Resellers Module

[ECF]

One of TCA2's new features will be a resellers module which will allow GSP's to setup reseller accounts so that third parties may resell your game and voice services.

 

Luis has currently created a security template for resellers for locking down what they can and cannot do. However there is much work to be done on the user side of things such as how reselling will be handled and templates for both web and emails.

 

We would like to hear from you folks as to how you think the reseller module would best work, and which features you would like to see in this module.

 

Please try to be as realistic in your responses as possible and understand that we cannot code a module that will fit everyone to the letter.

 

Thank you for your input.

[HIS-MOTHER]

What I'd like to see in a resellers Module.

 

Branding of the web interface. ie. Reseller one has his own template, reseller 2 has his own template etc.. While still maintaining Primary hosts own individual template. Each template customizable by the reseller.

 

Slot pooling. Ex. Reseller Purchases 300 Ventrilo slots and can deploy or modify servers at will to utilize that pool. This should be for Game and voice slots, must be able to have seperate categories or groups, ie. .99 cents per slot reseller, 1.25 per slot reseller , 1.49 reseller so that a reseller can have a pool of slots based possibly on the price per slot.

 

Wouldnt want a reseller to purchase a .99 slot pool of say 100 slots then resell a game that is actually supposed to cost 1.25 per to them. Maybe a pooled dollar amount and have a price per slot in each game config so TCA V2 can deduct from that dollar amount based on the resellers cost.

[ECF]

I think we are getting to far into the billing system realm on this Patrick. All monetary transactions should be handled via a billing system.

 

But we will see what Luis can come up with.

Edited October 13, 2009 by ECF

[HIS-MOTHER]

Right. I would assume billing system would keep track of dollar amounts and what was purchased. ie reseller puts say 150.00 on their Acct. It would pass to V2 and translate to anything. Meaning they could deploy anyting game, voice or a Combo of and it would deduct from there account. V2 just passes b,ack to the billing system the amount to deduct from Acct. or bill if the reseller has credit.

 

Not sure if I'm making it clear.

[ECF]

I understand what you are getting at, however I am trying to wrap my head around how a billing system would handle this. We do not want TCAdmin keeping track of any financial data regardless of the source since it is not a billing panel.

[Defcon|Rich]

The idea of being able to allocate a certain number of slots per reseller would be a good start. I'm not sure about attaching a $$ amount to this as it wouldn't really be necessary if you simply told tcadmin XXX reseller can have 100 slots. XXX reseller can have 200 slots and so on. The dollar amount placed on those slots shouldn't make a difference unless I'm missing something.

 

I do like the template idea for the 3 tiers, That would be a good addition.

[Defcon|Rich]

Another idea to minimize some of the extra work for you TCA guys would be to leave the support ticket module out of the reseller version.

 

I don't know many that use it now and anyone who's selling game servers will need or have an existing billing system anyway. Most come with built in support desks so in my opinion not something worthy of attention on this version.

[ECF]

Thanks for the input Rich.

[HIS-MOTHER]

The idea of being able to allocate a certain number of slots per reseller would be a good start.

 

My point exactly Rich. Allocate say 100 slots to a Resellerclient. But what if he uses 50 of those slots for Vent and 50 for a BF2 Ranked. Obviously 50 Vents slots is not the = of 50 BF2 slots.

 

I understand billing SYS needs to track this but if V2 could tell it the costs? I know I'm ahead of myself on this it was just a idea. I'll hold back until we get a workng BETA and comment from there.

[Defcon|Rich]

I see what your saying and not sure how that would work but considering the amount of games and different packages it indeed sounds like a task.

 

Like you said we will have to look at the beta version first. I'm sure we will have a more complete picture of what's lacking or needs attention once we take it for a test drive.

[ECF]

Ok folks here is how the package system is shaping up. I have attached some screns for eveyone. Luis will be adding the option to specify datacenter and/or specific server for things to be installed to.

 

Please provide feedback.

[ECF]

And here is the creation page that resellers would see when creating a new server.

 

On the right hand side of the screen there will be a display of how many slots the reseller currently has for each package eg. games, vent, mohawk, TS ect...

[Defcon|Rich]

Looking good

[HIS-MOTHER]

Agreed, Sofar this is looking Great! Is Santa gonna leave a Beta copy for us by Christmas? LOL

[ECF]

This is just the underlying base work for the rest of the module. Luis still needs to create the client specific templates and emails and also code the system which specifies where the service gets installed to.

 

I can't honestly say when he will finish, but he is working hard on it.

[Jaggl]

damn looks cool :=)