TRILOG GROUP Inc
ProjExec Online – Phase II
Author / Marwan HelouVersion / 1.0
Date / May 14, 2007
Status / Revision 2
ProjExec Online – Phase II
Introduction 3
Terminology 3
ProjExec Online Home Page 4
Subscription Process 5
Account Creation 5
Site Creation 6
ProjExec Online Plans 7
Multiple Sites 8
Account Administration 8
Account Management 9
Billing 9
Site Activation/Deactivation 10
User Activation/Deactivation 10
Plan Upgrade 11
New Plan Subscription 11
Canceling/Suspending a Subscription 12
Change Billing Information 13
Convert a Free Trial to a Subscription 13
Data Export 13
ProjExec Usability Enhancements 14
Search 14
ProjExec Online – Phase II
Introduction
The goal of this project is to implement the subscription model of ProjExec Online. This allows our client to subscribe and use ProjExec Online without any manual intervention. They will be able to create and manage their.
Terminology
Before explaining the Subscription process, we need to define some concepts:
- Account:
o A client who wants to subscribe to ProjExec Online is required to open an Account.
o The Account holds the Account’s Owner information, the company information and the billing information.
o Normal ProjExec users are not required to open an Account and hence they do not pay for using ProjExec Online. Only the Account Owner pays.
o The Account Owner is also a user in ProjExec Online
o Each Account has a unique account number that is generated by ProjExec and it is used as a reference to communicate with the client.
o Another Account Number is created by Aria and we will called it “Aria Account Number”. This is not communicated to the user and will be used internally for billing purposes only.
o An Account can own multiple sites.
o By default, the Account Owner becomes site manager on all the sites he owns.
o The Account Owner should belong to an organization.
o An Account never expires. It can be suspended or closed by the account owner or Trilog Group
- Plan:
o The plan determines the price per user per month, minimum duration and the terms and conditions of the subscription
o Each Account has one plan associated with it.
o The subscription can have one of the following four statuses:
§ Active: Subscription did not yet expire. Client is paying his bills and all users can access ProjExec Online.
§ Suspended: A subscription will be automatically suspended when the client stops paying. The suspension can last only 30 days, after which the subscription will be cancelled if the client do not pay. A suspended subscription can be re-activated when the client pay his bills. The client cannot use ProjExec when the subscription is suspended.
§ Canceled: A subscription can be cancelled in three cases:
· After the subscription has been suspended for 30 days.
· If the client decides to end his subscription. The client has to pay the fees for the remaining months in the subscription contract.
· ProjExec administrators decide to end the subscription of a client who is abusing the system or for any other reason..
The client cannot use ProjExec after the subscription is canceled, however he can always access his account info and history and he can export his data. A cancelled subscription cannot be re-activated. The client has to subscribe to a new plan
§ Expired: A subscription expires when the minimum duration is exceeded.(a No commitment subscription will never expire). The client can keep using ProjExec Online even if the subscription expires. He will keep paying the previous plan rates.
- ProjExec Online Subscription:
o It is the process of creating an account and registering a site
- License:
o This is used internally by ProjExec to control access.
o End users and account owners should not be aware of any licensing and should not see any licensing information.
ProjExec Online Home Page
It is very important to have a good-looking and rich home page dedicated to ProjExec Online. This will be the entry point for ProjExec Online customers. So when a user types www.projexec.com he will redirected to this page.
The ProjExec online home page is part of our web site and has the same look and feel and it is hosted on our website server. The ProjExec Online page will be also accessible to all trilog group visitors via a link added to the top menu of the Trilog Group web site. This should a top menu link next to the menu “Company”
The home page will have a description of ProjExec Online, the benefits, features and the pricing (plans). We can organize this information using tabs (client tabs). The “Pricing” section will list in a table all the subscription plans available with pricing and benefits information. A “Subscribe” button should be added next to each plan. Hence, to open an Account, a user can simply clicks the button “Subscribe”.
We also have a link to the “Product Tour” (a nice graphics), and links to latest events and news related to ProjExec Online. T
Also we will have links to download white papers and other related information.
Users can register for a free ProjExec Online trial by clicking on a Button called “Free Trial”.
On the home page, there will be also a button to login to ProjExec Online. When a user clicks the button, he will be automatically redirected to the login page of ProjExec Online (online.projexec.com)
The home page should have an elegant design and it should have some level of configuration. For example, an admin can edit the links on the page. He can add new ones and remove old ones.
Subscription Process
The subscription process consists of two steps: Creating an account and site creation and activation.
Account Creation
- Whether a client wants to request a 90 days free trial access or subscribe for a paying access to ProjExec Online, he has to open an account first.
- To open an account, the client should select a plan from ProjExec Online home page and click “Subscribe” or click on the button “Free Trial”
- This will open the account creation form and the user has to enter his name, email address, password, title, company name, company address, tel and fax., etc
- The email address will be used as the login name of the user.
