Mark

Those familiar with IP.Nexus will be familiar with the ability to create custom fields both for packages (so when a user purchases a package they can provide custom information such as the size, colour, etc. of the item being purchased) and for customer accounts (so you could add additional fields for customers to provide when making a purchase, etc.). In IP.Nexus we're adding the ability to use custom fields with support requests. You can choose from several different types of field, select the departments it applies to, and choose whether or not it is required. Here I've created a field to ask users what "software version" they're using: Now when a user goes to create a support request in the "Support" department, they'll be prompted to provide this information: This works on the mobile skin too, of course: The values of these fields can then be viewed both by the customer, and admins:

IP.Nexus provides a great support system, allowing customers to submit support requests through your community or directly through email. The support system also includes robust reporting tools allowing you to see the volume of support requests over time and audit individual members of staff to view how many replies they're making and the quality of those replies. Ensuring customer satisfaction is important to anyone running a support system, and in IP.Nexus 1.5 we're adding a feature that will allow your customers to rate, and provide feedback on, the support they receive. When the system is enabled, customers will see a star rating system below each staff member's reply: They can then click on their desired rating, which will bring up a popup where they can enter additional feedback. This is completely optional, and customers can just leave a star rating if desired. In the Admin CP, you can control using ACP Restrictions if administrators can view the ratings given and optionally also view the feedback given. If a rating is given and the administrator can see it, it will appear user the message, just like in the front-end: If the customer left a note, and the administrator has permission to view it, they can do so by clicking on the rating: IP.Nexus has a "Staff Audit" tool allowing you to view how many support requests each staff member has answered over time. The audit now has an additional column providing the average rating for their replies in that time period: And of course, when you click on the number to view the staff member's responses, the rating and the note if available will display here too: Finally, we've added an additional report page in the Admin CP which allows you to view the average rating for different staff members over time: In this screenshot, I'm comparing two staff members average ratings throughout 2012 on a bar chart. But just like the other reporting tools in Nexus, you can select any date range, chart type (options are bar, line, pie or a plain data table) and can customise the series too (you could compare any particular staff members, group staff members by their department to compare departments, view everyone on one series, etc.) As always, if you have any feedback or suggestions unrelated to this blog entry, please post them in the IP.Nexus forum

IP.Nexus has for a long time included a referrals system, allowing your customers to refer their friends to your community and subsequently earn commission on any purchases they make in IP.Nexus. The problem with this set up though is that you might not want referrers to continue earning commission forever, or you might want to specify different commission amounts depending on what the referring user is purchasing. In IP.Nexus 1.5 we're adding much better control over the system - you can now create custom rules which control the commission amount which will be paid out to referrers. Nexus will loop through the rules you set up and give the highest commission amount out of the rules that match. You can base your rules on: The number of purchases that the referring user has made (as a number, or as a money amount) The group that the referring user is in The number of purchases that the user making the purchase has made (as a number, or as a money amount) The group that the referring user making the purchase is in The packages being purchased The amount of the transaction You can then specify a commission amount to give as a percentage, and optionally a hard limit on the maximum amount of commission that can be given. Here you can see I've set up a rule which will give the referrer 50% commission on the first purchase that members they refer make, provided the purchase is at least $10: We've also made some improvements on the front-end. Firstly, users can specify any URL to use as the URL the people they refer are directed to. In addition, users will be able to see the commission rules that apply to them: If however, you don't want users to be able to see details of the commission rules, you can replace the content of that popup with your own custom message, or remove it all together. Just like before, you can also create banners and upload them in the Admin CP, which will provide users code for using your banners on that page: And you can of course keep track of who referred whom on the customer pages and customer history page:

As mentioned in our last blog entry, we're hard at work on our next version of IP.Nexus. One of the more visual features we're adding in this version is an updated mobile skin - here are some screenshots! Main store page: Category listing: Product screen: Cart view: Checkout screen: Client area - menu: Client area - invoice view: New support request form:

IP.Nexus is our hugely popular eCommerce and business management application for the IPS Community Suite. Over the past few weeks we've been working on lots of new features and enhancements for the next version of IP.Nexus (version 1.5). The first change we wanted to share with you is called Fraud Rules. For a long time, IP.Nexus has provided integration with MaxMind for anti-fraud measures. However, this is limited only to holding or refusing transactions based on the MaxMind score. You might want to, for example, manually review all transactions where, for example, the user's billing address doesn't match their physical location (which MaxMind can detect) - or perhaps you don't want to use MaxMind and want to manually review all orders over a certain amount, or all orders from particular countries - this is where Fraud Rules comes in. IP.Nexus 1.5 allows you to create as many Fraud Rules as you like based on a wide range of criteria - each Fraud Rule is checked in the order you specify and the last that matches is what is used. This is what the management screen looks like: Here you can see I've set up a number of rules (the names are assigned by you as a reference for what the rule does) - I've created rules so that if the amount is over $100 or the the customer is paying by PayPal and has not made any previous purchases, the payment will be held for manual approval, unless the customer is in the "Administrators" group. This is just an example of what you might do - there is a wide range of criteria that you can base rules on. Here is what the add/edit page for a rule looks like: If MaxMind is enabled, even more options are available: The full list of what you can base rules on is:The transaction amount (greater than, less than or equal to X) Payment method used was (multi-select) Customer is in usergroup (multi-select) Customer's email address (is/contains X) Customer's billing address country (multi-select) Customer has made X approved transactions (greater than, less than or equal to X) Customer has made X approved transactions which have been blocked by Fraud Rules or manually refused by an administrator (greater than, less than or equal to X) Coupon was used (yes/no) MaxMind: Score (greater than, less than or equal to X) MaxMind: Customer's billing address is valid (yes/no) MaxMind: Customer's billing address matches their IP address location (yes/no) MaxMind: Customer's phone number matches their billing address (yes/no) MaxMind: Likeliness that customer is using an IP address proxy (greater than, less than or equal to X) MaxMind: Customer is using a free email provider (yes/no) MaxMind: Customer's email address is considered "High Risk" (yes/no) MaxMind: Customer's username is considered "High Risk" (yes/no) You can then choose whether the transaction should be approved, held for approval or refused based on the conditions specified. You can also set the rule to ban the customer if it used (which you might use, for example, to ban someone if they make X transactions which are blocked by Fraud Rules). For each rule, you can specify any number of the conditions available - the conditions you don't specify will be ignored and the rule will only be used if all conditions specified match. As mentioned earlier, the rules are checked in order and the last that matches is used, with this in mind and the ability for a rule to approve a transaction, you can add additional rules to specify circumstances where a customer can bypass a rule (in my example above, I've set it up so Administrators are exempt from all rules). The new Fraud Rules feature gives complete control over your transactions and will hopefully ease some of the headache of manually approving transactions. This is of course just the first of many features and enhancements we have planned for IP.Nexus 1.5 - stay tuned for more updates over the coming weeks! As always, if you have any feedback or suggestions unrelated to this blog entry, please post them in the IP.Nexus forum :smile:

IP.Board has featured a reputation system since 3.0, allowing users to give positive or negative reputation to posts, as well as content in other apps in the IPS Community Suite (blog entries, gallery images, etc.) as well as content in third party applications. In IP.Board 3.2, we enhanced this by adding a new way of viewing the reputation system, in terms of "liking" content as opposed to giving reputation, which is a more common social feature on websites today. In IP.Board 3.3, we're adding two features to utilise the reputation system in content discovery. Reputation in user's profile We've added a new tab to the profile which allows you to see both the content that the user has most recently liked, as well as content the user has made which has been most recently liked. This of course supports both reputation modes (the "Like" system and the traditional reputation system). The tabs at the top allow you to choose which application you want to view content from (in the screenshot only Forums and Calendar are viewable, but of course, support will be added for other apps and 3rd party developers can also add support), and also toggle whether you want to see reputation given or reputation received. Content with the highest reputation In addition to the profile tab, we've also created a new page (the link to which appears in the footer next to the top posters, etc.) which shows the content which has the highest rating, or has been liked the most. Just like on the profile tab, you can toggle between which application you want to view the content for. Both systems of course also work exactly the same with the traditional reputation system: Feel free to comment on this blog entry below or, if you have feedback unrelated to this blog entry, start a new topic in our feedback forum.

With every release of our products, we like to spend some time identifying areas which can be improved slightly, and small feature suggestions we can use. 3.3 is no exception, and I wanted to write a quick blog entry to highlight just some of the smaller enhancements we've made to 3.3 to make the product more powerful and easy to use. Login autosave In 3.2, we introduced a login popup box when you click "Sign In" to make logging in faster. Previously, the content for this popup was loaded by AJAX which meant some browsers would not automatically fill in your username and password like they normally would. In 3.3, we've changed the way this is loaded so that this is no longer the case. It still works exactly as it did before, except browsers will now be able to autofill your login details. Emoticons in sigatures Emoticons (smilies) are now supported in signatures. Log in as member Sometimes it is useful to log into your community as a member if they're experiencing issues, or to check you have set permissions up correctly. Previously, you would have to change the user's password and then log in as them normally in order to do this. In 3.3, we've added a button to the "edit member" page in the Admin CP which will log you straight into the community as that user, without you needing to know their password. This is of course protected by Admin CP Restrictions, so you can choose which of your administrators have access to this function. Duplicate forum Sometimes you want to set up several similar forums. This can be a real hassle having to create every forum, and set the settings and permissions for that forum manually. In 3.3, we've added an option in the drop-down menu in the forums management screen which allows you to "duplicate" a forum, so that you can easily create multiple forums with similar settings and permissions. Remove ability to create status updates Sometimes, you might want to remove a user's ability to post status updates. Previously, this could only be done in the Admin CP, however, in 3.3, we've added this option to the "edit member" screen on the front-end, so moderators can toggle this setting without having to log into the Admin CP. Tasks as cron IP.Board features a powerful task manager which is used to run certain tasks throughout the day to perform cleanup, send emails, etc. The task manager has always supported running tasks using cron for sites which would prefer to do so or perhaps do not receive enough activity for tasks to be triggered by users. Previously, each task had to have its own cron job set up. In 3.3 however, you can create a single cron which will execute any tasks that need to be ran. Delete guest posts IP.Board has always had the ability to delete all posts by a certain member. However, if you allow guests to posts, there was no tool to delete all posts made by a particular guest. In 3.3, we've added this feature. Rebuild reputation When you delete a post, the user's post count does not go down as this is representative of how many posts the user has made. IP.Board however, does have a tool to rebuild post counts based on what's currently in the database to set the post count for each user to be the current number of posts on the community. Reputation has a similar problem - when a user receives reputation, if the post which received reputation is deleted, their reputation does not go down - this is by design. Up until now however, there was no way to "rebuild" this like you can do with post counts. In 3.3, we've added a tool to rebuild reputation based on what's currently in the database, just like the tool to rebuild post counts. Upgrader custom script This is a change which only applies to application developers. In 3.3, we've added support for two scripts which are executed before and after an upgrade, respectively. Developers can use this to verify the application is compatible with the IP.Board version, and to run any post-upgrade rebuilds that may be necessary. Email tester We've also added a tool in the "Support" section of the Admin CP which will send a test email so that you can verify your community is sending emails correctly. Feel free to comment on this blog entry below or, if you have feedback unrelated to this blog entry, start a new topic in our feedback forum.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a blog entry discussing our efforts towards moderation features, and specifically the new warning system. Today I wanted to talk about another area of moderation, perhaps the most important area - managing content - and how we've improved that in IP.Board 3.3. Unapproved, Soft Deleted, Deleted IP.Board has some great functionality when it comes to managing content - you can set any user, group or forum to require manual approval before posts are made, and once content has been posted you can edit it, hide it, or delete it. The way that this is presented though can sometimes be confusing. Currently, the ability to hide a post (which we refer to as "soft delete" or "remove from view") is accessed by clicking "Delete". I see on a lot of communities, a moderator wants to hide a piece of content, but not delete it, and clicks "Unapprove". This of course works in that the content is hidden, but it re-enters the moderation queue and is indicated to moderators that it needs their approval when browsing the community or the moderator control panel, when in fact, moderators are aware of it, and have deliberately chosen not to approve it. We've made some changes to make this a little clearer: Currently when viewing a post, the options are: Unapprove Delete Remove from View (Soft Delete) Delete from topic (Hard Delete) [*]Edit This presents a few issues - firstly, as mentioned before - it's not immediately obvious that the "Delete" option contains sub-options, and in addition, "Unapprove" and "Remove from View" perform almost identical actions. In 3.3, we've merged "Unapprove" and "Remove from View" into a single action called "Hide", and "Delete" now simply moves the post to the Trash Can (accessible in the moderator control panel) without any additional dialogues. So the options now are:Edit Hide Delete All the same functionality, but much simpler. This change also applies to both topics and posts, and also the comments system used by Blog/Gallery/Downloads/Calendar/Nexus, which currently does not allow content to be hidden in any way once it's been approved. Interface Enhancements We've also moved a few things around to make moderation tools easier to access. The drop down menu When viewing a topic, there is currently a drop down menu at the bottom of the screen allowing you to perform moderator actions on the topic. The problem is, not only is it below all the posts, it's hidden behind a "Show Moderator Tools" link: We've moved this up the top, next to the reply button, and made the options a little easier to understand: We've also moved the drop down in the forum view to the same location. Multi-mod Also in that "Show Moderator Tools" bar is a long select box - when viewing a topic, there are little checkboxes next to each post which you can check, then select an action from that box to perform an action on several posts at once. This isn't great though because it isn't always obvious that it is that select box that the checkboxes are about, and also, even if you do know it, you have to scroll all the way down to get to it. The comments system used by Blog/Gallery/Downloads/Calendar/Nexus has a much better way of dealing with this - when you click the checkbox, an overlay appears in the bottom-right corner of your screen. We've implemented this same design: This is used both for the checkboxes next to each post when viewing a topic, and next to each topic when viewing a forum. We've also made it so that the options available are aware of the options you check - for example, if you check a post which is hidden, you'll see the option to unhide it, but not also to hide it (since it's already hidden). Feel free to comment on this blog entry below or, if you have feedback unrelated to this blog entry, start a new topic in our feedback forum.

