SpringBoard QuickStart Guide
Table of Contents
- Introduction to Using SpringBoard
- Logging In
- Top Navigation Bar
- Home View
- At a Glance
- In Depth
- Products and Settings >> Products
- Products and Settings >> Products >> Settings
- Products and Settings >> Products >> Descriptions and Images
- Products and Settings >> Products >> Fulfillment Actions
- Products and Settings >> Products >> Product Status
- Products and Settings >> Products >> Pricing >> Standard Prices
- Products and Settings >> Products >> Pricing >> Promotional Prices
- Products and Settings >> Products >> Advanced Configuration >> Product Options and Choices
- Products and Settings >> Products >> Store Actions >> Product Order Pages / URLs
- Products and Settings >> Products >> Store Actions >> Preview Store
- Products and Settings >> Products >> Store Actions >> Public Store
- Products and Settings >> Product Pages / URLs
- Products and Settings >> Store Settings
- Products and Settings >> External Tracking
- Promotions and Appearance
- Store Status
- Orders
- Live Store
- FAQ
- Contact Us
Introduction to Using SpringBoard
Welcome to SpringBoard, your FastSpring account’s platform. SpringBoard serves as your interface to all the configuration options for your online store(s). It is where you set up the products you have for sale, configure users, pricing, cross-sells, discounts, fulfillment and other aspects of your e-commerce business.
Logging In
To login to SpringBoard, visit:
https://springboard.FastSpring.com or visit: http://www.FastSpring.com and click the “Log In” link in the upper right.
You will be asked to enter data for Company, Username, and Password.
Your Username is: Administrator
Your Password is: change
For Company, you were provided with a Company name in the introduction email we sent you which included this Guide as an attachment. Please use that name.
All 3 of these are case sensitive.
Browser Note: While consumers with any web browser can easily purchase your products using FastSpring, due to the requirements of certain SpringBoard features, you will need to use Firefox 2.0 or higher, Safari 2.0 or higher, or Internet Explorer 7.0 when using SpringBoard itself.
A few things to make note of:
- As we are constantly adding new SpringBoard functionality which we want to release to our software publishers as quickly as possible, the documentation and help may at times slightly lag behind the new functionality, but we will work to ensure the key usage scenarios are covered.
- While most SpringBoard functionality is very easy-to-use, there are certain functions which have not yet been configured for the same easy level of usage. In these instances, the functions are highlighted in this document using yellow highlight, and FastSpring can handle the configuration for you with regard to any of these functions.
- Advanced Functionality: While using SpringBoard, you may encounter certain functionality labeled “Advanced”. This label typically means the function is meant to be used only for non-standard, complex store configurations, and administered by a technical contact. Most FastSpring software publishers will not need to configure any advanced functions. If you have not discussed a specialized store configuration with FastSpring, you may disregard any SpringBoard functionality labeled “Advanced”. However, if any advanced functionality appears of interest to you, feel free to utilize it or ask us about it.
Our process ensures you gain access to the freshest functionality at the earliest possible stage. Our interface layout is designed to be easy-to-use for standard software publisher needs while having the less-visible capability to handle advanced store configurations.
If at any time you have a problem or question, please email us and we will be pleased to help you.
Thank you for working with FastSpring.
Ken White, Chief Customer Service Officer
Top Navigation Bar
At the top of every SpringBoard screen is a bar with these static options:
Home, Reports, and Account
Options for Support, Users, and Sign Off are present on the right hand side of the bar.
Account
This section displays your current account balance and other information related to your account such as how FastSpring pays you each pay period. You can view information such as the pricing terms of the FastSpring service overall as well as for FastSpring’s fulfillment services (i.e. CD Backup), plus adjust how you are paid by FastSpring (i.e. via PayPal, direct deposit, etc.).
Support
Click the Support option from anywhere within SpringBoard to email us with support questions, suggest a feature, and provide general feedback.
Users
Here you can manage your login account and create other users who are also allowed to login to your account.
The first step you should take when you first login to SpringBoard is to change your password for security purposes. To do this, within this Users section, click Change my user information, then click Change Password.
Note Regarding Navigation: When you're on a sub page in the system, you can easily view the pages above it in the page hierarchy and decide which page you'd like to return to. SpringBoard makes it fast and easy to navigate.
Home View
By clicking the Home link located in the upper left hand corner of every screen, you’ll be returned to the Home View. This will often be the starting point when you use SpringBoard. There are 4-5 key sections available from the Home View at any one time:
Products and Settings
At a Glance
Products and Settings >> Products
Create and manage the products you sell.
Products and Settings >> Product Pages / URLs
URLs for your order pages.
Products and Settings >> Store Settings
Edit store name, support, and notification email addresses.
Products and Settings >> External tracking
Setup tracking for external programs, such as Google Analytics and tracking of online advertising campaigns.
In Depth
Products and Settings >> Products
Create and manage the products you sell.
Create a New Product
To create a new product, click Create a Product. Provide a product name to be used for your purposes only (later you’ll be asked for a product name which will be visible to customers). The product name you enter here will auto-fill in the next field for setting up the URL that be used for your order pages. If you’d like to have the auto-filled text be used in that order page url as is, no changes are needed to the Product Name Within URLs field; however, you have the option of editing that text if you’d like to. Next, you have the option of entering a price for the product here, or you can enter pricing later on in the process if you prefer. Then click Create.
Note: When you create a new product, it remains in the Test status and will not appear in your actual live store until you move its status from Test to Active, which you will have the option of doing later in the process.
Manage New or Existing Products
To view or edit details of an existing product, click the name of the product from the list of products shown. If you have just created a new product, you will automatically be shown this product details page.
Products and Settings >> Products >> Settings
Edit the product name and set whether the quantity field is available to customers or not (i.e. whether they can order more than one unit in a single transaction).
Products and Settings >> Products >> Descriptions and Images
Define description of the product, typically shown on the order page. Upload image, which could be a box shot, logo, or other image you want displayed with the product. Once you click Browse and find the image file on your desktop, click the Save button.
Products and Settings >> Products >> Fulfillment Actions
Click to add Fulfillment Actions related to what gets delivered to customers after they purchase. Multiple fulfillment actions may be assigned to a product. Return to this section to add each fulfillment action one-at-a-time. Select the actions that are of interest to you and follow the directions provided on the pages of each action. You can send an email to the customer, allow a file to be securely downloaded for a limited period of time, select a license from a pre-defined list of licenses that you provide, retrieve a license from a remote server (Advanced Usage Only), or Submit order data to a remote server (Advanced Usage Only). Sending an email to the customer will soon be a self-service option. In the meantime, please work directly with a member of the FastSpring team to setup this customer order email. Allowing a file to be securely downloaded and selecting a license from a pre-defined list of licenses are self-service options that you should be able to setup without needing any additional help.
The above actions are Digital Fulfillment actions. If you would like to setup to offer a physical fulfillment action such as CD Backup, click the Physical Fulfillment tab. To use this action you must have an existing account at SwiftCD, FastSpring’s CD Backup partner, with the appropriate packages, labels, and products already configured. To view your SwiftCD account, create a new account with SwiftCD, or to learn more about the CD Backup options, visit www.SwiftCD.com. Once you have an account with SwiftCD, enter your SwiftCD account information plus the type of package (i.e. CD, DVD, etc.) you’d like to have mailed to your customers, and the setup should be complete. Please contact a member of the FastSpring team if you need help getting this setup.
Products and Settings >> Products >> Product Status
Controls the availability of a product. The product begins in Test status. When you have completed a product’s setup and are ready for your product to go live on your store, click the Move to Active status link and your product will be live on your store.
Products and Settings >> Products >> Pricing >> Standard Prices
This is where the price of the product is defined. With most products that will have only a single price defined, you’d simple choose Prices >> View Prices, then select the active price and edit it to make a price change.
It is possible to setup multiple prices and have a different one active for different date ranges (to promote, for example, a temporary sale price). If you have any difficulty configuring multiple prices, please contact a member of the FastSpring team.
Products and Settings >> Products >> Pricing >> Promotional Prices
These are special prices or discounts available in certain cases, and are typically used for creating coupons. After clicking Create a Pricing Promotion, name and configure your discount or coupon.
Products and Settings >> Products >> Advanced Configuration >> Product Options and Choices
With certain products, during the order process you may want the customer to be asked if he or she would like to add additional product options and upsells to their order prior to checkout. These options/upsells are specific to your products, as opposed to the standard options/cross-sells available in a different section. In SpringBoard, these are called Product Options. A good example of a product selling additional items through Product Options can be viewed at: http://sites.FastSpring.com/nextup/product/textaloud
Product Options can be in the form of dropdown lists, radio buttons, or checkboxes that trigger adding a “product” or “add-on” to the order. These additions may or may not add to the total order price, depending on your preference. FastSpring can easily setup any additional options you’d like on your product order pages, so please ask us if you’d like to utilize this feature.
Products and Settings >> Products >> Store Actions >> Product Order Pages / URLs
This page details URLs that point to your order pages. You have one generic link that points to a FastSpring order page for all of your products, which will be:
http://sites.fastspring.com/YourCompanyName
For software publishers who have relatively few products, linking customers directly to this store link may be acceptable. For those with more products or complexity, you’ll likely need to get product specific URLs to link to. There are two general ways you can operate your store. You can use either (A) “BuyNow” links, or you can use (B) a shopping cart. Select the best option for you based on your store setup and your order page look-and-feel preferences. FastSpring is not aware of a dramatic difference in performance between the various setups, but you may test and find that a particular setup works best for your customers. If you are uncertain which setup is best for you, please contact a member of the FastSpring team and we will try to make a recommendation for your particular situation.
Click the Sample links to view a sample of each order page setup so you can easily see the differences visually.
BuyNow Links
If your customers generally purchase just one product or if you have Product Options sold with a product (i.e. additional dropdown lists or checkboxes that may add additional items to a product), then you should choose one of these BuyNow URL options:
Option 1: View Product Detail Page
Sending users to this link shows a product detail page, with description and image of the product, the price and Qty field, any additional option questions you’ve defined, and an “Order Now” button. Once the user clicks “Order Now”, he/she is taken to a second page where the user enters name/address info, then chooses a payment method.
Option 2: Add Product to Order and Checkout
This option adds the product to the order, starts the checkout process, but bypasses the product detail. It is the shortest of all other options due to page length and total verbiage/communication to the customer. This is best used if you have done most of your messaging (price/description/screenshots) on your own website and don’t have the need to re-message these things to the customer. You just need to get an order form in front of the customer with the least amount of distraction, or you may be looking for a tighter integration path between your own website and the checkout process.
NOTE: For this option it is important to use the HTML shown in the HTML field.
Option 3: Short Order Process
Sending users to this link is identical to Option 1, except that the opening page includes everything that the first two pages do in Option 1, within a single page. It has product name/description/options and Qty field, plus the collection of the user’s name/address and choice for payment type. This process is one page shorter and some software publishers prefer it. Our testing indicates both options perform similarly so it is really a matter of preference.
Shopping Cart Links
Option 4: Add Product to Order (Shopping Cart)
If you have multiple products for sale and you do not generally have Product Options or questions which customers answer when ordering a product which determine the final price and the product options, you may prefer to use a shopping cart. With a shopping cart, users can click an “Add to Cart” link on your site to have the product added to the FastSpring shopping cart. From their cart page they have the option of buying (Checking Out) or continuing shopping, in which case they are returned back to your purchase page to hopefully add additional items to the cart before completing the order. For shopping cart, the URL to use is the one listed as:
Products and Settings >> Products >> Store Actions >> Preview Store
Preview the store as it would look and behave should the products and campaigns currently in the TEST status be moved to the ACTIVE status. This link is a link to test the order page for this product. It opens a new browser window with the order page for this product in “test mode”. It will be identical to what a real customer would see, with 2 exceptions:
- Some name/address info will be defaulted so that you do not have to enter it
- There will be an additional payment method of “Test Payment” added.
By choosing Test Payment in this mode, the system will simulate an order completion, allowing you to test out other parts of the order process such as license code and email notifications.
Note: When you manage the preview store, you will always see the most recent changes reflected. However, there may be a delay of up to 10 minutes before every change is viewable to new, normal visitors to your store.
Products and Settings >> Products >> Store Actions >> Public Store
This link is only available if the product status is Active. This will open the order page in live mode, exactly as a customer would see it.
Going live with products: Once you have tested the order page for a product and you are satisfied with the setup, under Product Status, click Move to ACTIVE Status to make the product live on your store.
