Support

What you purchase from us is a subscription to the software download and support service. This means that you need to have an active subscription to download the software (any version, including versions you had previously downloaded as well as updates) or request support for it.

You can keep using our software after your subscription expires. However, you will not be able to update it or ask for support for it.

Moreover, if you have kept a copy of its ZIP package that you downloaded before your subscription expired you can install / reinstall it on any number of sites you have.

Should you pay for a subscription renewal after the first year? I can't answer that for you. I can only give you some facts so you can make that decision yourself, based on your unique use case, your cashflow, your priorities and, generally, your business realities.

If you remain subscribed after the first year you pay a deeply discounted renewal pricing. However, this pricing only applies if you either pay for a full year before your subscription expires or if you choose to have a recurring payment every 3 months. If your subscription expires and you need to install an update, download the software or request support for it you will have to resubscribe at full price.

You don't just need updates for new features we add. The most important reason to need an update is that an old version of our software no longer runs correctly, typically for one of the following two reasons.

New versions of Joomla and PHP are not guaranteed to be compatible with older versions of our software and reasonably so: we can't predict the future, therefore we cannot make our software compatible with PHP and Joomla versions which have not been written, let alone released, at the time we publish our software. Newer versions are released to address these compatibility issues.

Moreover, third parties may also make changes which can affect the operability of our software. For example, Google decided to disable password authentication in Gmail and G Suite starting June 2020. We had to write a completely new implementation of the Reply by Email and Ticket By Email features to be compatible with the changes Google implemented (currently under testing). The first tie we heard about these changes was when Google sent an email in February.

You can weigh these risks and decide for yourself if the recurring subscription is something worth pursuing. In any case, you can cancel a recurring subscription at least two days before its billing due date. Our reseller, Paddle, that handles the recurring payments sends you emails 10 and 3 days prior to the billing due date to remind you. So even if you choose the recurring option but change your mind before it starts billing you, you will of course be able to cancel it.

I remain for any further questions.

You can set up any number of custom fields you want. They can even be different per ticket category. You can choose which ones are mandatory and which ones are not. The values of these fields are only displayed to support staff (the user groups you've set up to be able to reply to tickets).

Regarding location, we have a special plugin which can capture the location of the user (with their permission) and display it to you on a map.

All this information is saved in the database, in the params field of the #__ats_tickets table, as JSON. You cannot search by / filter tickets by this information. It's not that it's outright impossible to implement, it's that it requires MySQL 5.7.5 or later which is currently not widely used on live servers. Believe me when I say that I'm looking forward to when MySQL 5.7 or later will be widespread enough for me to drop support for older versions of MySQL. It will make working with ATS and Joomla custom fields infinitely easier.