Frequently Asked Questions

The following categories are addressed in this FAQ:


SaaS Application Platform

What types of applications are best suited for the SaaS Application Platform?
The Etelos SaaS Application Platform has been mostly used for business application delivery ranging from sales force automation, customer relationship management, email communication services, collaboration and more.  The solution scales well for business accounts and business users. 

What technologies do you support?
The SaaS Application Platform supports much of the common technologies for web applications.  Additionally, the deployment and account management services enable partners to be able to also host technologies not supported natively, such as Windows and even client server legacy applications. These solutions are managed through the Etelos Platforms proprietary provisioning service.

What is the provisioning service?
The Etelos Platform's provisioning service is the processing by which new accounts are provisioned and installed on demand to the appropriate hosting facilities.  The provisioning services have support scripts for managing customized procedures, licensing, billing and more.  When users go to the Marketplace and buy an application, the provisioning service installs the application in real time to provide the end user an ideal getting started experience.  Provisioning also manages location of hosting to reduce latency, capacity, inventory, support interaction and quality of service monitoring.

If a provisioning process fails, can it be restarted?
We have a re-start process that can continue an install if it fails for some reason. This is automatic, but can also be managed manually. We provide a transaction report that reports real-time the status of each install happening in the MP. This is monitored by support and they can intervene if necessary. There are two outcomes of an failed install, the installation process continues from the last point or we delete the account and recover the resources allocated to the install process.

How does your platform scale?
Etelos supports a distributed-tenant model that does not require apps to be re-architected. We provision by creating an instance of a virtual environment to install the app in. While instances can be based upon different frameworks, each application is contained in a single account "container". The benefits of this approach is that it enables apps with different architectures (Java, .net, LAMP, Ruby, etc.) to work together. It also allows for accounts to be moved to other machines if necessary. Also, it improves security; a breach of one machine does not effect another since each instance has its own DB, servers, etc. Also, if the app needs to be customized, it can, since each account has its own code-base. It is also simple to scale, just add machines which can be in an location. Last, it improves up-time, since if one machine goes down, others are not affected. To aid in distributing updates, we also have a provisioning tool that allows for updates to be easily deployed as a whole app update or partial updated minimizing management overhead.

What do you track for the provisioning process?
We track all of the details and stages of the provisioning process. The main report, is the Transaction Status report. This tracks the progress of the provisioning process (from billing to first customer sign-on). This report includes:  store registered, credit card processed, accepted terms, checked out, processed, down-loaded, install started, licensed, install completed, user registered. We can also show their browsing history and CRM record from this report.

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Development

Do you have development tools?
We provide the Etelos Development Kit. We can support various frameworks (JSP, J2EE, .Net (Mono), Tomcat, Ruby, LAMP) and DBs (MySQL, PostgreSQL), others can be added as needed. The Dev tool has integrated source control (via Subversion), packager (for building a package for SaaS deployment), and db access tools. We also include our own, optional, scripting language (EASE), also we support WebDAV for 3rd party tool integration (like Eclipse). The core process is: Write code, checkin to source control, test, debug, etc, use the packager to build a deployment package, create the store listing and license rules and deploy. Our framework is such that it is easy to import existing apps (for example, existing LAMP apps like SugarCRM were added to our marketplace with NO code changes)

What frameworks/languages do you support?
SP, J2EE, .Net (Mono), Tomcat, Ruby, LAMP

Do you support Microsoft technology?
While the Etelos dev kits don't have integrated Etelos tools in them, partners can deploy Windows based applications to end users in the SaaS App Platform.  Contact us for more details on this.

How do you package, deliver and manage the application lifecycle?
Etelos provides tools to manage SaaS lifecycle in relationship to development tools and the catalog. From the development tool, we provide version control tools based upon the open source tool, Subversion. From the development tool we have a packaging tool that packages up the SaaS application for distribution into the Catalog. We also have tools that can package and distribute updates to the SaaS application in the Catalog (and to deployed customers). This is how we handle SaaS app versioning (version control tools, packager and distribution tools). From within the Catalog tools, we provide preview listings that are 'token' protected, that is, they are not public but can be shared with Alpha/Beta customers. These preview listings can have their own licensing terms. These preview listings can be made public for commercial purposes. For end-of-life, listings can be removed. Tariffs are handled apart from the SaaS app. Licenses can be upgraded/downgraded on demand.

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Marketplace

Can the layout & branding of the marketplace be customized?
The content of the pages is HTML & CSS driven, thus can be customized to the limits of HTML within the normal operation of the store management and store listings tools. Overall look & feel can be customized by Etelos to meet your desired look and feel.

Does your marketplace have a search function?
We have multiple search capabilities. Search is conducted via keywords (as configured in the listing) and then text search of key parts of the listing. We also support filters for the search (app, free, apps with trials, etc.). the catalog can also be search by category or sub-category. We also have cross sell / up sell capabilities.

Do you have up-sell capabilities?
We offer, at checkout, a "you may also be interested in" feature on the shopping cart page.

Can you do promotional listings?
We also have special promotional listings that are multiple apps bundled with promotional pricing. We also have the ability to link listings together, so that a 'sister' listing my show up in a search, or be suggested in the checkout page.

Do you support a favorites option?
Yes. You can save favorites across sessions and computers with a marketplace account.

Can you support multiple levels of storefronts?
We have a hierarchical model to how our marketplace works. The top level marketplace can have multiple stores (or sub-catalogs embedded). These sub-catalogs can also have sub-stores as well. Within each sub-store multiple products and customer categories can be created/managed. Each of these sub-stores can have their own look & feel plus they are owned and managed by their own individual user account. Thus, a partner could embed and manage their own customer catalog within a larger catalog. Custom catalogs are managed via a storefront interface. Part of this is managed by the main catalog owner (they create the catalog, categories, set the look & feel, custom graphics, etc). The contents of the catalog are managed by the catalog owner where they add new listings, add marketing info, pricing, etc. Catalogs can be easily added or removed. There are also tools to push SaaS to a store listing (within a catalog) using our packaging tools as part of our development and source control capabilities.

Can partners/ISV manage their own listings?
The store listing setup is completely self service.  Many pages are set up with HTML with a WYSIWYG option to enable flexible look and feel and to enable cut and paste from source documents or web pages.  Setup pages allow the ISV to load the application from an Etelos Dev kit, upload screen shots and video demos, create subscriptions with details (hosting, price, IP terms, trial periods, allowed usage, etc), store listing/summary/search results image, marketing descriptions, blog import, and other content such as marketing, about us, support, etc.  The ISV can also enable the forum feature, and enable the store listing once it is approved.

Do you have a way for users to rate applications?
Yes, we have an internal rating module. users may rate apps on a 1 to 5 scale and add comments. These can be browsed by app buyers as part of the store listing. We also provide tools to manage these reviews (to remove or correct reviews as needed)

Can advertising be added to the marketplace?
Since the marketplace pages and listings are HTML driven, yes. We have advertising built into our marketplace. We can place custom ads via the Etelos Ad Serve tool.

Is the marketplace search engine optimized?
Wes. We also have built out tools to maximize Search Engine Optimization. This is the ability for Google to pick up store listings and feature them in search results.

Are their tools for managing the marketplace SaaS catalog?
Yes. We have tools to manage the SaaS catalog. These include: Account management tools (Manage a sub-catalog or individual listings within a catalog). Also tools for approving or disabling a listing. These tools are all self-service. Meaning, a partner could create a store listing for a SaaS product, but it would not go live until Orange approves the listing.

Does the marketplace catalog support multiple levels?
The catalog model is based on a hierarchy. The model has multiple levels and possible configurations. The components in the hierarchy include: Main marketplace (very top level), Partner branded stores categories, sub categories, product. Partner branded stores can have their own sub stores and categories. Each store or product listing can be managed by its own account. You can extend the catalog via custom categories.

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Ordering, Billing & Licensing

Do you provide try & buy offers?
Yes. We have trial periods or trial licenses. These are set per period (10, 15, 30 days), for example. These are integrated with the billing engine, so that store listings with trial period start billing after the trial is over. This is set up as part of the subscription/pricing terms.

Can I just use your billing and ordering services?
Yes. The billing services and ordering services can be used independent of Etelos hosting and other services.

Can you bundle offers?
Yes. We can bundle any listing in a Marketplace and provision promotional pricing. We can mange rules associated with promotional pricing to be sure prerequisites are met and maintained.

Can you provide delayed billing?
We support delayed billing via an invoice process.

Does the marketplace platform support an invoice option?
Yes. This is an option of coupon codes.

Does the marketplace provide coupons?
Yes. We cab support coupons based upon a dollar value or percent discount.

What pricing and licensing models are support?
We have many layers of licensing: free, per user, per account (multiple users), per usage (i.e. 5 projects), metered (disk, bandwidth). Billing rules can be applied by product version tiers - each tier can have different prices. We also support wholesale and reseller models (retail prices and wholesale for syndication partners). Duration can be applied per month, or annual.

