Activation Wizard

We're soon going to have something in vPanel for all residential accounts which will check for an E911 address and if a valid E911 address is not on file, it will force the use to provide one before proceeding to other pages. This is mainly for older BETA accounts where some people have not filled in the info.

While thinking about this, we came up with a similar idea. What we were thinking is maybe we set something up so the first time someone logs into vPanel, they get an optional "Welcome Wizard" or "Activation Wizard" or something of that nature that kind of walks them through customizing some of the common things.

Some examples would be timezone, voicemail settings, international calling enable/disable, etc. Just basic stuff.

That is easy to do. If we spent a day or so on it, it could potentially turn into a full blown setup wizard in terms of plug things up and then click next and have it check for a registration, etc.

They could bypass this is they wanted, but do you guys think it's something people would like?

If we do it, how far should we take it?

Since your market launch will be directed to non-BYOD users and is defined as residential, I personally think this sounds like a good idea.

You would expect that many, if not most, of the new sign-ups never had VOIP service before and therefore a wizard would serve them well. I think you would save countless hours for your support team if they are required to fill in the blanks before going forward..and even if they have been in the VOIP world, you know how differently every company runs their programs.

I think it is a great idea for the residential user... as long as you put definitions and examples at each step of the way. Remember that what you think is obvious means absolutely nothing to most others, and then make sure you have bullet-proof error and bounds checking on each and every entry point. Someone will find the one that isn't protected or defined absolutely.

Create a 1 page dummies guide to using the service and give them an option to print that too. Also, make it available in the control panel for later use and reprint.

This is an excellent idea. If you want to minimize expensive support specialist phone calls, it is worth the time to set it up now for all new users going forward.

It also leaves a good feeling with the person if they are able to set everything up in one session.

Definitely a good idea. If you're targeting people who are new to VoIP, you want the setup to be painless. "Plug the box in to your internet connection, plug your phones into the box, and run the initial setup/activation in your user portal/vPanel."

I'd go one slight step further in suggesting that the default values in the activation wizard be the most popular choices or dependent on the user's service address, as appropriate. In particular, the default time zone should be based on the service address. Other defaults would be by 'popular demand' such as number of lines per page for call records, etc. You should also make it clear how importan the user's "PIN" is, as it's needed for a vPanel password reset.

I would suggest titling the main page "Welcome to the vPanel Checklist".

• A guided review of important settings.

You could make the opening page show these settings at a glance.
Clicking on one of the settings could take you to that setup screen.

• Add a "Guide Me" button to walk you through the settings with detailed comments.

Make the VOIPo logo take you back to that welcome screen (As it does now.)
Plus, put an extra home link to the right of "logout" because the Logo is not obvious.

Sounds like an excellent must have. It will also server both the current and the future Voipo users. As other mentioned it will save a lot of support calls to get things fixed. Also a guide or help page with some example will also do so the users will know who to update the necessary fields. my 2 cents..
It will also be a good idea to setup it up now and let us test it before opening to general public :)