, add the user and then add the user to the customer. This amounted to dozens of clicks and much confusion.

Now with v1.5 when you need to manually add a new customer you can do so with a single form.

So where do I find X e-mail template again?

This really falls under combine & consolidate, but it was a big support issue prior to v1.5 so we thought we would touch on it. With v1.5 we’ve put all the e-mail templates in one spot so you can quickly find the template you need. The templates are organized into groups.

For example, if you are looking for a licensing e-mail template you would look in the license group.
  

Customer View Changes

There were many small changes to the customer view for v1.5. The biggest change was that we’ve added a customer summary tab which gives you an overview of the customer at a glance.
  

In closing…

Existing customers, go get it! Upgrade as soon as you can. We’ve only listed a few of the improvements here today, the rest you’ll have to see for yourself.

Everyone else, if you’ve tried SPBAS in the past then we encourage you to try it again now.

Thank you for your continued support. We look forward to your feedback and comments.

So what’s next? With the v1.5 release we will focus on usability in the admin area. Production is well underway already so I thought I would tell you a little more to expand on the video.

Layout & Design

We’ve had a lot of feedback concerning the color scheme used in the admin area. The one common issue reported by various people is that the colors are sometimes too faint or too similar. This reduces readability on some LCD screens.

Another issue addressed with the upcoming release is the separation of “day to day” tasks from the “set it and forget it” tasks in the admin area. To pull this one off we had to rethink our menu structure and navigation. These changes have resulted in a less cluttered admin area user interface which is easier to navigate and gives us more room to grow.

Here’s an early sneak peak at the new layout & design:

Simplicity – Less is More

Choices, choices, choices. SPBAS has a lot to offer, a ton of features which has resulted in a ton of configurable options. With the upcoming v1.5 release we’ve taken a step back, we are in the process of going through each & every screen and asking – what can we take away here without losing functionality? The results so far are simply amazing.

To give you an example of this, take a look at the screenshot below. It’s the new UI for the menu editor (a tool really only SPBAS developers will ever use, but a good example none the less). Notice that it requires only one (1) tab now whereas in v1.4 (the current version) the menu editor required five (5) tabs with a big learning curve.

* btw, ignore the alien profile pic. Profile pics were added for v1.5

Also note the inline documentation in the screenshot above. Documentation has been a major issue for some of you so far – or should I say the LACK of documentation? We feel that the usability changes for v1.5 will greatly reduce the learning curve and the need for exhaustive documentation.

So when will v1.5 be available?

Sometime in March if all goes well. We won’t rush it and at the same time won’t hold it back either. This is true for every release. Only when it’s ready will we release it.

So in closing, I just wanted to keep you guys posted on what we are working on. Something I hope to do on a regular basis. What do you think about the changes for v1.5 so far?

Also, please show your support and appreciation to the customers who have sponsored features for this release. The features they sponsored would not have made it into v1.4.0 otherwise.

Lets get started! Here’s a highlight of the new features v1.4.0 has to offer:
  
  
Customer Area License View

Per request from Henri at SnippetMaster and others, we’ve changed the customer area license view.

With v1.3.0 the license view was limited to only 5 rows per page with pagination at the bottom. Many of our customers issue hundreds of licenses to a single end user, only showing 5 rows per page made finding a specific license almost impossible.

To make it more user friendly we added an auto-complete search and tweaked the pagination at the bottom. The pagination now enables you to go to the first or last page, go to a specific page and choose how many rows to show per page.

Multi-Currency Selection

It is now possible to assign more than one price sheet to an order form which will then give the customer a choice of what currency to pay in. Customers can change the currency at any time during the order process with prices are updated on the fly.

Custom Pricing Per Customer

This is one of my personal favorites, it is now possible to assign a custom price sheet to a specific customer. This is a very powerful feature that can be used in a variety of ways. For example, this allows you to give resellers of your software immediate discounts, give a high volume customer an automatic 25% discount on anything ordered, or you could use price sheets to implement a price freeze for a long time customers. The applications are endless.
  
  

Pay Gateway Modules

Thanks to sponsors we now have support for Clickbank and a Wire Transfer payments.

As part of the wire transfer module we added the ability to assign each pay gateway one or more e-mail templates. The assigned e-mails are sent to the customer when the pay gateway is used for payment.

Finally, the 2Checkout and Moneybookers modules were rewritten for this release.
  
  

3rd Party Code Hooks

Per request from Mike at Simbunch, we’ve added two new code hooks. The hooks are triggered when a customer registers a new account from either the order form or the registration form in the customer area.

Mike was also kind enough to give me an in-depth overview of how code hooks are implemented in Joolma. I’ll definitely have this in mind as we expand our selection of available code hooks.
  
  

Legacy Features are Back!

We’ve added two very useful features to SPBAS that were available in legacy software, but not in SPBAS until now. Those two features are the global license log viewer and the ability to clone products.
  
  

Localization Import & Export

For our International customers, we have taken special effort to make sure every portion of SPBAS is fully localized. The result of this is over 3,000 translations for the EN-US language pack alone.

Up to v1.3.0 all translations were added and modified through a web UI. The web UI is a real time saver when editing entries or adding new entries during development. However, it proved to be extremely time consuming when trying to create new language packs.

You guys asked for a way to export localization to a flat file which could be quickly & easily translated using a text editor and then imported back into SPBAS. This functionality was added to SPBAS v1.4.0.
  
  
That’s it for now! Enjoy the software, I look forward to your comments and feedback.

Andy, how would you improve my software?

I couldn’t give an application specific answer because I didn’t have enough experience with the customers software. However, I did have an answer and I want to share it with you today. It’s how we’ve managed to grow our software from nothing more than an idea to a full time business.

Here’s the short answer:

Listen to your customers. Release early and release often, remain agile.

Let’s face it, good or bad, all customer feedback is very important. The good feedback makes it all worthwhile, while the bad feedback can be tough to swallow at times. How you handle the feedback will define your business.

Here are 3 simple tips to improving your software based on customer feedback.

1. Remain true to the software.

Listening to your customers does not mean you have to code everything they ask for. Some requests would take your application off track or be too specific to distribute in production. It’s ok to tell the customer we can’t or won’t implement this feature for our production distribution. Be sure to explain why the feature can’t be implemented and offer paths, such as custom development, to get it implemented.

2. Learn to spot trends in feedback.

It’s not always easy to spot trends in the feedback you receive. For example, most of our feedback comes through our support desk. If I get several tickets regarding a certain feature I take the time to revisit that feature. I try to find ways to streamline it by comparing the tickets to see if they have anything in common. This will usually result in identifying small changes that improve the feature overall.

3. Release early and release often, remain agile.

Constantly develop your software and release the changes every 4 to 6 weeks. Use customer feedback to further develop and improve the software. Developing too much in advance might result in features your customers may not want or need.

What advice would you give?