Products and Settings >> Product Pages / URLs
This area lists the full domain name and location where the store is hosted. There are also order page format options listed in this location as well. For those options, please refer to the section “Products and Settings >> Products >> Store Actions >> Product Order Pages / URLs” above.
Products and Settings >> Store Settings
Define the name of your store, the default email notification address for order notifications sent to you/your company, and specify your sales/support email address.
Products and Settings >> External Tracking
Enable this feature to track your pay-per-click search campaigns, email marketing and banner ads, affiliate marketing, and other web-based distribution channels you want to track sales results for. Current support is provided for Google Analytics, Google Adwords, and ShareASale, an affiliate system.
The integration with Google Analytics enables you to view detailed web site reports to help you understand exactly where your site visitors and paying customers are coming from, their demographics, traffic trends, and more. The integration with Google Adwords enabled you to track ad campaigns including Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, banner ad, email, and other online advertising campaigns through Adwords’ Cross-Channel Conversion Tracking feature.
To activate one of the supported tools within SpringBoard, click on its name and follow the instructions provided on the subsequent pages. Once you have activated one or more of the tracking options listed, you will see the status of that option change from Disabled to Enabled, and the tracking should be in place for all future traffic or sales occurring through the tracking option you activated. Please contact us if you have any questions.
Note: FastSpring has the capability to add certain 3rd party tools to the existing list of supported tools. If there is a tool you would like to see added, please contact a member of the FastSpring team to make a request.
Promotions and Appearance
At a Glance
Promotions and Appearance >> Promotions
Adjust settings for services such as Cross-Sells, CD Backup and Digital Backup (i.e. Extended Download) upsells.
Promotions and Appearance >> Styles / Appearance
Adjust the look and feel of your store.
Promotions and Appearance >> Surveys
Survey customers through your order pages.
In Depth
Promotions and Appearance >> Promotions
Easily add offers to your order page to take advantage of FastSpring’s Cross-Sell, CD Backup, and Digital Backup (i.e. Extended Download) service offerings. Utilizing these services can significantly increase your revenue per order. If you sell a downloadable product, we generally recommend you offer the CD Backup and Digital Backup Promotions at a minimum, but it is your option.
For CD Backup and Digital Backup, there is a fixed fee that FastSpring charges per customer order. You are free to set your own price for these services. Any amount you charge which is over and above the fixed fee amount is considered your profit and will be paid to you. Suggested prices for these services based on industry standards and our past experiences are provided in this section for your convenience.
To create a Cross-Sell, CD Backup, or Digital Backup, click to create the appropriate promotion. For cross-sells, once you name the promotion, select the messaging you’d like to appear on the order page where the promotion will be offered, such as “May We Suggest” or “Customers Also Purchased”. Select which product will be in the cart when the cross-sell is offered (“Driving Product”), and which product(s) to cross-sell. You can offer the cross-sell products at a discounted price if desired. Additional instruction is provided on the right hand side of the page under Overview.
You can add more cross-sell products to your promotion by clicking Add Product to Cross-Sell. If you have multiple cross-sells setup for a Driving Product, you can adjust the order those cross-sells are displayed on the order page by dragging and dropping the cross-sell products on top of one another. You can add a condition to the promotion to control when and where it is effective or applicable, such as only during a certain date range or when a certain coupon has been used.
For CD Backup and Digital Backup (a.k.a. Extended Download Service), select Create File Backup Promotion. Under CD Backup Promotion, select how you’d like the CD presented on your order page, such as on an opt-out basis, where the default setting is that the CD will be automatically added to customer orders but the customers will have the opportunity to opt-out of the CD if they prefer. Set the price that you’d like to sell the CD for. The CD Backup Fee is the fee for each sale of the CD (includes worldwide shipping expense) that is paid to FastSpring. Your profit is the price you set minus the fee. Digital Backup provides the customer with an extended downloaded period to download the files in their order. The setup process is similar to CD Backup.
