This release of the SaaSGrid platform introduces the following major features:
We've also implemented a number of minor enhancements and bug fixes. Please read on to learn more about what is included in this release of SaaSGrid, as well as what will be included in the next release.
Multiple Payment Methods
Previous versions of SaaSGrid permitted only one credit card based payment method to be specified at any given time. It is now possible for tenants to create as many payment methods as they would like when editing their company profile. Tenants can choose which payment method they would like to use when purchasing applications or create an additional payment method during the purchasing process. Additionally, the payment method to use for that particular application can be specified in the application preferences page which was also introduced.
Manual Billing and Invoice Management
Providers may now create applications that do not utilize SaaSGrid's automatic billing system so that they can accept payments for their applications without requiring a merchant account. Tenants can subscribe to the application as per usual, but the subscriptions will be suspended until the provider has marked the invoice associated with the subscriptions as paid. It is also possible to indicate that an automatically billed invoice has been paid as well, effectively giving providers a way to acknowledge payment via a mechanism outside of SaaSGrid. This feature is particularly useful for providers that don't want an automatic billing system but instead prefer a manual PO/invoicing mechanism were they can accept checks or other payment mechanisms and later be able to manually reconcile the process to grant or revoke application access.
Deployment Settings & Application Preferences
Every application now has a deployment settings section in the Provider Portal under the main Product page. The ability to define the custom URL (e.g. http://myproduct.com) for the application was moved here, and additional settings for specifying the manual payment option and custom stylesheet for login pages were introduced. This section was introduced to start building out the foundation of additional configuration parameters that affect the deployment dynamics.
To read more about how to create a custom stylesheet for your application, read the article How to Create a Custom Login Screen for Your SaaSGrid Application.
In addition to the deployment settings in the Provider Portal, a new section was also introduced in the Tenant Portal to control application preferences. At this point the only preference that is available is the ability to specify the default payment mechanism on how to pay for the application but this section will also grow to include many other preferences over time.
Note: In order to see the application preferences for any application you need to have access to a newly introduced securable that was added to the Tenant Portal called "Manage Application Preferences".
Upcoming Features
The following features will be introduced in upcoming releases of the SaaSGrid platform: