How To Let A Sitebuilder Users Create A Trial Site On A Freebie (Free) For Free

Transcription

1 Parallels Plesk Panel

2 Contents About This Document 3 Introduction to Customer Acquisition Scenario 4 Configuring CAS for Existing Customers 7 Configuring CAS for Potential Customers 8 Appendix A. Customizing Trial Mode Notifications 10 Appendix B. Implementing CAS with Alternative Billing Solutions 13

3 C H A P T E R 1 About This Document Purpose If you have Plesk Panel with SiteBuilder and Business Manager, you can tune your system to leverage Customer Acquisition Scenario. This scenario introduces a new behavior of SiteBuilder - trial mode - that lets everyone evaluate the editor and create websites for free. However, to acquire such websites, a site owner will need to subscribe to your hosting plan or purchase a plan add-on. To make this scenario work, you should adjust some settings of Panel and its components. The instructions on how to perform these modifications and therefore set this scenario up and running are provided in this document. Scope Customer Acquisition Scenario (CAS) targets both existing and potential customers. This document discusses how to let these two groups create sites in trial mode. Hereafter we suppose that you are familiar with Panel and Business Manager so we do not give exact guidelines on how to manage Business Manager objects. For these guidelines, refer to respective guides for administrators. Prerequisites To set up CAS, you should have Panel 10.1 or later with SiteBuilder and Customer & Business Manager. Overview Chapter Introduction to Customer Acquisition Scenario provides details about how CAS works. Chapter Configuring CAS for Existing Customers explains how to let existing customers create sites even if the SiteBuilder support is not provided with their license or they exceeded the number of sites they can publish. Chapter Configuring CAS for Potential Customers tells how to allow sites creation for those who do not yet have customer accounts with Panel. Appendix A instructs how to modify the trial mode notification in SiteBuilder. Appendix B teaches how to set up CAS with alternative billing solutions.

4 C HAP T E R 2 Introduction to Customer Acquisition Scenario Customer Acquisition Scenario (CAS) is a way to promote hosting with SiteBuilder and sell more subscriptions. This feature is aimed at customers who wish to create their own sites but have little or no programming skills. Panel helps such customers by giving them full access to SiteBuilder functions to create sites with no charges. To claim the created sites the customers subscribe to a hosting plan in Panel or upgrade the existing one. The more people you attract by this promotion, the more hosting subscriptions with SiteBuilder you will have. The scenario targets two different groups: Existing customers who want to have a website, but they are unable to launch SiteBuilder due to some limitations. For example, their hosting plan does not provide this opportunity, or they have exceeded the number of sites to publish. By using CAS, you upsell SiteBuilder to these customers. New customers who have created a trial site and now want to claim it with a new hosting plan. The scenario when you upsell to existing customers works this way: 1. Links to launch SiteBuilder become available to such customers on a number of pages in Control Panel. The customers see the links and click them.

5 Introduction to Customer Acquisition Scenario 5 2. Panel forwards these customers to SiteBuilder where they create trial sites. 3. When the site is ready and the customers click Publish, they are prompted to upgrade their subscription. 4. If the upgrade is successfully completed, the site can be published to the upgraded hosting. The scenario when you sell hosting with SiteBuilder to potential customers is as follows: 1. You enable public access to the SiteBuilder trial mode in Panel. If this mode is activated, everyone who follows a special promotional link is able to create a trial site. 2. You obtain the promotional link from the Panel GUI and put this link on your website so that potential customers can access it.

6 6 Introduction to Customer Acquisition Scenario 3. When the customers click the link, they are forwarded to SiteBuilder where they create trial sites. The editor interface is identical to the one that appears in the previous case (step 2). 4. As soon as the site is ready, the customers click Publish, and Panel requests them to buy a hosting plan. 5. The customers subscribe to a new plan and are free to publish the site to the newly acquired hosting.