Any community administrator knows how important moderation features are to a successful community, and the IPS Community Suite offers some great features in this area. The Spam Monitoring Service, for example, a unique feature that is completely unmatched anywhere else, keeps your community safe from spam content. Also in IP.Board 3.2, we introduced the Moderator Control Panel feature, giving your moderators a central location to manage all of their moderation tasks. In IP.Board 3.3 we wanted to spend some time researching what could be done in this area to even further help your moderators to keep your community running smoothly. One moderation feature which has remained largely unchanged throughout IP.Board's life is the warning system. It's a fairly simple system - if a user behaves in a way that is inappropriate for your community you can issue them a warning and along with that warning give a punishment, such as requiring moderator approval of their content or even banning them from your community for a certain amount of time. So how can we make it better? We set ourselves a few goals for how we could improve the warning system for all of your users: Control. Many administrators prefer to have more control over the way moderation happens on their communities. You may want the first time a user is warned to always be a verbal warning only; you may then want to the second warning to always be a 1 day suspension, etc.; you may want different punishments for different infractions. Or perhaps you want to allow your moderators to choose punishments themselves as they do currently. We wanted the warning system to be able to handle both of these setups so you can be as fixed or as flexible as you like. Communication. At the moment, if a moderator gives a member a warning, no other moderators know about it unless they happen to be looking at a member's warn logs. We wanted communication between the system and the moderators to be better. Moderators should be able to know when a member is warned. They should be able to see who warned them, why, and what post caused the warning. They should know looking at a member's profile if they're currently serving out a punishment for a warning, and if so, which warning. Clarity. If a member is warned, they need to know why and what the punishment is. They shouldn't be put on mod queue and not know about it and then wonder why their posts aren't showing up. Points, Reasons and Actions The new system works on a points based idea. When a user commits an offence (for lack of a better term) they will receive a number of points appropriate for the severity of the infraction. As an administrator, you will set up these different "Reasons" in the Admin CP. For each reason, you can determine if moderators are fixed to a certain number of points, or if they can change the number of points to give a member. You can also choose whether or not to allow moderators use of a generic "Other" reason, for which they can set any number of points. For each reason, you can also set how long the points last for - whether they stay on the user's account forever, or if they are removed after a certain period of time, and if that is set in stone or something moderators can change when issuing a warning. You can then also set up Actions. Actions are the punishment that a user receives when they reach a certain number of points. There are 3 different punishments you can give:Moderation queue - all posts the user submits must be approved by a moderator before they are shown. Restricted from posting - the user cannot post at all. Suspension - the user cannot access any area of the community at all. And each can be for a specified period of time or indefinitely. Again, you can specify if this rule is set in stone or if moderators can have free control over the punishment. If a moderator issues a warning and it gives the user a number of points that does not have a corresponding action - you can choose if that means moderators can set whichever punishment they like, or if that constitutes a "verbal warning only". Through this advanced level of control - you can allow the system to be as rigid (in that moderators have to give a certain number of points for each type of infraction, and punishments for each number of points is defined) or as flexible (in that moderators can give whatever number of points and whatever punishment they choose) as you like. Since points can also automatically be removed after a period of time you can also be as forgiving or not as you like. So this is what the warning screen looks like (you can get to it from a link in the member's profile or next to any of their posts): After selecting a reason, the punishment will be filled out and you may or not be able to change it as per the Admin CP settings: If a moderator has control over the number of points, they can also click the "?" icon which will explain all of the points levels and warning actions. Notifications As you will have noticed in the above screenshot - when warning a member, you can specify both a note for the member (in which you will presumably explain why you are issuing the warning) and a note which can only be viewed by other moderators. Neither are required, but will show up in the warning log. After issuing a warning, the member will be sent a notification which will take them to their warnings log page from which they can see the warning and what punishment they were given: Users and moderators can access the warning log from the profile or from any post. When a moderator views the log, they will see the note for moderators in addition to the note for the member. In addition to members receiving notifications when they are warned, all moderators who have the ability to view warnings can set their notification options to notify them when any other moderator issues a warning. Warning and Punishment Information Note that the details popup includes a link to the actual post which caused the moderator to issue the warning. When a moderator clicks on to the warning page, it remembers where they came from - this allows both them to be taken back there once the warning has been issued, and it allows other moderators to see the exact post the warning was issued for. When another moderator is viewing that post, it will also be indicated there with a red icon: This allows moderators to see that a warning was issued for the post and that they do not also need to issue a warning. Clicking the icon brings up the details popup: In addition, when viewing a user's profile, moderators will be able to see if they are currently serving out any punishments: And again, clicking on that badge will show the details: Acknowledgements Another additional feature is the option to require that all members "acknowledge" their warnings. If enabled, after a user is issued a warning, they will not be able to post again until they acknowledge it. When they click the reply button, they will be shown a screen like this: After acknowledging the warning, the user will be taken straight back to the post screen. If you have not enabled acknowledgements, or even just to remind the user even if you have - when a user is on moderation queue, a message above the post editor will remind them of this, so that they don't wonder why their post isn't showing up after they post: Integration Although we have talked about this feature from within the forums app - the integration you see will be included in all applications, and developers can add easily add support for their own. The integration will allow the following features in every app:The link backs to the content from the warning log, wherever that is. The red icon within the content if a warning has been issued for it. Honouring of the punishments given - moderation queue and restricted from posting. The message showing above the editor if on moderation queue. Prompting the user to acknowledge warnings before posting. We hope that the new warning system helps you to manage moderation on your community more easily. This is just the start of our plans for IP.Board 3.3 so watch this blog for more updates coming soon. Feel free to comment on this blog entry below or, if you have feedback unrelated to this blog entry, start a new topic in our feedback forum.

