ezSupport Module

ezSupport is paid support ticket module for EZ PayPal, which can be purchased online. Using it in conjunction with EZ PayPal, you can request that a fee be paid for every support ticket you get for your products.

Features

  1. Seamless integration with EZ PayPal.
  2. Configurable pricing for your support.
  3. Configurable auto-closing of support tickets.

Credit

ezSupport is a modified version of osTickets. Please refer to their wiki pages for details.

For our purpose, we have made the following changes and additions:

  1. Tight integration with EZ PayPal
  2. Database storage for admin customization so that ezSupport can be installed and configured from a web interface without editing or setting permissions to any files.
  3. Ticket validation check to ensure that the payment has been made, and hasn't expired.
  4. Secure access to install.php and upgrade.php scripts using EZ PayPal logon.
  5. Auto-creation of help topics based on EZ PayPal products.
  6. Free support for purchases from the EZ PayPal store during the download grace period.

Installation

Note: ezSupport is an add-on module for EZ PayPal Pro. You can install and use it only if you have EZ PayPal Pro.

  1. On EZ PayPal admin screen, click on Optional Modules.
  2. Click on the Paid Support menu item.
  3. Click on the Install button and follow the friendly wizard.

Screenshots

  1. Installation integration from EZ PayPal Pro Screen.  Screenshot [ezsupport-module] 1
  2. Log on screen.  Screenshot [ezsupport-module] 2
  3. Support Ticket page.  Screenshot [ezsupport-module] 3

Change Log

Future Plans

  1. Design and implement a subscription model.

History

  • V3.00: Major changes to integrate with the new bootstrap version of EZ PayPal. [Jan 9, 2015]
  • V2.00: Upgrading the underlying OSTicket to V1.9.2. Major changes. [Jul 30, 2014]
  • V1.10: Changes to make it compatible with the new version of DbHelper. [Nov 18, 2013]
  • V1.02: Adding support for passing email as a GET parameter to open.php. [Oct 13, 2012]
  • V1.01: Releasing ezSupport bundled with ezPayPal. [Sep 30, 2012]
  • V1.00: Initial release. [Sep 12, 2012]

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use this package without EZ PayPal?

Not in the current form. But if you don't want to charge your customers for support, you can use osTickets as a standalone application. Please refer to their wiki pages for details.

Why would I want to charge my users for support?

Not to get rich, for sure! In my case, I have a few popular plugins and packages out there on the net. My users kept sending me emails with questions that are clearly answered in the FAQ, documentation etc. When I got tired of cutting and pasting the FAQ answers, I decided to charge them a small amount ($0.95) per question. In fact, I didn't really charge them, I just told them that I would. And, to my surprise, my support load went down by over 90%! I wanted to use a support ticket system, but was worried that it would swamp me with frivolous tickets. A paid support model made sense in my case. Besides, it will certainly cut down on spam.

Why do the email messages from ezSupport end up in Spam/Junk mail boxes?

Depending on how your PHP installation is configured, your emails may look like spam to some of the mail sentinels out there. The safest way to overcome this is to set up SMTP for outgoing mail. Logon to your ezSupport Admin panel (<your ezSupport site>/scp/admin.php) and click on the Emails tab. Click on the "Support" email (typically support@yoursite.com) and enter the values in the "SMTP Settings (Optional)" and section. You will also need to enter your login info in the "Login info (optional)" subsection.

Digital Goods

ezPayPalPlease visit our e-shop selling all sorts of digital goods -- Premium WordPress plugins, PHP packages, Mac Apps, eBooks etc. It runs on my own ezPayPal package, which you can purchase if you would like to start a similar e-commerce gateway. Do check it out!
See Also:  Other packages
If you like my plugin efforts, please leave a comment using your Facebook login below.
If you need help, please use our support portal instead.  ezSupport Portal
[Proudly brought to you by EZ PayPal.]

Comments