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View Full Version : Improving - License Ordering for Developers



Russell McDougall
18-Jul-2011, 11:10 PM
There appears to be some confusion about how to order licenses in a Citrix or Virtual Machine environment in the Asia Pacific area, and there is some dissatisfaction in general about ordering processes downunder. To be fair - some of that may be caused by time zones. DAW have been aware of some ordering difficulties downunder, years ago but it appears nothing may have improved.

The Asia Pacific ordering site is confusing in its general layout and has a payment section whereby we are required to enter credit card details into a notes field despite there being specific options to enter credit card details direct in their own section.

Although orders are placed via a website they appear to go through a local manual process, then are forwarded to the USA, returned and ultimately in turn emailed to the developer ordering the license. The delays in that process are not good.

I was told there was no easy way to extend the number of users for versions prior to VDF10. That contributed to the loss of several thousands of dollars of income. That is not a big worry but it does give this matter a level of importance.

I find it amateurish not to be able to place an order and receive a license almost immediately by email after payment is processed. All other products i order via the internet have that ability.

It is such a negative experience to place an order that several times i have persisted with older versions rather than experience the hassles.

It is my firm view that the following improvements should be discussed refined and implemented to match what i think is excellent delivery of the main product.

1. An international ordering site whereby we logon with our developer serial number. 24/7 no time zone hassles.

2. For new orders - follow some prompts that will determine first the type and number of licenses needed then the concurrent user count.

3. For upgrades. Show the last details and prompt how to bring up to a later version.

4. Be able to better manage licenses by selecting a renewal anniversay month. That would allow developers to have either one anniversay month or allow clients to be grouped into clusters for specific months.

5. Be able to query at any point what the current versions of licenses are for the clients allocated against our developer number.

All this has to result in an easier ordering process and more money to DAW especially for renewals. It also would enhance the pockets of developers.

Here we are as international software developers and we don't have a good system to place orders downunder.

My suggestion is lets debate this in a positive manner and implement a professional solution.

Refer Citrix thread for an example of why this is necessary. I would have placed that order last Monday but I sensed something was wrong. It is now 8 days latter and only now are we getting some clarity. If I had placed the order as advised I would have purchased three client licenses instead of one and trust me you don't want to know about the user conversation. I was the only one mentioning concurrent users in that conversation.

There is another similar thread where Garret mentions excellent ordering service from the USA.

seanyboy
19-Jul-2011, 03:46 AM
I see no reason why this stuff can't be bought online. If Dataflex are worried about their partners, just give the partners a slice of any sales that come from their territories.

Michael Mullan
19-Jul-2011, 11:10 AM
Gee,

This sounds like a perfect opportunity for a Visual-dataflex Web-App developer to produce an Elctos/VDF/Webapp solution to showcase the ease of use of webapps created in VDF. I Imagine that there must be someone here who could whip this up over a weekend or so? Perhaps even get the day job to pay for it...

It could also be the "Test" project for the crew working on the Web Enabled Coolness for VDF17 He Look, we built this extra cool VDF 17 webapp for you to buy vdf 17 on.....

Just Sayin...

MM.

Russell McDougall
20-Jul-2011, 01:36 AM
Nicely put Sean & Michael.

Lets turn this into a positive thread and suggest this would make an excellent showcase for an Ajax based website. I notice on the Ajax support group there are suggestions that it needs clear real world examples. What better than to show off the product and have developers think, thats nice how to a do that. What better place than a DAW showpiece.

Look through the DAW website and figure out how a new developer from say New Zealand would order his first studio license. Not easy to do and certainly not possible to obtain in a few minutes.

Any salesman knows you must keep a fish on the hook and make it easy to complete a sale. This is DAW's chance to make the process easy and fast process. Again i say compare the purchase of something like winzip or an add on activex. I am absolutely convinced that DAW would benefit financially.

Evertjan Dondergoor
20-Jul-2011, 01:54 PM
You are severely underestimating the number of licensing possibilities that exist. Just for a straightforward VDF-client license there are already so many options that you can't catch them all. Then there are a lot of external licenses (like pervasive, flexodbc, dynamic-ai, to name a few) with their own rules. Everything combined there are more then 1200 entries in our product-detail table. (That's the one at DAE)

On top of that everything differs pro country. Different prices, different currencies, different tax rules, different payment methods, different everything. As an example, over here in NL, not many companies would prefer to use a credit card as payment, but expect to be invoiced in stead.

For our bulk customer we have a website where they can order new licenses or change the number of users, but even there every order is manually checked. For this small subset of licenses, it took me over two weeks of programming, just to get the pricing-system right.

Yeah, you could write an app to allow, say Australian customers to order new VDF licences, in a weekend. But you'll need many more of such apps than there are weekends available in a year. (Ok, maybe not quite, but it's close :-P)

In the US the response-time is always great. In EUR there is some timezone difference, but it shouldn't be much of a problem. In that situation it is way more practical e-mail your requirements or call.

Michael Mullan
20-Jul-2011, 02:41 PM
OK, So it's a complex webapp, not a simple one. This does not detract from Russell's original point, or mine.

IF a human orders from say, Fern in the US, there are still less tan 20 questions he has to ask before finding the right license. And after all, VDF is supposed to permit the rapid development of applications which cover complicated business rules. OK the testing requires 1200 discreet tests but one can automate that too...

!. Where are you located
2. Pick a Product Family
3. Pick Conectivity Kits ( select more than one for a price comparison)
4. How many Concurrent users?
5. How many logical servers?

I'm sure Fern/Chip/Stephen can between them come up with the remainig questions, then it can be coded.

</soapbox mode>

Russell McDougall
20-Jul-2011, 02:59 PM
I understand the complexities of the current ordering process and can see why there is a manual process required. But i suggest that is caused by the current order process and should not be necessary if the ordering web site was rebuilt.

1. As any traffic planner knows who designs an intersection or any human resources manager knows when managaing large organisations it is all about simplifing the choices and reducing the number of conflict points. If the current system is too complex then simplify it.

2. The asia down under web site is merely a menu system that leaves the user of the site to make their own choices. Whereas it is my opinion the ordering system should present a series of heirarchical choices to lead a site user to the correct end clearly explaining each step.

The only reason a manual process is required is choice. Choice suits a wizard type prompting ordering system perfectly.

For example - in a simplified format.
a. Operating system of install system
b Access system - Single machine, peer network, citrix, terminal server etc.
c Data base system, embedded, various sql db2 connectivity.
d. VDF Version
e. No of concurrent users.
f. License Name
g. Purchase currency

And naturally there would be different choices for new items versus upgrades or conversions at any point.

That would build the licensing required.
It would also personalise installation and deployment instructions if necessary.

I believe this is extremely important to present a professional image to a good product.

It also removes personalities from the process a very important issue. I had a conversation to order a product about two weeks ago and was left more confused than i started and here i am two weeks later and still slightly unsure.

I have lost business and DAW have too because or the complex order process.

The down under ordering process has been on the table for discussion for years and falls on deaf DAW ears.

I do not accept that i can have a conversation direct with a rep, be given what appears to be incorrect advice and have to enter into a series of questions via the support groups. It is all unnecessary.

It seems to me that each end point is reinventing the wheel via their web sites with an inconsistent and in at least one case a bad web site. Whereas if those efforts were put towards a common purpose the result may be very good indeed.