When does billing occur?
Billing happens during checkout, credit cards are charged or an invoice generated.

Is it possible to save content of a shopping cart?
Etelos save the cart across sessions as part of a marketplace account or cookies. When saved via a marketplace account, this works across computers since the cart is stored as part of a marketplace account. We also have a tool for prospects to save favorites or share listings. 

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Hosting

What technologies can be hosted?
You pick flavor of Linux, DB, and Framework. We offer pre-built Tomcat and JBoss environments as well as mono (.Net), LAMP, Python (Django, etc...), and Rails. We are always adding more or we can customize one to meet your needs.

Can you host Microsoft technology?
Yes. We support hosting to specialized infrastructure and provisioning of applications there.  Microsoft falls into this category for us.  Contact us  for more about this.

Can I host it somewhere else? Or myself?
Yes. You can host your application independent of the Etelos infrastructure. Contact us for more information about this.

Do you provide root access?
When using an Etelos Virtual Environment VE) You have full control over your environment with root access.

What hosting metrics do you track?
RAM, Bandwidth usage, Disk quota, and CPU

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Marketing Tools

Are their additional customer management tools?
Yes. there is an optional integrated CRM. This includes the ability to send promotions, news letters and Drip campaigns. Drip campaigns are dated series that are kicked off by a transaction. For example, purchase an app, and you can send of a series of help/how to messages to a new customer.

Also, the Marketplace provides lots of marketing tools support.

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Support

Do you have basic Support Content for my end users?
The Marketplace provides basic support tools for interacting with end users, from getting started content, demos, videos, support forums, tickets, and more. 

Do you have a knowledge base?
Yes, we have a knowledge base, as well as forums, and an "ideas" area.

Do you provide end-user support?
Yes, as part of operating a marketplace for you, we can provide first-level support via Etelos Professional Services.

Do you have an integrated trouble ticket system?
Yes. We have a web-based trouble ticket system that is accessed via a customers marketplace account. The trouble ticket system is also integrated with our CRM. This allows for tickets to be tracked per user or account.

Can customers track their own trouble tickets?
Customers can view their tickets in the support area of the marketplace.  Support and other staff can administer tickets in the administration area.

What is the workflow for a trouble ticket system?
When a user submits a ticket online: 1) an email is sent to a specified email address - typically the support agent, a ticket is created in the system, and the ticket record is associated with the user's record.  The support agent gets the email, and opens the ticket.  The ticket includes the customer's description of the problem, and a link to their information.  The support agent can access the customer's account to troubleshoot the issue.  The agent can escalate the ticket or reassign it to another user and send an informational email to the second user.  The agent responds to the customer and closes the ticket.

Is there a case management system?
Yes, a case management system is fully integrated.  End users can log tickets from the marketplace.  Access to the administrative site is available to named administrator users.  Tickets can be reassigned to other users for escalation manually.

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Operations

Do you monitor transactions?
The Etelos Platform's provisioning process monitors installations and all transactions 24/7.

Do you monitor hosting stability?
Yes. The Etelos Platform monitors quality of hosting across the fleet 24/7.

What reports are offered?
Some of the reports include:
  • Store Product List
  • Store Product Valid Accounts - Last Use Report
  • Transaction Report - view of all client progress through marketplace purchases
  • Manage List of Email addresses to exclude from store reports
  • Etelos Ad Serve™ User Reports List - Reports for your account only
  • User licensing ledger... (a list of each licensed user by date)
  • Usage licensing ledger (Usage based apps, i.e. projects)
  • Marketplace registrations - ie. contacts who registered for stuff on the marketplace
  • Google Report - Contacts that came via Google
  • Search Report
What are some of the operations tools?
  • Marketplace Management: Manage your marketplace, stores, listings, categories and more
  • Storefront Management: Manage stores within the marketplace, look and feel, logos, categories and more
  • Listing Management: Manage the listings, approvals, owners, hosting, contracts and more.
  • Provisioning Management: Manage and monitor the provisioning process.
  • Hosting Management: Tools to manage the hosting infrastructure - assigned hosting models to SaaS apps so they can be deployed and scaled.
  • Ad Serve: Tools to manage the sales and provisioning of advertising as well as campaign management
  • Deployer. Built in tools to take packaged apps (built with the Etelos Developer Kit), and deploy as part of the Marketplace sales process.
  • Updater. With a single click, deploy patches or full updates to all install apps.
  • Development Tools
      • Complete Web-based Development Environment. Support WebDav, Source control (via subversion), preview tools and more
Can I monitor storefront usage?
Yes. We have many reports to storefront sales by app, license type, etc.
We also track all of the details and stages of the provisioning process. The main report, is the Transaction Status report. This tracks the progress of the provisioning process (from billing to first customer sign-on). This report includes:  store registered, credit card processed, accepted terms, checked out, processed, down-loaded, install started, licensed, install completed, user registered. We can also show their browsing history and CRM record from this report.