7 C H A P T E R 3 Configuring CAS for Existing Customers Use Customer Acquisition Scenario if you want your existing customers to create trial sites even if SiteBuilder is not provided with their license or they exceeded the number of sites they can publish. To configure the scenario, update settings of your hosting plans. Namely, open the settings and select the item Allow customer to create trial SiteBuilder websites. After you update the plan settings, customers are able to launch SiteBuilder by clicking a corresponding link in the Control Panel. This feature is controlled on the per plan basis, so that you can use trial mode only for certain plans. If you deselect this item, your customers will still see the buttons to launch SiteBuilder but they will not be able to do it unless their plan includes the SiteBuilder support. Note: If the hosting plans you want to change are imported from Business Manager and you want to keep them synced, go to properties of corresponding plans in Business Manager, make sure that item Allow up-selling SiteBuilder sites is selected, and provision changes to Panel by clicking Events > Run Events. For details on how to edit plan properties in Business Manager, see Administrator s Guide to Customer and Business Manager, Managing Plan Settings > Editing Plan Properties.

8 C H A P T E R 4 Configuring CAS for Potential Customers Acquire potential customers to website hosting with SiteBuilder by giving them a link to SiteBuilder in trial mode. After your customers follow this link, create a site, and try to publish it, Panel forwards them to the default online store of Business Manager. In the store, customers choose a plan with SiteBuilder and subscribe to it. The subscription automatically includes the newly created site. On completing the billing and provisioning routines, the customers become owners of the site and are able to publish it. You are free to block access to the trial mode URL which makes this feature unavailable. To set up CAS for potential customers, do the following: 1. Prepare the default online store in Business Manager to display SiteBuilder-compatible plans. This step requires a cosmetic update: Make sure that all plans available to potential customers include at least one SiteBuilder site. By default, customers see the plans from the default online store. For each of these plans, go to plan properties and check that the value of item Sites published with SiteBuilder is not 0. If a plan includes 0 sites, your customers will not be able to publish them after subscribing to such a plan. For details on how to edit plan properties in Business Manager, see Administrator s Guide to Customer and Business Manager, Managing Plan Settings > Editing Plan Properties. 2. Enable trial mode in Server Administration Panel. This allows customers to launch SiteBuilder by following the trial mode access URL. In Server Administration Panel, go to Settings > Customer Acquisition Scenario Settings, and ensure that the Enable public access to trial mode checkbox is selected. 3. Obtain the trial mode access URL and put it on your website to advertise hosting with SiteBuilder and attract customers. The trial mode access URL is also available on the SiteBuilder settings page. 4. (Optionally) Configure trial sites lifetime. On the same page you can optionally specify how often to remove unclaimed sites. 5. (Optionally) Forward customers to a separate online store. This is relevant when you want to display a separate list of plans to potential customers who want hosting with SiteBuilder. If you wish to have a separate store for this scenario, extend the trial mode access URL with a store ID to point to a particular store. The syntax of the new URL is: <existing URL>&storeId=<custom store ID>. To control the plans list view, independently add a widget ID to the URL. The syntax of the new URL is: <existing URL>&widgetId=<custom widget ID>. Note: The store and widget IDs must exist in Business Manager.

9 Configuring CAS for Potential Customers 9 Learn how to create online stores in Administrator s Guide to Customer and Business Manager, section Managing Online Stores > Adding an Online Store. Learn how to create and manage website widgets in Administrator s Guide to Customer and Business Manager, chapter Managing Website Widgets. Once you complete the steps, your potential customers will be able to create trial sites and acquire them. To block this feature, deselect access to trial mode on the CAS settings page.

10 C H A P T E R 5 Appendix A. Customizing Trial Mode Notifications To leverage Customer Acquisition Scenario, SiteBuilder must work in trial mode. The SiteBuilder settings (Settings > Customer Acquisition Scenario Settings) let you either display the trial mode notification to customers or hide it. The notification is displayed in a bar at the top of the editor page. This appendix explains how to change the notification text or add some extra information to the notification. By default, SiteBuilder in trial mode uses messages from the tbbmessagesdefault.lng file of the used locale. To customize notifications displayed to your customers by SiteBuilder in trial mode: 1. Go to the /usr/local/sb/resources/locale/<locale_name> directory on Linux operating systems, or to C:\Parallels\Plesk\sb\resources\locale\<locale_name> directory on Windows operating systems. <locale_name> is the name of locale for which you change the notifications. For example, the default English locale name is en_us. 2. Copy the tbbmessagesdefault.lng and rename it to tbbmessagescustom.lng. When there is the tbbmessagescustom.lng file, SiteBuilder uses it instead of tbbmessagesdefault.lng. 3. Edit messages in the tbbmessagescustom.lng file. You can edit the following messages: Message Keyword in Locale Message Description startupselllimitexceedingtitle Title of the dialog window shown on SiteBuilder start page to a customer who exceeded the limit of websites published with SiteBuilder. startupselllimitexceedingbody Body of the dialog window shown on SiteBuilder start page to a customer who exceeded the limit of websites published with SiteBuilder. startupsellnositestitle startupsellnositesbody Title of the dialog window shown on SiteBuilder start page to a customer whose subscription does not include SiteBuilder. Body of the dialog window shown on SiteBuilder start page to a customer whose subscription does not include SiteBuilder.