IP.Blog is our popular blogging platform for the IPS Community Suite. We've been working on updates and improvements to this platform for the upcoming 2.5 release which we wanted to talk about today. Interface Improvements We've spent a lot of time cleaning up the interface and making use of the new styles available in 3.2. The aim was to make it simple and intuitive to create, manage, post to and find blogs. Here's a few screenshots: Tags IP.Blog was our first product to make use of tags. In IP.Board 3.2 however, we added a more global tagging system with more advanced features (for example, an open or closed system and prefixes). In IP.Blog 2.5, we've updated the tags system to use that new global system, so the features and interface that you're familiar with will now be available in Blog too, including tag search. Existing tags in entries will be updated to the new system, so nothing will be lost. Friends Only Currently IP.Blog allows you to have blogs that are private or only viewable to those who you specify. We've integrated IP.Blog into the friends feature in IP.Board and added a new "Friends Only" option which allows your friends (and only your friends) to view your blog. Blog This IP.Blog currently has a hook called "Blog This" which allows you to blog about a post you find on the forums. We've extended this feature so that a new "Blog This" link now shows in the standard share links used throughout the IPS Community, in: Forum topics Blog entries Gallery images Downloads files Content articles Nexus products Calendar entries By clicking the Blog This icon in any of these locations, you can blog about the content on that page with just one click. The content will be quoted and a link to the content will be added automatically to your entry. Manage Comments IP.Board 3.2 added a global moderator control panel. In IP.Blog 2.5 we've deepened the integration with this feature and so unapproved comments on blog entries will now show under "Unapproved Content" in the moderator control panel. Entry Images We've added an additional field when submitting a blog entry for an "Entry Image". This allows you to upload an image which will then display in your blog entry both in the entry itself and on listings in the entry and blog lists. Entry Views In addition to seeing how many views a blog has, you can now see how many views a single entry has had.

To wrap up our series of blog entries on IP.Nexus 1.4, there's just a few more new features and enhancements that warrant mentioning. HTML Emails Matt recently blogged about the new HTML email support in the IPS Community Suite. IP.Nexus 1.4 makes full use of this feature to send out clear, description and well formatted emails. It's much more than just a new wrapper around the same text - we've reviewed every email that IP.Nexus sends to make it more informative. Here's a sample before and after shot of a payment received notification: Charts & Graphs (and Lists) Back in December last year, we added a feature to Nexus allowing you to generate charts and graphs with various data. All graphs can be viewed for any period of time (and any span of time), you can customise which data to to place on what series and you can view the results as a pie chart, bar chart or line graph. We're adding two new features to this. First, a new type of graph which allows you to generate graphs based on the income received based on the country of the user purchasing: We've also added a new option for viewing the data - as a list. Often people just want to know, for example, what are their best selling products, not necessarily in a graph form. By selecting list as the chart type, you can see just that: You can of course use this list view for any of the graph types, including the new markets type. AJAXification When viewing a support request, there's quite a few things you can do other than reply. We've made two often performed actions: managing the cc list, and tracking/untracking the support request work using AJAX, so you can perform these actions without having to reload the page, distracting you from the support request. Support Bounce Sometimes customers will reply by email to a support request which had been closed for a long time. Previously, IP.Nexus would simply reopen the support request, however, this can be annoying if you sort requests by the date they were opened, as they will have suddenly jumped to the top of the queue. In IP.Nexus 1.4, you have the option to have Nexus reply to the customer in this case, asking them to submit a new support request, rather than reopening the old. Coupons and Renewals IP.Nexus allows you to create coupons which can only be used against chosen products. In IP.Nexus 1.4, you can specify if the coupon can also be used against renewals of those products. Alternate Contact Management We've redesigned the interface for managing alternate contacts in the Admin CP. You can now search for the alternate account by name, id number or email address, and can edit existing alternate contacts. That's all for IP.Nexus 1.4. Beta testing will begin soon, so keep an eye on the testing forum. In the meantime, if you have any feedback or suggestions unrelated to this blog entry, as always, please post them in the IP.Nexus forum :smile:

A little while ago, I talked about the front-end store improvements for IP.Nexus 1.4. In addition to these front-end changes, we've also made a few changes to back-end order management which we wanted to talk about today. Tracking Numbers IP.Nexus has always had the functionality for viewing shipping orders and printing packing notes. In IP.Nexus 1.4 we're expanding the shipping features by adding support for tracking numbers. When you click the button to mark an order shipped, you'll now see a popup asking for the tracking number and the service you're sending the package by: If you fill this in, customers will be given a link in their shipping notification allowing them to track their shipment. PayPal Payer Status Those who manually review transactions know that it's importance of to be able to approve genuine orders quickly while ensuring that fraudulent orders are noticed. For customers that pay by PayPal, one of the important factors in this decision can be if the customer paid with a verified PayPal account or not. In IP.Nexus 1.4, you'll be able to see right on the transaction review page if the payment (if it's a PayPal payment) came from a verified PayPal account. Transaction Review Sometimes when you're reviewing transactions, you might want to leave one and come back to it later - perhaps you're going to contact the customer for additional information, or wait to see if the funds appear. This can sometimes cause issue if there's more than one person reviewing transactions - one person might contact a customer for followup, then another refuses the transaction, or contacts the customer again. In IP.Nexus 1.4, we've added an additional status to transactions allowing you to flag a transaction as being "under review". Transactions with this status are clearly indicated on the review screen (they appear in a blue box rather than pink) and who marked it as such, so everyone knows you already have it under control. Void Account It is inevitable that sometimes you need to terminate a customer's account. Perhaps they've filed a chargeback, or broken your purchase agreement. While IP.Nexus has the ability to refund transactions and easily cancel purchases, this can be time consuming if the customer has made several purchases. In IP.Nexus 1.4 we've added something of a kill-switch. One button that will refund all transactions, cancel all purchases, close all support requests and ban the account from logging in. As always, if you have any feedback or suggestions unrelated to this blog entry, please post them in the IP.Nexus forum :smile:

Following on from our first blog entry on IP.Nexus 1.4, one of the areas we wanted to focus on in this version is hosting integration. IP.Nexus integrates with CPanel and WHM to allow you to sell and manage hosting services to your customers. Monitoring Anyone who sells hosting services knows that it is important to always have a eye on your servers and you need to know as soon as one of them goes down. With version 1.4, IP.Nexus has you covered. We're including monitoring features to keep watch on all of your servers. Here's how it works: every 5 minutes, IP.Nexus will call gateway script which will in turn call a monitoring script which you'll upload to each of your servers, the response from this tells Nexus that the server is online and healthy. If Nexus does not receive a response from the monitoring script, it does one of three things: 1) It can check with a backup gateway script (which you'll locate on a separate server) to ensure the issue isn't with Nexus' communications. If that script can get a response, the server is online and everything is okay. 2) It will give the server a grace period. You can configure how many times Nexus should allow a server to not respond before sending out notifications - this allows the server, for example, 10 minutes to recover before sending out notifications. 3) It will send an email to the list of people you have configured to be notified. Once that notification gets sent, all those who received it can reply to it and their replies will be sent out to all other people in the list - this is helpful if you have more than one person that's going to be being notified and need to keep them all in the loop. Any person receiving the email can also acknowledge the notification (more on that in a moment) or reset the monitoring back to a default state (which they'll do once they've fixed the problem). If nobody acknowledges the notification, and the server is still down after a period of time you specify, additional emails will be sent out to remind all that the server is still down. The system also has a plan for if Nexus itself goes offline. On the server where your gateway script resides, you can set up a cron for a script which checks the last time Nexus called it. This script will email everyone in your notification list if Nexus has not called it in over 15 minutes. You don't even need to configure this script - Nexus will keep it up to date with any changes you make to the list of people to notify. You can at any time view the status of your servers in the Admin CP - a green tick indicates that everything is okay, a red cross means the server is reporting offline: With this of course, you can now create servers which are not integrated with CPanel/WHM but are monitoring only. There are also of course hook points so you can add your own code to run when a server goes down or comes back up. Every sysadmin knows that when a server goes down to expect a flood of emails, phone calls, etc. from customers reporting the issue. Now that IP.Nexus knows when a server is offline, we've added a little notification which appears if a customer goes to submit a support request while one of the servers they have an account on is down, notifying them you are already aware of the problem: Server Cost When creating a server you'll now have the option to provide the monthly cost of the server. IP.Nexus takes this information and along with it calculates the monthly revenue from that server (based off the information IP.Nexus already has). This allows IP.Nexus to show you a monthly profit/loss for each server. Dedicated Servers Those selling dedicated servers in IP.Nexus are used to creating simple custom packages to represent dedicated servers. In IP.Nexus 1.4 we've added a special kind of custom package which represents a dedicated server. This allows you to make use monitoring and viewing the monthly profit/loss while maintaining all the flexibility of custom packages. Little Changes We've also made a number of small changes to the hosting features in IP.Nexus: As you may have noticed from the first screenshot, the server list is now separated by tabs into server queues. For those who prefer the traditional all-in-one layout, there is an "All" tab which will show all servers in the system. When cancelling a hosting account, Nexus currently terminates the account on the server. In IP.Nexus 1.4 you'll have the option to suspend or terminate the account. IP.Nexus now retains the domain and previous server of a hosting account even once it's been cancelled, this allows even cancelled accounts to show up in search results. We still have a couple more blog entries planned for IP.Nexus 1.4. In the meantime, if you have any feedback or suggestions unrelated to this blog entry, as always, please post them in the IP.Nexus forum :smile:

IP.Nexus is our hugely popular eCommerce and business management application for the IPS Community Suite. Over the past few weeks we've been working on lots of new features and enhancements for the next version of IP.Nexus (version 1.4). The first set of changes we wanted to talk about revolve around the storefront. The biggest change we've made in this area is a completely redesigned product page. This is what it looks like: The more perceptive of you will notice that a redesign isn't the only thing this screenshot reveals - we've added several new features to the storefront. Multiple Product Images Probably the most requested IP.Nexus feature, and coming with Nexus 1.4 is multiple product images. You can upload as many different images for a product you like and they are all displayed on the left-side of the product view. Clicking any image will bring it up in the larger box at the top, and clicking that will launch the lightbox to display the full-size image. We've made adding multiple images a quick and easy experience for administrators using an AJAX upload system, here's a video of it in action: http://www.invisionpower.com/uploads/nexus_multiple_product_images.mov As you can see, it's very easy to upload and manage multiple images. Product Reviews Another oft-requested feature coming in IP.Nexus 1.4 is product reviews. You can now set (on a per-product basis) if you want to accept reviews, and if you want to moderate reviews before they go live. Only customers who have purchased the product can review (they'll see a prompt both on the product page in the store and in their purchases list in the client area), and with it they provide a star rating out of 5. The average star rating is displayed on the product page. All members can click whether they found the review helpful or not, and the count for this is displayed just below the review. Product reviews of course integrate with the IPS Community Suite Moderator Center - so you'll be able to easily see a list of reviews pending approval, and members will be able to report reviews and these reports will show up in the Moderator Center. Tax Included IP.Nexus now has the option to include tax in the price which is shown to customers in the store. The text you see in the screenshot ("incl. vat.") can be customised to display whatever you like (so if you're not including tax in the price, it could say "excl. tax"). The calculation is based off of the member's location if known, or the fallback "All Locations" rate if the location is not known. Discounted Price IP.Nexus has long had the option to give selected members discounts based on their usergroup and previous purchases. In IP.Nexus 1.4, if a discount is applied, the original price will be shown striked out next to it so that users are aware that they're receiving a discount. Grid View As well as the product page itself, we've added a new viewing option to the category view. Rather than displaying products in a list, you can now display them in a grid format: You can of course set which view will be the default and disable the option for the user to choose. This is just the first blog entry we have planned for IP.Nexus 1.4. As always, if you have any feedback or suggestions unrelated to this blog entry, please post them in the IP.Nexus forum :smile:

