Storefronts

Storefront is a mechanism for displaying services from BILLmanager for non-authorized users.

Using the storefront, non-authorized users can view the provider's services without registration and authorization in the BILLmanager client area. Information about services on the storefront website is created on the basis of tariffs configured in BILLmanager. Company information is generated from billing system data.

Creating and configuring a storefront

To display the Storefronts section in the left menu, enter Provider → Global settings → Storefront settings → enable the Use storefront option.

To create a storefront, enter Provider → Storefronts → click Add.

• Main
  • Provider — select the provider that will use the storefront;
  • Name — specify the internal name of the storefront. External users will not see this name;
  • Storefront types:
    • Separate landing page — an automatically generated page is used as a storefront;
    • Panel with guest permissions — the page of the client area with guest permissions is used as a storefront. This storefront display option does not require configuration of the company, service, or brand;
  • Behavior — select the option to go to the storefront:
    For the storefront to work correctly, specify the correct billing system URL in the provider settings.
    • Login form — when opening BILLmanager using the billing system URL specified in the provider settings, an authorization form will open. The Storefront button is located at the bottom of the authorization form;
    • Shop-window — when opening BILLmanager using the billing URL specified in the provider settings, the storefront will open. 
• About company
  • Description — fill in the description. The text appears in a banner at the top of the page under the provider's name;
  • Signature — specify the copyright details. This could be the name of the copyright holder and the number of years the company has been in business. If the field is left blank, the provider brand copyright will appear at the bottom of the page;
  • Select a company — select the company whose data will be displayed on the storefront page;
  • Set the name and contacts manually — activate this option to display additional settings. If you do not activate the option or activate it and leave the fields empty, the data of the selected company will be used.
    • Storefront name — displayed in a banner at the top of the page. If the field is left blank, the name of the provider that uses the storefront will be displayed;
    • Email — displayed in the Contacts block at the bottom of the page;
    • Phone and address — displayed in the Contacts block at the bottom of the page.
• Goods and services
  • Displayed product types — select the product types to display in the storefront.

• Brand settings

  Banner images, logo and address bar icons are the must—have elements of a storefront. BILLmanager standard images are used for them by default. You can replace them.

  
  

  • Use branding colors — enable this option to apply a color scheme customized for the provider's brand to the storefront. Read more in the article Branding;
  • Banner — upload an image to be displayed at the top of the page. Recommended size is 1640x252 px, image aspect ratio 13:2, supported formats: JPG, JPEG, PNG;
  • Logo — upload an image with your brand logo to be displayed in the top left corner of the page. Size is not limited, the image will be adapted to 160x30 px, supported formats: PNG, SVG;
  • Address bar icon — upload an image to be displayed in the browser tab before the page title. Maximum size 16x16 pixels, supported format: ICO.

To edit the storefront settings, select the storefront and click Edit.

To delete a storefront, select the storefront and click Delete. You can delete multiple storefronts at the same time.

To change the status of a storefront, select the storefront and use the Enable or Disable buttons. Each provider can have only one active storefront. New storefronts are created in an inactive state.

Guest profiles

Guest profiles are users created automatically to view the storefront.  When a client opens a storefront (no matter what type of storefront — a panel with guest permissions or a storefront website), the system creates a user with a restricted access level. If the client has not registered, the guest user account remains in the billing system database.

To configure guest profile deletion rules:

1. Enter Provider → Global settings → Main settings.
2. Enable the Delete guest customer profiles option. 
3. Specify the period of Inactivity after which the profile will be deleted. When checking activity, the system checks the date of guest account creation and the date of the last time an unpaid order was added to the cart.
4. Click Ok.

More details

If the Storefront type "Separate landing page" is selected, an automatically generated page will open at the BILLmanager address. The page is created or updated when the following changes:

• company settings;
• provider settings;
• tariff settings;
• brand settings;
• storefront settings;
• storefront status — enabling or disabling the storefront for the provider.

Storefront files

• /usr/local/mgr5/etc/showroom.sample.dragon/ — template files on the basis of which storefronts are created. You can edit them and customize your storefront. To apply the changes made to the storefront files, enter Provider → Storefronts → select a storefront → click Edit and resave the settings;

  When you upgrade the BILLmanager version, the storefront files for the provider will be updated and reset to the default ones.
• /usr/local/mgr5/skins/showroom/<provider_ID>/ — files of the storefront generated for the provider;
• /usr/local/mgr5/etc/showroom.sample — template files of an unsupported version of the storefront. BILLmanager no longer uses them.

The showroom function is responsible for generating the website and it updates websites for all providers at once. To call the function manually, execute the command:

/usr/local/mgr5/sbin/mgrctl -m billmgr showroom