Configuring CAS for Potential Customers

Acquire potential customers for website hosting with Web Presence Builder by giving them a link to Web Presence Builder in trial mode. After your customers follow this link, create a site, and try to publish it, Panel forwards them to the default online store of Business Manager. In the store, customers choose a plan with Web Presence Builder and subscribe to it. The subscription automatically includes the newly created site. On completing the billing and subscription setup routines, the customers become owners of the site and can publish it. You are free to block access to the trial mode URL thus make CAS unavailable.

To set up CAS for potential customers, do the following:

1. Prepare the default online store in Business Manager to display Web Presence Builder-compatible plans.

   This step requires a cosmetic update: Make sure that all plans available to potential customers include at least one Web Presence Builder site. By default, customers see the plans from the default online store. For each of these plans, go to plan properties and check that the value of item Sites published with Web Presence Builder is not 0. If a plan includes 0 sites, your customers will not be able to publish them after subscribing to such a plan.

   For details on how to edit plan properties in Business Manager, see Administrator's Guide to Customer and Business Manager, Managing Plan Settings > Editing Plan Properties.

2. Enable trial mode in Server Administration Panel.

   This allows customers to launch Web Presence Builder by following the trial mode access URL. In Server Administration Panel, go to Settings > Customer Acquisition Scenario Settings, and ensure that the Enable public access to trial mode checkbox is selected.

3. Obtain the trial mode access URL and put it on your website to advertise hosting with Web Presence Builder and attract customers.

   The trial mode access URL is also available on the Web Presence Builder settings page.

4. (Optionally) Configure lifetime of trial sites.

   On the same page you can optionally specify how often to remove unclaimed sites.

5. (Optionally) Forward customers to a separate online store. This is relevant when you want to display a separate list of plans to potential customers who want hosting with Web Presence Builder.

    If you wish to have a separate store for this scenario, extend the trial mode access URL with a store ID to point to a particular store. The syntax of the new URL is: <existing URL>&storeId=<custom store ID>. To control the plans list view, independently add a widget ID to the URL. The syntax of the new URL is: <existing URL>&widgetId=<custom widget ID>.

   Note: The store and widget IDs must exist in Business Manager.

   Learn how to create online stores in Administrator's Guide to Customer and Business Manager, section Managing Online Stores > Adding an Online Store.

   Learn how to create and manage website widgets in Administrator's Guide to Customer and Business Manager, chapter Managing Website Widgets.

Once you complete these steps, your potential customers will be able to create trial sites and acquire them. To block this feature, deselect access to trial mode on the CAS settings page.

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