Are their tools to manage listings?
There is a wizard-based tool for creating and managing each application listing. Core components include:
  • Purchase page: Basic product information. Also the list of subscription terms
  • Subscription terms: A list of the various packages available for sale.
  • Features: A detailed page for features
  • Demos: The demo page contains screen shots and video demos
  • Blogs: A RSS blog feed can be included here.
  • Forums: Each product listing has its own forum
  • Support: How the product is supported
  • About us: Information page about who is selling the SaaS app.
  • Upgrades: What subscription upgrades and downgrades are available.
How does Etelos support the business application buying cycle?
Etelos provides an Informational approach to the business application buying process. The business buying process - characterized by requirements gathering, search, evaluation, comparisons, trials, etc. - is different from a consumer buying process. We provide reviews, free trials, demos/videos, editorial reviews, blogs, and forums to provide information for the business buy to make informed decisions or provide a way to support multiple visits to an apps store listing while making buying decisions. Also, since prototypes, or pilot projects are also a main evaluation tool, we have built in support for trial periods in our licensing model.

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Pricing

What is your pricing model?
There are three basic elements to our product pricing. First, we sell use of the Marketplace, Distributor and Application platform suites on a monthly subscription bases. Priced according to use. Second, we have a transaction free for any commerce transaction that we support (all platforms), rates based upon volume.  Next we have charges for app hosting (retail prices can be seen in our marketplace). Last, we have a professional services team for any custom or setup work that we perform.

Do you publish your price lists?
We provide some pricing in our marketplace. www2.etelos.com. In general, we do not publish our price lists.

Does pricing include support and maintenance?
Yes. Support and maintenance is include in the subscription pricing. This is developer and operations support, end-user first-line support can also be offered as part of our services offerings.

What are your hosting costs?
The retail costs of our hosting can be seen in the Etelos Marketplace (www2.etelos.com). This will give you a general idea of the pricing models we support. For platform suite partners, we also have a model to support the distribution of their application using the Etelos SaaS Application Suite. Since we will most likely customize the hosting to meet the needs of the application, we do not provide a 'standard' price list.

Is hosting included for your Marketplace and Distributor platforms?
Yes. Hosting is included for the marketplace parts of the Marketplace and Distributor platforms. Application hosting for provisioned apps (sold out of the marketplaces), if applicable, is an additional cost.

What type of professional services to you provide?
Professional Services are delivered via Statements of Work and are custom to a partners needs. Services include:
  • Setup of the marketplace, storefront and listings
  • Marketplace customization
  • Marketplace operations
  • VE Setup and configuration
  • Development Tool setup and configuration
  • White labeling of Applications
  • First-line support
  • Converting client-server, enterprise, or shrink-wrapped applications to SaaS
Does Etelos syndicate any of its own applications?
Yes. We have available for white-labeling Etelos Share, Etelos CRM (various flavors), and Etelos Projects for Google Apps. Contact us for pricing.

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Other Technical

Do you support HTTP/Rest, XMLRPC, SOAP, JSONRPC?
Yes.

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Customized Solutions

Do you have customizable SaaS Solutions I can offer my customers?
Yes. We have several base systems that are designed to be packaged as a base system for you to customize further for your clients.  These systems include things like customizable portals, contact management, project management, email management, content management and other basics.  Contact us for more information on this.

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Turnkey SaaS Marketplaces for Distributors

Can I also add my own Saas solutions to the Turnkey Marketplace (SaaS Distributor Platform)?
Yes. The SaaS Distributor Platform comes with an interface where you can pick from Etelos Syndication Partners, as well as the ability to add your own listings.  Contact us for more about this.

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Syndication for SaaS Providers

To syndicate my SaaS Application do I have to migrate to the Etelos Platform for hosting?
No.  You can Syndicate your SaaS application with Etelos and our Distribution partners without migrating you hosting solution.

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More Questions?

If you have more questions don't hesitate to contact us.




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