- The Account creation form should be hosted on Trilog Group’s web site. However, the account record is created in ProjExec Online using a Web Service call.
- The account database should not be part of the core ProjExec database store. It should be completely isolated and independent.
- In case the user is subscribing to a Free Trial access, he will have to respond to a list of optional questions. Those questions are defined by the Trilog Web Site administrators. We will use the same technology that we are using now in the web site registration form.
- If the user is subscribing to a plan, he will be asked to select the plan unless he already did that from the ProjExec Online home page,
- The plans are the following but they are subject to change (see the “plans” section below for more information)
o No commitment. Pay monthly fees per user.
o 6 Months subscription.
o 1 Year subscription
o 2 Years subscription
- Each plan should display the cost per user and the minimum number of users.
- The user can get more information about a plan by clicking on “details” link that will open the ProjExec Online Plans page in a new window.
- The Plan definitions are configurable by the ProjExec Online administrators and Trilog Sales.
- Before creating the account, the user should read and accept the license agreement and the terms and conditions of the plan he selected. Those will be displayed in a text area (scrollable) at the bottom of the account creation page.
- The user clicks Next and he will be directed to the Billing information page. If the user is requesting a Free Trial, the request will finish here.
- In the Billing form, the user should specify the billing contact and billing address. If they are the same as the company address and the contact info, the user will check a checkbox to indicate that.
- He will also specify the payment method (cheque or credit card) and payment information (credit card number, type, name and expiry date, or cheque number, institution name, etc). Note that we will NEVER store credit card information in our database. We will transmit them to Aria and then we will destroy them.
- Then we will validate the billing information with Aria (using a web service call). Here we need to show a progress bar to the client and tell him that we are validating his information.
- If the information is valid, we will redirect the user to a confirmation page, inform him that his account was successfully created, and provide him a link to ProjExec Online.
- In case the information is not valid we will return to the account creation page and we will inform the user about the problem and ask him to fix it. We will also give the user the option to save the account data and return later and enter the billing information. He can do that by editing his account (see “My Account” section below)
- An account unique number will be generated and we will create an LDAP user for the account owner in the web site’s LDAP server and ProjExec Online LDAP.
- We will also create a registration document in the Trilog website. This is essential because it will allow us to communicate with ProjExec clients using the web site mailing list.
- In the background, we will also create an Aria account using a web service call and we will create and activate a ProjExec Online site (see site creation below)
- Finally, we will send a confirmation email to the account owner, to Trilog Sales and ProjExec Online administrators.
- The account owner’s confirmation email, will congratulate the user and it will tell him that a new account has been created successfully and will provide him with his account number, a link to manage his account and subscription (My Account link), a link to ProjExec Online, and links to tutorials and documentation and support.
- The email will also contain detailed instructions on how to access ProExec Online and other useful information like how to invite users and how to create a project.
- The email sent to site administrators and sales rep, will contain all the user information and the answers to all questions and it will also contain a link to the account form.
Site Creation
- After the account is validated and created, we will create a ProjExec user in ProjExec Online. (Note that this is done before we send the email notification to the account owner and before we show the confirmation page. We need to make sure the account owner can login in directly to the site, after the account creation is done)
- Then we will create an organization and a site in ProjExec Online. We will use web service calls to do that.
- The organization name will be set to the account owner’s company name. All other organization information will be extracted from the company information entered in the account.
- A ProjExec user needs to be created for the account owner and the account number and the organization Id will be store in the ProjExec user.. This is essential in order to know who owns the organization and who to contact for billing.
- Then we will create the site. By default the site name will be the same as the organization name. (note that each site will have a unique ID generated in the background).The account owner will be set as the site manager, and we will link the site to the organization. In case the user subscribed to a free trial, we will not set a license key to the site. So ProjExec will automatically consider the site as a 90 days trial site with a limit of 20 active users and 5 projects. [We need to review the trial to subscription process carefully]
- The organization and site creation date and time should be captured and saved.
- If the user requested subscription to a plan, the site will be created automatically as in the case of the trial site. However, in this case we will generate an enterprise license key. The enterprise license allows the customer to invite as many users as he wants and to manage as many projects as he desire. The license duration is unlimited and the account owner can keep using the system as long as he is paying his bills. See Licensing below for more details. Note that the license key will not be visible to clients and it is used only internally by ProjExec.
ProjExec Online Plans
- Clients are billed based on two criteria. The plan they have selected and the number of active users per site per month.
- The plan determines the price per user per month. It also determines the minimum number of users to bill and the minimum duration of the subscription.
- Plans are attached to accounts. Each account can have one plan.
- The account owner will be billed monthly and he will pay (the price per user as determined by the plan)x(the number of maximum active users in the month).