11 Appendix A. Customizing Trial Mode Notifications 11 editortopmessagetrialsite editortopmessageupselllimit Exceeding editortopmessageupsellnosit es defaultpersonalname initialmailsubject initialmailhtml limitsexceededtitle limitsexceededmsg firstsitepublishtitle firstsitepublishmsg licenseexceededmsg trialsitesignuppublishtitle trialsitesignuppublishmsg trialfeaturedisabled Call to action bar message at the top of SiteBuilder Editor shown to a new customer who creates a trial site. Call to action bar message for a trial site at the top of SiteBuilder Editor shown to a customer who exceeded the limit of websites published with SiteBuilder. Call to action bar message for a trial site at the top of SiteBuilder Editor shown to a customer whose subscription does not include SiteBuilder. Default name of the customer shown on SiteBuilder start page to existing customers. Subject of website creation confirmation sent to a new customer. Body of website creation confirmation sent to a new customer. Title of the dialog window shown upon clicking the Publish button to a customer who exceeded the limit of websites published with SiteBuilder. Body of the dialog window shown upon clicking the Publish button to a customer who exceeded the limit of websites published with SiteBuilder. Title of the dialog window shown upon clicking the Publish button to a customer whose subscription does not include SiteBuilder. Body of the dialog window shown upon clicking the Publish button to a customer whose subscription does not include SiteBuilder. Error message shown in Status bar upon clicking the Publish button to a customer when the number of SiteBuilder websites allowed by Plesk license has been reached. Title of the dialog window shown upon clicking the Publish button to a new customer who creates a trial site. Body of the dialog window shown upon clicking the Publish button to a new customer who creates a trial site. Error message shown in Status bar when a new customer tries to verify ownership in settings of a trial site.

12 12 Appendix A. Customizing Trial Mode Notifications You can use the following placeholders in SiteBuilder trial mode notifications: ppserverid - unique ID of Parallels Plesk Panel server; billingsignupentrypoint - entry point to Business Manager for new customers; billingupsellentrypoint - entry point to Business Manager for existing customers; subscriptionid - unique ID of the user subscription; sbsiteuuid - unique ID of a website in SiteBuilder; sbonetimebackurl - link SiteBuilder that can be used only once; locale - locale name; trialsitelifetime - time that passes before trial websites that were not purchased by customers are removed from the server; trialsiteexpiredate - expiration date of trial websites; trialsiteurl - link to trial website; siteownername - name of the user owning the website; siteownercompanyname - user s company name; siteowner - user s ; siteownerphone - user s phone; siteowneraddress - user s address; siteownercity - user s city; siteownercountry - user s country; querystring - an additional query string passed to trial mode access URL; helpurl - link to SiteBuilder documentation; sbhttphost - SiteBuilder host name. When using placeholders in messages, use the following placeholder markers: &placeholder_name& - when you use a placeholder inside a - when you use a placeholder inside a JavaScript code; %placeholder_name% - when you use a placeholder in plain text.