IP.SEO is a free extra from IPS which provides tools to enhance the Search Engine Optimization of your community. It includes features like sitemap generation, the ability to set meta tags on any page, search engine statistics and SEO-related advice on your configuration. The IPS Community Suite itself has many built-in SEO features that are suitable for nearly all communities however IP.SEO expands upon them with more advanced SEO features. We've been busy working on an update to IP.SEO which will be available soon. New features include: Live Meta Tag Editor IP.SEO has long had the ability to add custom meta tags to any page within your community, allowing you to modify the title, add a meta description and more on an individual-page basis. While working on IP.SEO 1.5, we looked into ways we could make this important tool more accessible, and have taken concepts we learned from the Visual Skin Editor in IP.Board 3.2 and applied them to this. Much like how with the Visual Skin Editor you can modify the skin live on the front-end, the Live Meta Tag Editor allows you to browse the front-end of your community and view and edit the meta tags configured for each page you visit. This allows you to customise the meta information on every page in your community easier than ever before so you can make sure all of your pages have exactly the right information you want to show search engines. Improved Sitemap In IP.SEO 1.5, we've added support for IP.Calendar, IP.Nexus and IP.Chat to the sitemap, so now all IPS applications are supported and your entire community can be accessed by site maps easily. But not only that, we've also added some new settings for forums. You can now exclude a forum from the sitemap, or even set a priority level for forums on an individual basis. This allows you to rate your important content such as focussed user discussions higher than for example, site-related announcements or off-topic discussion. Acronym Expansion Users on a community will often post acronyms or abbreviations about the topic of your community, which can cause those posts to be missing the important keywords your community targets. For example, we often have users post "IPB" as an abbreviation for "IP.Board". Search engines of course, don't know these are one in the same and when someone searches "IP.Board", posts that say "IPB" won't match. This can be a problem. In IP.SEO 1.5, we've added a feature we call Acronym Expansion, which will automatically either replace an acronym with the specified long version, or wrap an acronym in a HTML <acronym> tag so that search engines know what the user means. This allows you to ensure that even user-generated content includes the important keywords your community targets. Miscellaneous Enhancements We've also of course included many miscellaneous enhancements. For example, in IP.SEO 1.5 it will be easier to get started with automatic sitemap.xml generation and a tool to download a blank sitemap.xml file if one cannot be generated automatically. In addition, in an effort to improve the SEO within all of our base products, the next releases of IP.Board and IP.Content have had some links removed when viewing the community as a guest which are inaccessible to spiders like the "Like" button. Beta Available Now If you are comfortable testing beta software, IP.SEO 1.5 is now available for beta testing in our pre-release forum. As always if you have any suggestions for future versions of IP.SEO, please post them to our feedback forum. If you're not already using IP.SEO, make sure you download this free extra now!

IP.Gallery 4 introduced a fresh look and lots of new features to our popular gallery application. We've had substantial feedback since 4 and so with Gallery 4.1 (which will be released alongside IP.Board 3.2) we've taken this feedback on board to refine some areas and add frequently requested features. My Media IP.Board 3.2 introduces a feature called "My Media". This allows you to quickly drop content from other areas of your community (attachments, blog entries, etc.) into posts in the forum. Gallery is of course no exception and you can now easily add images and albums created in the Gallery to your posts with a few simple clicks. Default View IP.Gallery 4 introduces a new "portal" home page showing recent images and albums. Some users though prefer a more structured view - viewing albums like categories on the forums. Gallery also has a view for this which we call the "Browse" view. In IP.Gallery 4.1, you can make the "Browse" view the default, and optionally completely shut off the portal view if you prefer. Square Thumbnails IP.Gallery 4 crops and resizes images to a square for use in thumbnails - this gives a clean and consistent view across the Gallery. Some users however, prefer images not to be cropped. Therefore, in Gallery 4.1 we've added a setting to disable this. When disabled, images will not be cropped and will be centered in a transparent square canvas - this allows the rows in the Gallery to remain consistent, but without cropping images. Other Miscellaneous Changes Stats (number of images, comments, etc.) is now on the gallery home page again - both the portal and browse views. We've removed the limit of 10 images at a time, you can now upload as many images as you like in one go. We've moved the slideshow button to a more prominent location, at the top of the page, next to the upload button.

Following our IP.Nexus 1.3 updates, here are the changes made to customer and purchase management: Screenshots shown are subject to design change. Refunds Occasionally, it may be necessary to refund a customer's payment. Authorize.Net provides an API for refunding transactions and as of IP.Nexus 1.3, transactions can now be refunded right from the Admin CP. When you refund a payment, the transaction will automatically be refused and any purchases cancelled. Redesigned "Transactions On Hold" page IP.Nexus may place a transaction on hold for review for several reasons: if it has a high fraud score, if there was a possible problem with the payment detected, or if you have IP.Nexus set to hold all transactions. Previously, you would see a list of transactions and click into each one to review and then accept or deny the payment. We found in our own usage that this was a slightly long-winded process, especially if you have lots of transactions - approving pending transactions is something which should be done as quickly as possible to appease customers. In IP.Nexus 1.3, we've redesigned the "Transactions On Hold" page so that all of the information for all transactions is shown on one page. All of the information you need to make your decision, including information from the anti-fraud service, is right on that page. Clicking "Approve" or "Refuse" will cause the box to disappear using AJAX so that you can move right onto the next one. We've also added a checkbox "Also ban customer" when refusing a transaction, which allows you to ban the member who made the transaction quickly - useful if the transaction is fraudulent for avoiding repeat attempts. Alternate Contact Improvements IP.Nexus allows customers to add "alternate contacts" which can view purchases and submit support requests to their allocated purchases. We find many of our own customers, particularly in large corporate environments, may have several different people for paying invoices and interacting with technical support. In IP.Nexus 1.3, alternate contacts can now optionally be allowed to pay invoices as well, so the person paying the bills doesn't have to be the account owner. Card Management When purchasing an item using the Authorize.Net gateway, IP.Nexus allows customers to store their credit card information for future sales. Card information can now be viewed and edited in the client area, allowing customers to update their card details without making a new purchase. Associations IP.Nexus allows purchases to be associated with each other. For example, here at IPS we allow addons (IP.Blog, Gallery, etc.) to be associated with an IP.Board license. Previously, this had to be done at purchase or in the Admin CP. In IP.Nexus 1.3, customers can do this themselves from the client area. Customer Search The customer search feature in the Admin CP has been improved to allow more kinds of searching and improved handling of internationally-formatted phone numbers. Purchase Expiry Warning When editing a purchase, if you change the expiry date to a date in the past, you'll now see a warning message when saving the purchase to indicate that the purchase will expire immediately. This is useful for avoiding accidental changes (which can be particularly troublesome if the purchase is, for example, a hosting account) and gives you a better idea of what Nexus is doing before it does it. There is also a similar warning for setting the date to a date in the future if the purchase is already expired. Auto-Charge Warning IP.Nexus will automatically charge a credit card on file if one exists when a renewal invoice is generated. There is now a setting to allow you to optionally send customers an Email before this happens to let them know in advance. You can specify how far in advance to warn the customer. Feel free to comment on this blog entry below or, if you have feedback unrelated to this blog entry, start a new topic in our feedback forum. If you have feedback related to changes beyond what this entry is referring to, please start a feedback topic.

