$50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

[s1b]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

I ran Synchro this morning. After it finished, I clicked Exit. The application closed.
About 10 - 15 minutes later, I logged in to Miva Admin and I checked Admin Sessions and 2 sessions running....Synchro is one of them.

Now it's over 30 minutes since I exited Synchro and it still has a session open.

Is there something else I should be doing to end the Synchro sessions?

[Rick Wilson]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Is there something else I should be doing to end the Synchro sessions?

Yes, it's super quick and easy (you need to adjust the URL in Synchro). I'll have Support post the specific instructions.

[Rich]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

I have just experienced my first annoyance with this stupid extra user charge. As with most of my clients, they are small and will not pay the extra. It is so frustrating to find someone else logged in, so you have to call the client to get out. Perhaps he is on the phone so you have to leave a message, perhaps he is doing something and must finish or you have to send an email. All of which delay you.
This is just a complete pain in the arse.

For the small client who only needs my support a couple of times a month, this is a ridiculous charge. Nothing but a sneaky way to squeeze more $'s out of Miva's loyal following who won't be so loyal for much longer.
If Miva wanted to really piss people off, they are doing the right thing. For $600 a year, my clients will seriously think about moving to another platform. For the sake of way less hassle, I will recommend going to another!
Perhaps this is what Miva wants, move up market and get rid of the small store owners.

You have to give these small store owners at least 2 users. Why not give the boutique users 2 users? As stores up their packages with hosting, charge them for the extra users.

[Rick Wilson]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Richard,

In your case, we're working on a Developer seat that'll bypass the issue (for Miva Certified Devs) and is covered at length above. We'll be announcing it at MivaCon.

As for your other question, it's simple economics. We could do that, but then we'd increase the base price by $50 a month, so it would actually be worse for the 80% who truly only need one seat.

Also for what it's worth now that we have about 5 weeks of live data, I can say with some certainty that we're correct, the bottom 80% of our clients only need 1 seat, I'm basing this on new seat subscription data.

[wsmith]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

s1b,

I ran Synchro this morning. After it finished, I clicked Exit. The application closed.
About 10 - 15 minutes later, I logged in to Miva Admin and I checked Admin Sessions and 2 sessions running....Synchro is one of them.

Now it's over 30 minutes since I exited Synchro and it still has a session open.

Is there something else I should be doing to end the Synchro sessions?

To correct this you can add '&TemporarySession=1' (without quotes) to the URL you have configured for Synchro.

Example URL:
http://www.mydomain.com/mm5/admin.mvc?&TemporarySession=1

1) Launch Miva Merchant Synchro
2) Click on the store you would like to make this change to.
3) Click Propertites
4) Add &TemporarySession=1 to the end of the URL configured (see example URL above).

A temporary session will connect to Miva then immediately log itself out as soon as the connection is complete. Once you add '&TemporarySession=1' to the URL, please test it to make sure Synchro logged itself out once finished. Contact our support team if Synchro does not log itself out and we can look into it with you.

Thank you,

Wayne

[s1b]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Thanks Wayne! However, it do not work for me. Now I have an additional Synchro session running. I will contact support.

[Rich]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

I am glad about the developer store. I support all my clients on their live stores too, this is where the frustration is.

You don't need to increase the base price for bigger hosting packages, just charge them if they need extra seats. Leave the little guys as they are.

Your data is skewed because no one wants to pay to get an extra seat!!!!! They will suffer on.

[diana]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

I guess I am the oddball. I need 2 users so that I can have access to the admin from 2 computers on different floors in the office. But not for an extra $50/mo, so now I've been forced to shut one down and run back and forth. ( some of use store owners took the Dev course for our own training btw.)

[Rick Wilson]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Diana,

If we had a meaningful way to know that it was you on both computers and not someone else, we'd certainly program for that but today there's no meaningful way to accomplish that.

Also with the "kick out" process in Version 9, this should slow you down more than 5 seconds when you switch computers, leave them both logged in, with one "stuck" at the kick out screen.

[Rick Wilson]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Rich,

I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying.

At MivaCon 15, we'll be announcing a new Developer Program, that Certified Developers will have a special license key that allows them to bypass the seat restriction in their clients live stores.

We'd do it sooner, but it's going to take some processing to do it correctly so it can't be abused.

[MTB2006]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

I just received an invoice for "Additional Estimated Seat Usage"

I have not upgraded to Miva 9 yet explicitly because the new licensing model appears incomplete with a number of outstanding issues. Not to mention it is the busiest time of the year.

The bill I just received is not even close to accurate as far as how many people were actually using the software at the same time. I don't believe the technology exits in 5.5 to accurately calculate what the seat usage actually is.

Although I am not a fan of the new seat usage model I have always been a big supporter of Miva. However, in my opinion to bill me an "Estimated Usage" using flawed technology is incredibly unethical.

Anyone else receive an "Additional Estimated Seat Usage" invoice?

[diana]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Thanks Rick. Not ideal, but at least it works.

[Rick Wilson]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

The new pricing model is independent of Version 9, we did time and release them together so you'd have new features along with the new model (if you upgrade to use them).

Please contact me off forum about your bill and we'll correct it to whatever usage is correct.

Only a small percentage of customers received anything like this (people our system show as the highest users) and you're correct due to some limitations in 5.5 it can be off, which is why we're manually adjusting them and correcting it.

[SpeakerRepair.com]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

The new pricing model is independent of Version 9, we did time and release them together so you'd have new features along with the new model (if you upgrade to use them).

Please contact me off forum about your bill and we'll correct it to whatever usage is correct.

Only a small percentage of customers received anything like this (people our system show as the highest users) and you're correct due to some limitations in 5.5 it can be off, which is why we're manually adjusting them and correcting it.

Rick, in post #62 and #63 of this thread I asked if 5.5 is included in the $50 per seat model and you said 5.5 would only incur a NCF fee after 90 days.

So now you are including 5.5 in the $50 per seat charge? Or am I not understanding this correctly?

[Rich]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

From what I understand here is that you want to capitalize on the bigger companies that use Miva much like Cad software developers do; by charging by the seat. While this works for them, it doesn't really fit for the small business owners who run miva stores. How about a "Consumption" based model instead.

For instance:
Level 1
Provide one user login
Provide "X" amount minutes per month for the second simultaneous user. These minutes would only get used if another user is already logged in.

Level 2 - $50
Provide 2 user logins
Provide "X" amount minutes per month for the third simultaneous user. Again these minutes would only get used if another user is already logged in.

Level 3 and beyond - up the price/users and minutes

Th other lvels don't necessarily have to have the extra minutes.
This way the small business that doesn't access the admin on a regular or constant basis is not penalized and classed as a "bigger company just because they are often in Miva for most of the day and a devloper and/or a third party order management system accessing the store to do inventory or download orders etc.

There might be the need to "buy" extra minutes or an extra seat on a monthly or ad hock basis.

Surely your consumption (usage) determins your size, not how many users you have?

Anyone want to pull this apart or build on it?