On July 8, we hosted a live webinar on Splynx 4.0 product updates, giving a 360 overview of what has been changed in one of our biggest releases. This release is not our subjective take on what will assist you best in your everyday tasks but a result of close-up communication with our clients about their needs for 12 consecutive months. Splynx 4.0 points directly to your ISP business needs to maximize the potential growth.

If you could not attend the webinar or would like to rewatch it, here’s the webinar recording.

What did we discuss?

Maybe the best way to explain is with examples. We aimed to make this webinar as useful as possible, giving you concise information about the essential improvements and how they can influence your work routine.

On to the webinar agenda:

• Product performance improvement, billing logic simplification, UX/UI overhaul, and the initial onboarding tour — to support you through routine tasks while you can be focused on more important business strategies.
• New industry-leading features — to give you new ways of billing your clients.
• Integration with 3CX — to make calls directly from Splynx, store phone calls in CRM, and link calls to an existing ticket.
• Hotspot add-on — to help you start a hotspot business with the existing infrastructure. Especially effective in low-income communities.
• Integration with Whalebone — innovative technology to ensure the security of your network.

Webinar FAQs

We had an engaging FAQ session that helped us go deeper into the topics discussed at the webinar. Here we have selected the questions related to Splynx 4.0 release, though the list of questions was even more extensive.

Hope you’ll find the answer you were looking for. If not, please submit your question to support@splynx.com and our team will help you out.

1. How can I filter payments for inventory? We sell routers and other devices to clients and would love to see these clearly from the internet service payments.

Unfortunately, there is no direct filter to separate those invoices. However, you can create a separate “Transaction” category for this in Config → Finance → Transaction → Inventory device. Transaction for inventory device purchase will be created with a selected transaction category that you can further filter out in the transactions list.

2. Is it possible to get the total data usage used by all customers in reports and not singularly upload and download as it is now?

At the moment, it is impossible to export all total data usage for all customers in a single report. You can leave a feature request on our feature request page.

3. Can we have different currencies for different customers (e.g., £ and €) as we operate across borders?

Unfortunately, Splynx doesn’t support multiple currencies. As a workable solution, you can use a system without currency specification and add currency symbols to invoice templates.

4. Does Splynx link text messages to the “Communication” tab?

The “Communication” tab displays all communication related to the customer: calls, emails, tickets, etc. You can add your email account to your profile, and all communication from email will be automatically linked to the corresponding client.

5. Does the 3CX integration also record inbound calls, e.g., customer calls in, and it keeps track of that only if they call in from numbers loaded for them?

Splynx will keep track of inbound calls if the customer calls from the number linked to their profile. 3CX integration collects inbound, outbound & missed calls.

6. Does Splynx sync with Quick Books Enterprise now?

Splynx isn’t integrated with Quickbooks Enterprise, only with Quickbooks Online.

7. Does the 3CX integration need to be installed as a browser extension? Or will it work if we have 3CX installed on our computers or cellphones?

3СХ is a Splynx add-on. You won’t need to install a browser extension or change your current flow. 3CX pushes all data to Splynx via API automatically.

8. Any way to restrict access to credit notes?

Yes, you can restrict access to Credit Notes in permission settings for your administrators. Administration → Administrators → click the lock icon next to the desired role.

9. If one person answers a call and then the call is transferred to an agent, does the 3CX integration track that? Or does it track just the first point of contact?

If the incoming call is answered by one person and then transferred to another, the 3CX add-on will link it as two separate incoming calls to the customer’s profile at the same time. Both calls will have their own description and audio log.

10. Has the “View all” function been removed? We can view only 100 entries now.

Yes, we’ve limited all tables to 100 entries per page to increase system performance. We’re actively working on system simplification and standardization, so tables and other elements should be the same in all product parts. Currently, the “View all” option is available in tables processed on the server side.

11. Has the “Mark as paid” function been removed? Why is this? We now have to load all invoices or none when previously we could split them into eft and debit order amounts as requested by clients.

Yes, this option has been removed in Splynx 4.0. This was done to automate billing flow. Payments are now automatically linked to invoices by default, which is vital for the proper work of partial payments.

12. Can you pay for Hotspot using our existing payment gateway in Splynx?

As of now, the Hotspot works only with PayPal, Stripe, Payfast(South Africa), and Safaricom MPESA (Kenya) payment systems. We’ll extend the Hotspot feature with more payment systems in the future. We’ll keep everyone posted.

13. Any plans to integrate Facebook as a communication channel?

This integration hasn’t been on our schedule so far. If you find this feature useful, please add your feature request.

14. Will the Splash page display on every login regardless of whether the customer is loading a secure page or not on a Mac PC, Android, and iOS? Other Hotspots I have tried struggle to redirect to Splash pages.

The Splash page is displayed for customers who are not authenticated. Customers with a Hotspot plan won’t see the Splash page while their plan is active.

15. How are the Hotspot clients get licensed?

All online vouchers are counted as active customers. When 250 hotspot users are online, a 300-subscription license is required regardless of the number of vouchers generated or used.

16. Is blocking still based on the Due date in the billing config? In previous versions, we could have changed the date so that client is blocked on a specific day or in the next cycle. It seems that we could not do so in the most recent version. The clients have been blocked precisely 9 days after billing day as config in the billing config. This had the effect that we had to check manually every day for clients who might be blocked due to on-time invoices. Does the blocking work per outstanding balance or per date invoices were edited/created?

Yes, the customer blocking is based on the Due date in the billing config. In Splynx 4.0, we’ve added a new field called “Blocking period” that allows extending the blocking period after the Due date. Also, you can manually adjust the customer’s blocking in the “Next block” field, where you can select the desired date on a calendar view. Splynx blocking takes into account outstanding balance on a Due date that is defined in your billing settings.

17. How can we run package promotions, e.g., pay for 3 months today and get a 1-month free subscription to our clients via Splynx?

There is no direct functionality for promotions yet. Although, it’s possible to reach the desired scenario with the help of service discounts and hooks to automate this process. Please reach out to support@splynx.com so we can review your requirements and find the best solution for your needs.

18. Will the inbound calls from clients for support also integrate into the communications tab?

Yes, the calls will be linked to a corresponding profile with the “incoming” status.

19. How does Whalebone handle DNS over HTTPS?

Whalebone can handle the encrypted traffic. However, it is not enabled by default. For more detailed information on how this works, please reach out to support@whalebone.io.

20. Can we block P2P with Whalebone?

Yes, Whalebone can block domains linked to peer-to-peer networks.

21. Can the Whalebone addon send alerts directly to the customer?

Yes, the Whalebone add-on can send alerts directly to customers.

22. Does this version maintain the integration between Splynx and MikroTik routers?

The current version doesn’t affect Mikrotik integration at all. DNS requests are managed by Whalebone resolver, and information is forwarded to Splynx.

23. Is there a way to create job cards on Splynx? When a technician needs to go out to a customer, for example.

Job cards can be exported as PDF (Printed) from the task actions button.

24. Is the VulaCoin service accessible? Or do we have to pay a monthly fee?

There is no monthly fee for VulaCoin. You pay a fee per transaction.

25. Speaking of the NetFlow accounting, is it possible to get the protocols/ traffic analysis on the network?

Unfortunately, it’s impossible at the moment. You can vote for this feature on our feature request page.

26. Is there a possibility to customize the phone app so that specific information can be available on the ISP app?

Unfortunately, there is no way to customize a mobile customer app due to App Store / Google Play market limitations. You are welcome to build your app using Splynx API if you have resources. Some of our customers have done this before to have relevant information in the app.

27. Is there a way where changing plans for a customer will not cause any service interruption, or is this inevitable?

At some point, the customer should reconnect to apply the new bandwidth policy, which is a standard practice.

28. Do we have to pay a monthly fee for 3CX?

No, there are no fees for the use of 3CX. However, 3CX requires a Professional license to use the CRM Integration module.

29. Is mobile money payment available on the Hotspot?

Not yet. However, this feature is on our roadmap.

30. Is there a way to do a bulk plan change, or does it need to be done individually?

Yes, you can do the bulk plan change using the change plan button on the tariff plan actions menu, which will query you on which plan to change and confirm the change after the preview.

31. In terms of the Hotspot portal and integration between cnMaestro, Mikrotik, and Splynx, to display adds and self-registration (for example, the one you showed with only mobile number used). Is there a video or documentation to guide us on achieving this?

Adds will be supported in future iterations of the hotspot add-on. All documentation guides and videos will be added soon.

32. When upgrading data plans in Splynx (Tariff Plans → Internet), the new packages are shown and upgraded for each client, but the “Service name” does not change on the clients’ invoices. How can this be overcome? Is there a function/command to force the new “Service names” on the clients?

You can change the description in the new plan and force the change on all customers.

33. Is it possible to have a tag feature while creating customers?

Currently, no such functionality allows for applying tags for customers. If you find this feature useful, please add your request. At the moment, you can add a field with a tag that will be displayed in the table with all customers andthe  possibility to sort customers by this tag within the table.

34. Do you only integrate with 3CX VoIP PBX at the moment? Any plans to add more PBX’s?

As of now, we have only integration with 3CX. However, we’ll add the support of other PBX’s in the future.

35. Is it possible to get the total data usage used by all customers in reports and not singularly upload and download as it is currently?

Not currently. If you find this feature useful, please add your request.

36. In terms of Hotspot. One month, you can get 200 hotspot users. Other months you get 100, for example. Do we need to upgrade to a maximum of 200 in this regard? What will happen if more clients want to connect, for example, 250 clients. Will Splynx block those clients as the license is not sufficient?

Splynx entry-level license is 200 active subscribers. All online vouchers are counted as active customers regardless of how many are generated or used. If you have 200 customers’ licenses and 250 connections to your hotspot, Splynx won’t block them. However, you receive a notification to upgrade your license, and customer management is limited during this time. If you just start the hotspot service in your business, you can adjust the license with the time to have an optimal average for your need.

37. Can we have some mandatory fields for customers’ details, e.g., email, phone numbers.

Unfortunately, there is no way to make default fields mandatory. You can only do this with additional fields that you can create.

38. Will credit cards now charge the balance due instead of the full invoice amount?

You can select whether to charge balance or invoice amount when charging credit cards or bank accounts.

39. Can I monitor staff performance, for instance, those who closed the most tickets within scheduled timelines? Can top marketers set KPIs for the staff?

You can track your support team’s performance with Ticket reports in the “Administration” tab. Unfortunately, there is no way to track or set KPIs for other departments. If you find this feature useful, please add your request.

40. Is there a way to show that an agent is unavailable (he’s away on his holiday, for instance) so that tickets don’t get assigned to someone who cannot assist?

Unfortunately, there is no such functionality to display the availability in the profile. You can adjust the ticket assignment in Config → Helpdesk → Tickets (the field ‘Admins available for auto-assigning tickets’).