Following our IP.Nexus 1.3 updates, here are the changes to hosting integration: Screenshots shown are subject to design change. Improved Error Log If a server experiences temporary issues, Nexus is unable to make calls to the server to create, suspend, terminate accounts, etc. When this happens, a log is made so that you can review and resend the failed commands. In IP.Nexus 1.3, we've improved the interface for dealing with errors so that you can quickly locate the account it relates to, and view the full API call information. On the subject of dealing with API errors - there may be times when an account cannot be created or it is manually edited on the server. IP.Nexus now has an easy interface for associating a record in it's database with an account on the server. You can just enter in the username on the server, and Nexus will figure it out. Improved Server List IP.Nexus lists the current load average when viewing the list of servers in the Admin CP. When there are lots of servers, this can sometimes cause the page to load slowly. In IP.Nexus 1.3, the load will be fetched by AJAX after the page loads so that there is no delay. Editing Account Information Sometimes you may need to edit the Nexus database without calling the server, for example, if a username is changed on the server and you just need to update the Nexus database.] In IP.Nexus 1.3, when editing a hosting account, Nexus will notify you which fields will be updated on the server and allow you to override that if you desire. Along with the above, when cancelling a purchase, Nexus will allow you to optionally not terminate the account on the server (which it previously did automatically). Partial Domain Search I previously mentioned the Live Search support in IP.Nexus 1.3. This supports partial searching for domains and account usernames which was not previously supported. Feel free to comment on this blog entry below or, if you have feedback unrelated to this blog entry, start a new topic in our feedback forum. If you have feedback related to changes beyond what this entry is referring to, please start a feedback topic.

Following our IP.Nexus 1.3 updates, here are the changes to the support request system: Screenshots shown are subject to design change. New Reply Warning Sometimes when working on a support request, the customer or another staff member will reply while you're in the process of typing your reply. This can be both an annoying and embarrassing situation. In IP.Nexus 1.3, before your reply is submitted, Nexus will check if there has been any replies since you opened the support request (this is done by AJAX) and warn you if there has been. "Viewed By" Often when viewing a support request you might wonder who else has viewed it. This can be useful to see who forwarded a support request, or perhaps to see if anyone opened and didn't reply. In IP.Nexus 1.3, a new button appears on the support request view which will open an AJAX popup showing you which other staff members viewed the support request and when. "View My last Responses" Sometimes, I'll reply to a support request and later remember some additional information. However, it can sometimes be difficult to find a support request again particularly if you can't remember the title or customer who submitted it. In IP.Nexus 1.3, we've added a new button to the support request listing called "View My last Responses" which will list all of the support requests where the last reply was by you. Staff Audit When running a support desk, it is important to be able to monitor staff performance, both the quantity and the quality of the support being given. In IP.Nexus 1.3, we've added a new tool called Staff Audit, which shows you the number of replies across time for a staff member: You can click on any number to see the replies: Email Bounce IP.Nexus supports receiving support requests and replies by incoming Email. We sometimes find that customers will send a new email to the "reply only" address, causing it to be bounced, which looks unprofessional and creates confusion for users. In IP.Nexus 1.3, you can specify a message which Nexus will reply with if it receives an Email it does not know how to process. CCs Sometimes when a customer sends a support request by Email, they may CC another recipient on the Email. In IP.Nexus 1.3, this is detected and indicated in the support request view - when a staff member replies, the notification Email will also be CCd to the additional people. Signatures Staff members can now use their signatures in support request replies. Feel free to comment on this blog entry below or, if you have feedback unrelated to this blog entry, start a new topic in our feedback forum. If you have feedback related to changes beyond what this entry is referring to, please start a feedback topic.

Development of IP.Nexus 1.3 is well underway and the time has come to share some of the new features and improvements we've been working on. IP.Nexus 1.3 shall be released alongside IP.Board 3.2 - but is much more than a compatibility update. Our focus for Nexus 1.3 has been to examine and improve each component rather than making large changes. Many of you will have noticed our client area is now using IP.Nexus - the feedback and experience this change has provided, as well as the ever appreciated suggestions posted in our feedback forum have been invaluable, and we can't wait to show off the improvements. I'm going to write blog entries focussing on each component of IP.Nexus in detail over the coming weeks, but for today, I'm going to focus on global changes that affect the entire application. In particular, there's a few little things which I've seen suggested a few times... IP.Board 3.2 IP.Nexus 1.3 will be 3.2-compatible only and includes all of the improvements the IP.Board developers have been discussing in this blog over the past few weeks - the new ACP skin, language, hooks and search improvements are all of course in Nexus 1.3. Live Search IP.Nexus has always had a global search box displaying on every page allowing you quick access to type in an invoice number, customer name, or lots of other information and get access to it. The search box currently appears in the left-side menu, and you are required to manually select what the information you're providing is. In IP.Nexus 1.3, we integrate right in to the ACP Live Search - you can enter in the same information here you currently can and be given a list of items it could apply to - no need to select what information you're providing. If you're in IP.Nexus already, that tab will even be automatically selected. Attention Icons There are several areas of IP.Nexus which might require your attention, such as transactions on hold or open support requests. In IP.Nexus 1.3, any areas needing your attention are indicated by icons above the left-side menu. Clicking any of these will take you to the area in question. From left to right, the icons are: open support requests, transactions on hold, pending shipping orders, payout requests and hosting API errors. If the value is 0 or the user does not have permission to deal with it, the icon won't show and if they're all 0, the strip will disappear entirely. 2CheckOut Gateway IP.Nexus 1.3 includes support for the 2CheckOut payment gateway. Subscription Mode I often see people using IP.Nexus for selling "subscriptions" - an item which can only be purchased by a member once, and then renewed. Sometimes, users find this confusing and end up buying a new item rather than renewing the old. In IP.Nexus 1.3 you can set a product to be a "Subscription" - users will only be able to purchase it once, and if they try again, they'll be prompted to renew their current purchase instead. Return Group IP.Nexus has the ability to move users into a different primary group when a user purchases an item, and remove that group when an item expires. In IP.Nexus 1.3 we've expanded this functionality to be more tiered - if a user purchases an item which moves them into "Silver Members", then another to move them into "Gold Members", when one expires, they'll still keep the group provided by the other, rather than being returned to the default group. PayPal Subscriptions IP.Nexus has an option to enable PayPal Subscriptions, which gives the user an option when checking out to pay normally or start a subscription. Many users found the two options confusing and so as of IP.Nexus 1.3, if PayPal Subscriptions are enabled and the item has renewal fees, PayPal Subscriptions will be used automatically. This is the behaviour formerly used by IP.Subscriptions. Notification Copies Administrators often tell me they'd like to be notified when an order is made, or when an item expires. In IP.Nexus 1.3, you can select any type of invoice notification and when it is sent to the customer, a copy will be sent to you. This allows you to easily keep track of expiring purchases, be instantly notified if a transaction is placed on hold, and lots more. This is of course just the tip of the iceburg - stay tuned for more information on IP.Nexus 1.3! Feel free to comment on this blog entry below or, if you have feedback unrelated to this blog entry, start a new topic in our feedback forum. If you have feedback related to changes beyond what this entry is referring to, please start a feedback topic.

IP.Board allows you to set "ACP Restrictions" which allow you to restrict which administrators have access to which areas of the Admin CP. The two main pieces of feedback we hear about the ACP Restrictions system are: - It should be easy to set up and manage ACP Restrictions, without having to check lots of boxes, but still remaining the high level of control of the current system. - Administrators should only see the areas of the Admin CP that they have access to. Administrators should not get a "permission denied" error from clicking a link. We recognise that particularly with addons such as IP.Content and IP.Nexus which mean the Admin CP is controlling many different sensitive aspects of your community, it is important that using ACP restrictions is becoming more common, and in IP.Board 3.2, we have improved on both these areas. Setting Up Setting ACP restrictions is granular - you give access to the application, the module and then areas in that module. In previous versions of IP.Board, to give access to every area except one, you would need to check every checkbox. Now in 3.2, checking a checkbox which has "children" will automatically select all children. So if you want to give access to all areas except the "Forums" tab, you simply need to check 1 checkbox on each tab except Forums. On the other hand, if you want to give access to just the "Forums" tab, you simply check the 1 checkbox under the "Forums" tab. If you don't want to grant access to a whole area, you can select individual permissions which will automatically select the required parents. Restrictions In Action The ACP will now only show areas that you have access to. For example, an Administrator who only has access to the Look & Feel section, will only see the Look & Feel section: (The System tab always shows as the "Change My Details" page is always available) The menu, both from the dropdowns at the top, and the menus at the side, only show the items that you have access to. In addition, for a user likes this which can only see the Look & Feel tab and not the Dashboard, when they log in, they will be taken straight to the look and feel tab. Feel free to comment on this blog entry below or, if you have feedback unrelated to this blog entry, start a new topic in our feedback forum. Be sure to check the What's New in IP.Board 3.2 topic for a running list of announced changes!

To round up our development updates on IP.Nexus 1.2, I'd just like to mention in brief some additional features not already mentioned in previous blog entries. Go back in Checkout When going through the checkout, a progress bar at the top indicates what steps are still required. Previously, once you had completed one step, you could not go back and change the information provided. In IP.Nexus 1.2, you can click on any step in the progress bar that you have already completed and will be taken back to that step. Change Package You can now "swap"the package that an existing purchase is using in the Admin CP. This will apply all properties of the new package to the purchase (renewal dates, etc.) and apply any usergroup et al changes that the new package allows. Split Support Requests You can now split support requests and delete individual replies in the Admin CP. Each reply now shows a checkbox in the top-right corner, when this is checked, options will appear at the bottom of the replies. The system works across multiple pages - simply check the replies on one page, change to the next page and select any additional replies - the checked items from the first page will be remembered. Task Frequency Change In order to prevent time-outs when handling large amounts of data, and to generate invoices and expire purchases closer to their specified dates, all tasks in Nexus now run more frequently, with a limit on the number of items to process. This number should be fine for most users, but can be adjusted if necessary.

IP.Nexus has always had the ability create "custom packages" - you can specify a price and renewal terms and IP.Nexus will keep a log of the purchase and generate renewal invoices. However, some options like member group promotion, custom modules, etc. are not available in this setup - and with the addition of advertisements and hosting packages, it is necessary to be able to generate custom packages of these types also. In IP.Nexus 1.2 we've completely rewritten how custom packages are handled to allow this flexibility. When generating an invoice, the normal "Custom Package" option appears in the dropdown - choosing this will show you a menu of available package types just like when creating a normal package. The next screen shows all of the options that would normally be available to normal packages (except settings which don't make sense for custom packages, such as if the product should display in the store or only be available to certain member groups): After creating the custom package and the invoice has been paid for, it displays just like a normal purchase, both in the Admin CP and the client area: Administrators can of course edit any of the custom package settings from this page.

Currently in IP.Nexus when a package is edited, certain factors, like the group a user is moved into when purchasing the package, only apply to new purchases. While less of an issue for traditional products there are times, particularly with advertisement and hosting packages, where you will want to apply these changes to existing purchases. Let's say for example, a user has purchased a product called "Premium Membership" - note how the customer is in the group "Members": I now decide that I'm going to create a new group for people who have purchased this group called "Premium Members" and change the product settings to move members into this group when they purchase the package - note that I'm editing the package that the member bought, not creating a new package: When I save this, I will now see a new screen which indicates the change I've made can be applied to existing purchases: If I choose the bottom option, no further action will be performed - the package will save and the changes will apply to new purchases only. If I choose the top option, IP.Nexus will go through all existing purchases and make the change: And all of the appropriate changes will be applied: You can change almost any field for similar behaviour - removing the usergroup for example would move everyone back into their original groups, enabling the license key settings would cause license keys to be generated, for hosting accounts changing the allowances will update the account on the server, etc. The system will also notice if you have customised a purchase and keep your changes in such a situation. For example, let's say you've manually edit a customer's bandwidth allowance on their hosting account - when IP.Nexus goes to update the purchase it will notice the value has been customised and leave that particular setting alone (and update other settings as usual). Of course, changes made in this way are logged on the customer page as normal, as if done manually.

IP.Nexus can ask the customer for various information (like their full name, postal address and phone number) when registering purchasing an item. This information is required for shipping, some payment gateways and the anti-fraud system. Up until now, these fields were static - only the hard-coded fields were available and you could only specify all or no fields were required at registration or checkout. In IP.Nexus 1.2, we've made these fields customisable - you can choose which should show where, which should be required and add and reorder fields as you see fit. This means, that you could, for example, add a "Company" field, which would show alongside the others: Of course, users can also edit custom fields in the client area, and administrators can edit them from the customer page. Whenever the details is changed, it is logged to the customer history page as one would expect: Administrators can also search by custom fields both from the quick-search in the menu, and the main customer search form: This also means that since existing fields can be edited, you can now reorder or remove options from the "Country" field. You can also specify if "State" should be required or not.