AppSuite:Upsell

Revision as of 14:32, 11 April 2013 by Mattes (talk | contribs)
Upsell

Introduction

The OX Upsell packages provide the ability to show advertisements to end-users who are just using a free service like "Webmail", for example. It gives hosting companies the possibility to take advantage of offering and selling premium OX services via in-app upsell.

When free-mail users click on premium features like "OX Files", an upsell dialog can be shown where the missing feature can be advertised via text, screenshots, and/or videos. Based on your specific configuration, the end-user can request a free trial period and/or directly buy the feature within the upsell dialog. The customer never has to leave the application to upsell as it's a seamless in-app upsell.

It is also possible for hosting companies to easily integrate their own online shop into OX Upsell, since the internal mechanisms are loosely coupled via events.

Events

Whenever the user starts an app or clicks on an inline-action, a capability-check is performed internally. For example, all inline actions have native support for such checks:

 
new Action('io.ox/calendar/detail/actions/sendmail', {
    capabilities: 'webmail',
    action: function (baton) {
        // send mail
    }
});

Assuming the end-user does not have "webmail" (e.g. in a files-only setup), a proper event is fired:

 
// if any action misses a capability
ox.trigger('upsell:requires-upgrade');
// which provides the following data for apps:
{
  type: "app",
  id: "io.ox/mail/main",
  missing: "webmail"
}
// and for inline-actions:
{
  type: "inline-action",
  id: "io.ox/calendar/detail/actions/sendmail",
  missing: "webmail"
}

Capabilities

There are lots of different capabilities. They are defined server-side and simplified they're just strings. Let's keep it simple and understand them as either services or installed applications. Some examples:

  • calendar
  • contacts
  • facebook
  • infostore
  • mailfilter
  • multiple_mail_accounts

...

  • webmail
 
// list all available capabilities
_(ox.serverConfig.capabilities).pluck('id').sort();

Free-mail users might just have webmail and contacts. If infostore is enabled for upsell, end-users will see the link to store mail attachments, for example. But since this capability is missing, the event "upsell:requires-upgrade" is triggered which starts the upsell process. Of course, the this process should unlock the capability infostore for the end-user.

Example dialog

Whenever the event "upsell:requires-upgrade" is triggered, there should be some response for the end-user, usually an upsell dialog should open. This can be implemented as follows:

 
function showUpgradeDialog(e, options) {
    require(['io.ox/core/tk/dialogs'], function (dialogs) {
        new dialogs.ModalDialog({ easyOut: true })
            .build(function () {
                this.getHeader().append(
                    $('<h4>').text('Upgrade required')
                );
                this.getContentNode().append(
                    $.txt('This feature is not available.'),
                    $.txt('You need to upgrade your account now.'),
                    $.txt(' '),
                    $.txt('The first 90 days are free.')
                );
                this.addPrimaryButton('upgrade', 'Get free upgrade');
                this.addButton('cancel', 'Cancel');
            })
            .setUnderlayStyle({
                opacity: 0.70,
                backgroundColor: '#08C'
            })
            .on('upgrade', function () {
                ox.trigger('upsell:upgrade', options);
            })
            .on('show', function () {
                ox.off('upsell:requires-upgrade', showUpgradeDialog);
            })
            .on('close', function () {
                ox.on('upsell:requires-upgrade', showUpgradeDialog);
            })
            .show();
    });
}

function upgrade(e, options) {
    console.debug('upgrade', options);
    alert('User decided to upgrade! (global event: upsell:upgrade)');
}

ox.on('upsell:requires-upgrade', showUpgradeDialog);

/*
 * convention: 'upsell:upgrade' is used to trigger final upsell
 * the current user and user_id can be found in global variables ox.user and ox.user_id
 */
ox.on('upsell:upgrade', upgrade);

Hint: For simple demo purposes, you can enable an internal upsell configuration by appending "&demo=upsell" to the URL. Needs to reload page, of course.

The second event "upsell:upgrade" can be understood as the final imperative to request the upsell server-side.

Accessing upsell settings

The upsell configuration is located in namespace "io.ox/core", path is "upsell/enabled". Example:

 
// get all capabilities that can trigger upsell
require('settings!io.ox/core').get('upsell/enabled');

// contains data like this
{
  infostore: true,
  portal: true,
  tasks: true
}

If upsell is not enabled and the end-user lacks specific capabilities, the app or the inline-action is not shown or visually disabled. If upsell is enabled by the upper configuration, inline-actions are shown but just trigger the upsell event "upsell:requires-upgrade" if clicked.

 
/* 
 * if you want to create your own controls, you can use the following helpers 
 */
var upsell = require('io.ox/core/upsell');

// check capabilities (space-separated) 
upsell.has('portal webmail');

// get missing capabilities (would return "calendar" in demo mode) 
upsell.missing(['portal webmail', 'contacts', 'calendar']);

/* checks if upsell is enabled for a set of capabilities 
 * true if at least one set matches 
 */
upsell.enabled(['portal webmail', 'webmail calendar']);

/* convenience function: "visible" 
 * checks if something should be visible depending on required capabilities 
 * true if any item matches requires capabilities 
 * true if any item does not match its requirements but is enabled for upsell 
 * this function is used for any inline link, for example, to decide whether or not showing it 
 */
upsell.visible(['portal webmail', 'contacts', 'calendar']);

// likewise if neither capability set nor enabled for upsell, we get a false 
upsell.visible(['foo']);

// in case something weird happens (usually bad configuration) debug() helps
upsell.debug();

// and this one
_(ox.serverConfig.capabilities).pluck('id').sort();

Server settings

In order to configure this server-side, just create a new file upsell.properties or append to existing appsuite.properties (mind the double-slash; this in not a typo!):

 
io.ox/core//upsell/enabled/infostore=true
io.ox/core//upsell/enabled/portal=true
io.ox/core//upsell/enabled/tasks=true

Upsell in OX6

Please also consider this article as it also covers backend aspects.