A lot of things are underway for 2016 that will provide a vastly improved experience for our users and your customers. Changes will be made to the add-on pack offerings that will simplify the product selection process and eliminate some confusion as to what to buy and what packs complement each other to obtain the best results. Additionally, negotiations are underway with one of the most-talented WordPress and SaaS development teams in the world to bring a new and improved “Software As A Service” version of Store Locator Plus online. We will also be expanding our support and technical team in-house at Charleston Software Associates.
Add On Packs
There will be a number of changes designed to simplify the add-on selection process, create a better and stable plug-in environment, reduce redundancy, and simplify our product cycle allowing us to focus on product improvements versus overhead and maintenance.
Legacy Add Ons
Starting in early 2016 , the legacy add-on packs will enter the first transition phase. The plugins that are selected will only receive bug fixes and security patches going forward. All of the Charleston Software Associates (Store Locator Plus author) products will be classified as legacy products over the next few months, For example:
- Contact Extender
- Directory Builder
- Enhanced Map
- Enhanced Results
- Enhanced Search
- Pages
- Pro Pack
- Tagalong
- Widget Pack
Customers that have purchased these products will still have access to the downloads and will receive updates whenever a new security patch or bug fix is released.
New Add Ons
When the legacy products enter this transition phase, they will no longer be available as a separate stand alone purchase by new customers. In their place we will have three core add-on packs in addition to a group of “ala-carte” third party add-on packs available for purchase. We will be simplifying the add-on pack selection by offering just 3 options, Power Users, Enhanced Experience, and Premier.
Users of the legacy products can opt to retain their prior add-on packs and operate as normal. However, users that wish to take advantage of the new add-ons, simplifying the installation process will need to purchase them as a new product package. Once the packages are installed the legacy products can be removed. More details will be available and reminders sent as that date approaches.
Power Users
The forthcoming “Power” package add-on will include all of the features and functionality of the current Pro Pack, Tagalong, Pages, and Contact Extender add-on packs. The focus of this add-on is the administrative side of location management as well as various features that tend to be utilized by the power user. As part of this new offering the Pro Pack user-interface-related “Experience / View” setting, which determines the overall layout structure of the Store Locator Plus interface (map on left, right, below search form, etc.) will be moved into the forthcoming Experience add-on.
The Power add-on will be selling for $250 per-site one-time fee.
Experience
The Experience add-on, being released in early 2016, will include all the features of the user-interface-centric features of the various Store Locator Plus legacy add ons. This new add-on will include the features of Enhanced Map, Enhanced Results, Enhanced Search, and the Widget Pack. It will also inherit the Experience / View setting from the Pro Pack. This add-on will also make it far easier to deploy the built-in plugin styles as you will only require one plugin-in to achieve most of the visual updates.
The Experience add-on will be selling for $250 per-site one-time fee.
Premier
Technically now a “new” plugin but one that will carry over from the legacy model to the new model, the Premier add-on will continue to be the flagship plugin where new “never been done before” features are added. While the Power and Experience add-ons will occasionally see a new feature added, anything that is completely new and introduces more complex features to the product will appear in the Premier add-on. The Premier add-on is only available to users with a Premier subscription.
Speaking of the Premier Subscription, users with an active subscription will get the new Power and Experience add-ons as soon as they are available and will have access to the prerelease versions of both products. There are not changes anticipated for the Premier Subscription in 2016. An exclusive first-response Premier Forum, access to our real-time Slack channels, and access to all plugins and themes crafted by Charleston Software Associates remains in the plan.
The Premier Subscription will retain the current $250 sign-up + $30/month pricing.
Third Party Add Ons
Due to our compensation agreements with third party authors, the third party plugins will remain online in their standard ala-carte form. These plugins will have a new forum where all 3rd party plugin questions will be answered and supported by both the original author and, as needed, Charleston Software Associates. The following plugins will remain as ala-carte options:
- Extended Data Manager
- Event Location Manager
- Social Media Extender
- Gravity Forms Integration
- Gravity Forms Locations
- MultiMap
Most third-party add-ons are priced at a $50 one-time fee.
End Of Life Offerings
The following offerings will be going away in 2016.
All Icon Packs will be replaced with a more efficient loading process to be introduced in 2016 and added to the Premier plugin.
The Experience Package is going away. This will be replaced with the Experience plugin.
The Kitchen Sink Package is going, going, gone as a separate purchase. Users wishing to get all of the nifty features and more should subscribe to the Premier Subscription as a one-year subscription. It is less than the price of the Kitchen Sink package and provides more benefits.
The SaaS Project
Work will begin in earnest on a subscription-based Store Locator Plus service. This should not be confused with the Premier Subscription. Purchases and subscribers of the Premier Subscription will not be automatically enrolled in the SaaS system . The SaaS (Software As A Service) product will allow companies to sign up via a new website and use a simplified interface for managing their locations and tweaking their user interface. When everything is ready the user will be given a short JavaScript snippet or iFrame code to place on ANY site, not just WordPress sites.
This new service will look-and-feel much like the Store Locator Plus WordPress plugin with some big visual improvements. However, users of this system will no longer need to worry about updates to ensure they have the latest version, backing up their locations, moving their installs from a staging to live site, or other management tasks related to maintaining their locator plugin.
Pricing is yet to be determined. Initial models include a free tier for a handful of locations and $30/month for most sites.
