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IP.Nexus 1.3.0: Global Changes

Posted by Mark, 22 April 2011 · 3,550 views

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.
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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.
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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.

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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.




Excellent. :)

I like the Attention Icons as these are a quick way of seeing what needs attention along with taking you to the area in question.

The return group for multi-layered (for want of a better phrase) groups is also a very welcome addition too.
Attention Icons is the best idea ever. Quick look at without having to navigate around.
OMG, PayPal Subscriptions to the rescue!!! It looks like I will be buying IPB Nexus. :)
Notification Copies - this is exactly what I wanted. Thank you for listening!

Keep up the good work.
Fantastic News!! :)

Under Notifications Copies, will Shipping Invoice generation be an option?
All the payment gateway,
Include PAYPAL
CNY paid do not support, allowing users in China how to continue?
PAYPAL originally to support CNY
Very nice improvements!!!!
Looks like some of my complaining paid off! Looks like some really great changes to this product!
The changes look great and the product is growing nicely. It is nice to see more effort towards subscriptions. One more area I would like to see expanded in this area is a report or view of purchases by expiration date in expiration order. Great work so far
Can you add built-in support for FastSpring payment gateway. I know it can be manually added, but it would be nice if it was built-in.
:thumbsup: Great job to improve the Subscriptions area,we all love you IPS :)
BRILLIANT, finally, notifications for generated invoices... GREAT start.

Of course, to be truly effective, you really need to add the ability for us to edit the email templates for Nexus.

Particularly with regard to SUBSCRIPTION RENEWALS... As of late, I've had a ton of customers manually pay their invoices, even though they're already subscribed via PayPal - so I end up having to refund, explain, etc, etc... It looks really unprofessional.

Every forum has a different business model, and it's important that we're able to customize the messages to our customers... It's also an opportunity for advertising, discount promotions (on other products), and to encourage them to use or visit particular parts of our web business.
You can already edit the emails content, all emails are a language string that you can edit in the ACP in "Look & Feel TAB > Manage Languages" :)
Please can we be able to specify a return group when a product expires. Buy a package and move from group one to group two, package expires and move from group two to group three. Pleeeease.
Can you please add multi-currency options?

We have a (discussion) site with (almost 50,000) members from 190 countries currently, are non-commercial, and occasionally we will buy stuff as a group from manufacturers in different countries, in the specific currency of that country. In order to know where we stand with regard to buying (everybody pays in advance) it would be nice if it was possible to assign a specific currency to a product. The default being the one selected by the locale of the installation, of course. This is something we need badly, because being non-commercial, we can ill afford to lose any money due to changing currency exchange rates.

Having said that, I do think this is something useful to have for other purposes too. Imagine being able to offer goods from different countries, in the local currency of that country, in a single interface. This is, IMO, the way to go in this small village called world we live in today. Or even display both sides of th ecoin. The price of something in the local currency, and in the currency of th eboard locale, or vice versa. This would make IP.Nexus a true multi-currency application.

Of course, this would also mean that, e.g., the Paypal payments gateway should automatically get informed about the type of currency the amount is referencing to, etc.

Kind regards, Wim
Please make email templates more easily editable (and ideally also add the ability to create new templates and send them to clients manually or on certain actions - like when they buy a specific service or product). Every billing system out there has one way or the other to easily make email changes. Using the IPB language system for this is extremely inconvenient and limiting.

If you have feedback related to changes beyond what this entry is referring to, please start a feedback topic.


;)
It seems to me that payment methods are USA centered. I may be wrong. In Europe only 25% has a credit card and online banking is the way to go. Moneybookers, Ogone,...
2CO has a pretty restrictive list of banned products, including membership clubs. Doesn't that restrict from selling subscriptions?
Where do you get your 25% statistic? I may also note that Mark is in Europe :)
I am, and I don't know a single person who doesn't have a credit or debit card.

That said, we will of course look into additional gateways based on demand.