Important Service Changes

- FROM 15th June 2009, Contracting Company information will be MANDATORY. If you haven't filled out the company information in your Profile, please do so by logging in to the Control Center and modify your Profile. If you don't have a company, you can put your own name and address there so you can run the service as an individual. IMPORTANT: You won't be able to accept payments in your Hotspot until you fill out that information.

Also, the new Generic / Green Skin will be applied to all locations except if you send a ticket and asking us to leave your existing Skin. You will also be able to change back the Skin after we change it.

- FROM 1st of July 2009, VAT will be 25% instead of 20%. If your company resides in the EU and don't have a valid VAT number, we will add 25% to our commission from the 1st of July 2009.

- BROWSER ISSUES: We have had some problems with the Control Center with IE8, this issue has been resolved. We also have problems with Safari4 Beta, please upgrade it to FINAL version and clear all cookies if you experience problems.

New Skin is available for Splash Pages

A new skin has been released in the Control Center which can be used for Wi-Fi Start (Splash) pages.

The new Skin is called "Generic / Green", it's "Generic" because it is suitable for all kind of locations, and it's "Green" because there are green circles in the package selection pages.

What's new in this Skin?

- Much cleaner and fresh design which replaces the old one that we've been using for 3 years
- More informal: Bandwidth and traffic limits are clearly visible
- Advanced data verification with ajax: Username and other registration data are checked in real-time against our database which helps users to fill out the registration form more easily
- Easily readable on Wi-Fi phones
- Works perfectly with IE, Firefox, Safari

IMPORTANT: We will change the Skin automatically at the end of the week for ALL OPERATORS who are using the default skin now. If you wish to stay with the old design, please send us a Help Desk ticket.

For those who are using a customized skin, there will be no changes (you can change to the new design manually).

You can change the Skin in the Control Center if you Modify Hotspot Location / Splash Page Settings.

We're planning more Skin releases in the future, more color options will be coming for the Generic Skin, and we will release type-specific Skins too for hotels, campgrounds, etc.

Check out how the new Skin looks like here!

The new Skin release is the second step of a 3 steps process of our entire site redesign.

Control Center has been released

We released the Control Center today which replaces our current Operator Area.

Control Center is part of a full redesign process which we will release in 3 stages.

The first one is the Control Center, then we will replace our main information pages, and there will also be a new page for Wi-Fi users with the same layout.

In the new Control Center, there is a well-structured menu in the top so you can now find functions more easily.

We have also added support for Google Maps, so you can now view your locations on a map.

Personal and Payout info menu is now called 'Profile'.

Please log in and try out the New Control Center, get familiar with it. If you need help, you can download the Control Center Guide which has also updated.

Hope you will like the new layout, more changes coming soon...

HotSpotSystem.com is on Twitter

We are now posting regularly on Twitter. You can receive instant status updates, tips, product deals, etc.

Follow us at http://www.twitter.com/hotspotsystem

Twitter is a unique approach to communication and networking based on the simple concept of status. What are you doing? What are your friends doing—right now? With Twitter, you may answer this question over SMS or the Web and the responses are shared between contacts.

Optional Voucher Registration

From now on you can force users with Pre-Paid or Free Vouchers to register before they can activate the voucher. This is required by the law in some countries, but you can also use it to collect personal information from your users, like e-mail addresses. Users personal data can easily be exported in the Transactions menu.

So here's how it works:

You can enable this option on a per location basis, just click on Hotspot Locations > Select Location > Manage Location > Require Registration of Vouchers in the Start Page Settings section.

After then the following will happen:

Users enter the code as before on the Hotspot Start page. If the code was valid, the same registration form appears as if it was a credit card transaction. Users have to choose a username, password, and fill out other registration details, like name, postal address, email address, etc. After users fill out the form, the activation link will be shown, along with the card details (expiration, bandwidth, etc).

The user registration is a system-wide process, so if the same user enters an other voucher code on the Hotspot Start page, then he or she can use the username and password which he/she has registered previously.

IMPORTANT: Users have to use their username and password instead of the voucher code when they log in to the Hotspot!

Optional Access to Vouchers For Secondary Operators

You can now grant access to Secondary Operators so they can access Vouchers for the location you specify. This means that they can print the Vouchers for themselves.
Additionally, you can grant/prohibit access to the Modify Vouchers' Layout page to allow/prevent to modify the Voucher prints.

Monthly Recurring Subscriptions

From now on you can create a monthly custom package with recurring payments.

This is very useful if you have long-term paying customers.

All you have to do is to select the "Recurring payment" option on the Create or Modify Custom Package page. Then your splash page will change automatically and the package will show "recurring payment" text so your users can easily identify that the amount will be charged in every month.

Your users can cancel the subscription any time on Worldpay's or PayPal's website, or we can cancel it for them too. Our refund policy says:

"If you have paid for HotSpot access through the system or paid for a service, you have right to cancel within seven days of the purchase in case you haven't used the service that you've paid for. If you cancel your order, you will have your payment returned."

So if a customer forgets to cancel the subscription, he/she can cancel it within 7 days and we will refund the amount of the last charge, if he/she didn't use the account during that period.

One more thing: credit card companies don't charge recurring users on an exact time when 1 month expires. So to ensure continuos hotspot access, users will get 1 month access until the end of the day. For example if they buy the monthly access at 13:00 PM on 26th March, 2009, they will have access until 23:59PM on 26th April, 2009. Their card will be charged at some time on 26th, April 2009 which will add an other month for them.

Recurring option is available only with monthly packages.