Note: You’ll need to change the status of the promotion to Active before the promotion will appear live on an order page. If you have moved your promotions to Active status but the promotions do not appear to be displayed when you view your order pages, please contact us at: Info@FastSpring.com
Promotions and Appearance >> Styles / Appearance
Adjust the look and feel of your store. This section is where visual styles (look and feel) for your store are defined. The look is defined in a style file which is uploaded to FastSpring. A style is a collection of files, including any folders, images, and styles, packaged up in a single ZIP file. While technical users can follow the instructions provided in this section of SpringBoard, we recommend to most new users that it be handled by FastSpring initially. If a style file has already been uploaded for your store, you will see the name of a style listed in the Styles section and there will be a label of ACTIVE next to the style name. If a style file has not yet been uploaded for your store, please contact a member of the FastSpring team and we will take care of this for you.
Promotions and Appearance >> Surveys
Add additional questions to your order page that simply gather information. For example, you may want to add a text input field to the order form to ask optional questions such as “Where did you hear about our product?” or “What do you plan to use our product for?” Asking these types of questions can provide you with valuable insights into who your customers are, where they learned about your products, what they use your products for, etc.
To create a survey, click Create a Survey and provide a campaign name. Then click Form Design to edit the form which contains the questions in the survey. Next, click Add Form Field. Select the Type of survey question format you’d like, such as a Text Box format. In the Display field, enter the text for your survey question such as “Where did you hear about our product?” and click Create. Then click Save on the following page.
If you’d like to schedule the survey to only be displayed to customers during certain dates, under Actions, select Add Campaign Condition and you’ll be asked to provide specific dates. Also, you do not of course need to use every survey you create. You can, for example, have a number of surveys in the Test status and only one in the Active status which customers will actually see when purchasing.
If you’d like to preview your order page with the survey questions now included, go back to the main Home view, click Preview Store, place a test order, and before you checkout you should see the survey question listed. Once you are ready to make the survey live, under Survey Status click Move to ACTIVE status.
Store Status
At a Glance
Note: Once your store is moved to Active status, this Store Status section will disappear and you will only see four sections, not five.
In Depth
Store Status controls the overall availability of your store. The store begins in Test status. When you have completed setup and are ready for your store to go live, click the Move to ACTIVE status link and your store will be live.
Note on Status: Similar to the Store Status, with any product or related item you create within SpringBoard, whether it is a product, price, coupon, option group, etc. – each has a status. The idea behind this is that it lets you work on products and their related items without them being "live" while you are still tweaking them. As an example, when you first create a new product, a status of "Test" will be displayed, and the product will thus not show up in your Live Store yet.
Changing the status to “Active” makes the product available in your Live Store. Finally, if you retire a product and no longer want it to be available, you would change its status to “Disabled”. These statuses are available to almost any item created within SpringBoard, and provide a path to create, test, preview, and apply gradual changes to your store. The Live Store, viewable by the public, is only affected when you are ready.
Orders
At a Glance
Orders >> Order Search
Quickly find an existing order or issue an order return.
Orders >> Issues and Reviews
Reports on incomplete orders and orders under review.
Orders >> Order Creator
In Depth
Orders >> Order Search
This option opens a freeform search field to allow you to quickly find an existing order, view order details, re-send delivery information, or process a return.
Note: All searches are case insensitive. You can search for orders using any of the following criteria:
- Exact order reference. Example: ABC123-123-123
- Customer last name (full or partial). Example: doe
- Customer company name (full or partial). Example: abc
- Full customer email address. Example: doe@abc.com
- Customer email domain name, beginning with an "@" sign. Example: @abc.com
- Last 5 digits of a credit card number (credit card orders only). Example: 54321
- Last 4 digits of a credit card number (credit card orders only). Example: 4321
After clicking on a matching order from an order search, you will be on an order detail page. There are several actions available here.
In the Details section (Order Search >> Order), you may edit customer information to change name, email address, or mailing address.
Order Items show the line items included in the order.
Events gives a timeline of events that have occurred with the order, and may include events such as order placement, fraud checks, declines (followed by approval if the consumer had mistyped a number, for example), etc.
Depending on the status of the order you are viewing (i.e. Open, Canceled, Completed), Actions available from this screen may also include:
- Start an order return (refund) – You have the option to enter a full or partial refund, to categorize and make a note about the reason for the return, and to optionally have the customer notified of the refund.
- Resend notifications to customer – Resend of receipt and delivery emails to customer. It is especially helpful to do this if the customer has emailed you with an email address correction. In that instance, edit the email address, then click this option to resend the email to the customer.
- Resend notifications to your company – If you had a mail problem and need to resend the order notification you receive.
- Receipt – Customer receipts are presented in a variety of ways here to make it simple for you to give a customer a receipt if the customer has lost it and needs it for any reason. Click Receipt and you’ll see 4 options:
- View – The receipt is shown in a popup browser window. You can copy the URL of this page and paste it into a reply to the customer, or copy/paste the full content of the page.
- Download HTML – Allows you to download an html version of the receipt.
- Download PDF – Download a PDF version of the receipt.
- Show URL – Pops a window that shows just the URL which points to the receipt viewable to the customer if the customer is asked to visit that URL.
Payments and Returns
Details payment and payment method, and any returns.
Reviews
May contain details of fraud checks performed on the order.
Orders >> Issues and Reviews
View recent order issues
Shows you a listing of recent failed orders. These are order attempts that were declined by a credit card company or orders that were abandoned before completion.
View pending order reviews
Recent chargebacks that were either full chargebacks or that FastSpring is currently fighting.
Orders >> Order Creator
Create a custom order on behalf of a customer, or one based on a previous order. If a customer requires special products or pricing that are not typically available to visitors of the site, then this may be used to create these scenarios.
Note: This tool should not currently be used to create "free orders" such as free codes for journalists, partners, customers, etc.
You have the option to create an order for an existing customer based on a previous order or to create an order for a new customer. If you create an order for an existing customer, enter the order reference and then decide if you’d like the new order to utilize line items (i.e. base/main product, addition or configuration of another item, or item related to the fulfillment/delivery) from the original order or not.
If you want to create an order for a new customer, once you enter the customer’s information (mailing address, email, etc.), you will next be asked to add order items (Click Add in the Order Items section of the Store >> Edit Order page) where you will provide information on the product(s) associated with the order and the price that the customer is supposed to pay for the product(s). Then click the Confirm option to ready the order for payment. Next, click View payment instructions. A URL will be generated for the order which you can provide to the customer so that he/she can enter payment information and complete the order process.
Live Store
At a Glance
Live Store >> Preview Store
Opens the preview store for management.
Live Store >> Public Store
Opens the public store for management
In Depth
Live Store >> Preview Store
Clicking here opens the preview store for management, displaying products, related settings, and promotions which are set to the Test status or the Active status. This displays a preview of the store as it would look and behave should the products and campaigns currently in the Test status be moved to the Active status. This mode includes management functionality such as the ability to place test orders.
Live Store >> Public Store
Clicking here opens the public store for management, displaying only products, related settings, and promotions that have been set to the Active status. This mode displays the store as normal/public visitors will see it. This mode also includes management functionality such as the ability to place test orders. If no products have been set to the Active status yet, the store will not display much content.
NOTE: Managed stores always reflect the most recent changes. Changes that new, normal visitors will view may be delayed for up to 10 minutes.
FAQ
Question: Why can’t I setup all of a product’s attributes on a single page?
Answer: Because SpringBoard utilizes Object-Oriented Design.
Explanation: For developers, the benefits may be more immediately obvious. For everyone else, here is an explanation…
As SpringBoard is designed to handle everything from simple to very complex stores, it has been designed to be object-oriented in nature. One good example to illustrate this concept is through products and their pricing. Through traditional e-commerce stores, one edits everything about a product on a single page, including descriptions, prices, etc. While SpringBoard doesn’t support single-page editing of product attributes, there are substantial benefits to our object-oriented design that you will enjoy as the product grows and thus your options expand.
Products have some normal attributes such as name, display name, descriptions, images, etc. But they also can have additional objects under them, such as prices. When you create a product in SpringBoard, you will create a price for the product. But, you can also create multiple prices for a product. On any given order, only one of the prices (“price objects” in technical terms) would be used to determine what a customer is charged. But by having multiple prices defined, you can define which price is used. A price’s status being set to Active can determine which price is displayed to customers or, more interestingly, you can define the conditions under which a certain price is used. Currently, SpringBoard lets you use Date ranges to pick a price. This would make sense if you had a sale going for one week only, and wanted to setup things ahead of time to switch the price automatically when the sale is over. This is just the start, but it gives you an idea of one of the many interesting opportunities ahead for utilizing SpringBoard to grow your revenue.
Contact Us
Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions. We are here to serve you. Thank you.
Ken White, Chief Customer Service Officer