13 C H A P T E R 6 Appendix B. Implementing CAS with Alternative Billing Solutions If you wish to implement CAS for Panel with SiteBuilder and a custom billing solution, you should additionally handle the following operations: 1. Forward customers from SiteBuilder to a custom store and save details about created sites. When a customer clicks to purchase a site, SiteBuilder sends an HTTP POST request to a billing entry point. This request contains information about the customer and created site. Business Manager (billing engine) uses this information to associate the site with the customer s hosting account. To shift to a custom billing engine, you should change the billing entry point URL and and extend your billing engine logic to save the POST parameters that come to the URL. 2. Ensure that customers purchase a hosting plan or add-on. This solely depends on the billing system and is out of scope of the CAS integration. 3. (For new customers only) Create a customer account, a subscription, and a site in Panel. 4. Associate the site created in SiteBuilder with an appropriate site in Panel. This appendix explains how to complete operations 1, 3, and 4. How to forward customers to a custom entry point By default, the store entry point URL points to Business Manager. This URL is stored in two placeholders (billingsignupentrypoint and billingupsellentrypoint) in file tbbmessagesdefault.lng. The location of this file depends on a Panel installation directory (we consider that you use the default one), server OS and architecture. Find the file in one of the following directories: (On Microsoft Windows) C:\Program Files\Parallels\sb\resources\locale\en_US or C:\Program Files (x86)\parallels\sb\resources\locale\en_us depending on the server architecture. (On RPM package-based Linux) /usr/local/sb/resources/locale/en_us (On DEB package-based Linux) /opt/sb/resources/locale/en_us Note: We suppose that you change the entry point for a store in the en_us locale. To change the entry point for other locales, update the tbbmessagesdefault.lng file in the respective directories that are on the same level with en_us.

14 14 Appendix B. Implementing CAS with Alternative Billing Solutions To change the entry point URL, substitute all occurrences of the placeholders billingsignupentrypoint and billingupsellentrypoint with the URL you need and remove leading and and % symbols in all occurrences of the placeholders in the file. For example, if the new entry point URL is you should change, to What parameters to save The billing entry point receives POST requests that contain information about create trial sites and customers. Although the requests contain a number of parameters, you need to save only one - sbsiteuuid. This is the unique identifier of the created site. To move the site to the customer s hosting, you should associate the parameter with an appropriate site in Panel. How to create a customer account, a subscription, and a site To create these three objects, use API RPC - the protocol to create and manage Panel objects from remote. First, you should create a customer account and save the resulting ID. Then, create a subscription with the owner-id (in add/gen_setup) set to the customer ID. Finally, create a site with the webspace-id (in add/gen_setup) set to the subscription ID. Each of these three operations is presented by a packet you send to Panel and receive a response that contains the operation status. If you wish to quickly get started with sending API RPC packets, read API RPC Developer s Guide. It contains chapter Client Code Samples that lets you implement your own packet sender by using samples of client applications (PHP, C#, VB.NET). Find samples of the packets to send in a separate document - API RPC Reference, sections: Supported Operations > Managing Customer Accounts > Creating Customer Accounts > Request Samples Supported Operations > Managing Subscriptions (Webspaces) > Creating a Subscription (Webspace) > Request Samples Supported Operations > Managing Sites (Domains) > Creating a Site > Request Samples How to associate a site created in SiteBuilder with a Panel site The association between a SiteBuilder site and Panel site is also achieved through API RPC. One of the protocol calls turns a trial site into regular and associates it with a Panel site. This association means that when a customer clicks Edit in SiteBuilder, they are displayed their previously created site. This operation requires two parameters - GUID of a Panel site and sbsiteuuid you previously received. The protocol call (or packet) to associate SiteBuilder and Panel sites is found in API RPC Reference, section Supported Operations > Managing Integration With SiteBuilder > Assigning a Trial Site > Request Samples. This section contains call samples you can reuse with own values. The details on how to find a site GUID are also included into the reference document, section Supported Operations > Managing Sites (Domains) > Getting Information About Sites > Request Samples.

15 Appendix B. Implementing CAS with Alternative Billing Solutions 15 What to do next After you have successfully achieved the basic integration, you can extend logic to work with existing customers as well. This involves that you show them the options of upgrading their current subscription for the SiteBuilder support (existing customers are forwarded to billingupsellentrypoint, while new customers - to billingsignupentrypoint) rather than creating new subscriptions. You can also personalize the store interface by using parameters received from SiteBuilder. For example, you are able to adjust the store locale basing on customer personal data, or use the data in messages displayed to customers.

16 Copyright Notice Parallels Holdings, Ltd. c/o Parallels International GmbH Vordergasse 59 CH-Schaffhausen Switzerland Phone: Fax: Copyright Parallels Holdings, Ltd. and its affiliates. All rights reserved. This product is protected by United States and international copyright laws. The product s underlying technology, patents, and trademarks are listed at Microsoft, Windows, Windows Server, Windows NT, Windows Vista, and MS-DOS are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Mac is a registered trademark of Apple, Inc. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.