Add a Fulfillment to your Product

After you have added an individual product to your store in SpringBoard, you will want to add the Fulfillment Actions that will be sent to customers upon ordering your product. Typical Fulfillment Actions include customized emails, file downloads, licenses, and shipping.

Adding Fulfillment Actions to a Product

Go to SpringBoard's Store Home » Products and Pages. Select the product to which you want to add Fulfillment Actions. Clicking Add will show the various types of fulfillment you can set up. Multiple fulfillment actions may be assigned to a product. For example, you can combine an email with a license or file download.

General Fulfillments

The following types of fulfillments exist:

• Email / Web Notification
• Licenses or Serial Codes
• File(s) to Download
• Signed PDF
• Shipping a CD, DVD or USB Drive

Email / Web Notification

Email fulfillment is required as it will send an email to the customer that includes product delivery information. Email fulfillments are used in conjunction with other fulfillment actions, including file downloads and licenses, to communicate delivery information to the customer. Web fulfillment can include delivery information too, but will be displayed after the web receipt on the order confirmation page of the order process. 

Select whether this template will be for One-Time Use or whether you want it to be Reusable On Multiple Products. Enter in the subject and contents of the email which will be sent to the customer upon purchasing this product.

To insert specific information about an order into an email (such as a URL to download the product or a license code), a basic templating language is used. You can also include multiple download files or multiple license codes in an Email or Web Fulfillment.

An example of a very basic email template would be:

Subject:

Your #{orderItem.display} - Order #{order.id}

Dear #{order.customer.fullName},
 
Thank you for your recent purchase.

Note: You should always include the order reference number in the subject because it will make your (and FastSpring's) customer support easier. 

File Download

This allows a single file, up to 5 TB, to be securely downloaded for a limited period of time. This action is used for distributing files that should only be downloadable by the customer who ordered. Precautions such as expiration and download limits are used to protect the file from distribution to non-purchasers.

For Web Browser, enter in the name of the file, including the file extension, as it should be saved to a customer's computer after downloading. Choose this upload method and click Next. Follow directions. If necessary, click "Trust" or "Allow" when prompted by your web browser. Make sure to Verify your upload. Note: This upload method is only available for files up to 5GB in size, and we do not recommend this method for files over 100MB in size.

In addition to the Web Browser upload method, FastSpring offers to ability to upload your files using DropBox. This upload method does not require you to type in a filename and you will not need to wait for the upload to complete.  Select Choose to the right of DropBox. Log in to your DropBox account and select your file. In SpringBoard, click Next. Your file will begin to upload. Note: Updates to the file in your DropBox account will not update the file in your SpringBoard account. This upload method is recommended for files over 100MB.

If your file is sitting on your server, the fastest method for uploading is Remote File URL. Enter in the name of the file, including the file extension, as it should be saved to a customer's computer after downloading. Select Remote File URL, enter in the URL for the file on your server, and click Next. Your file will begin to upload. Note: This upload method is recommended for files over 100MB.

For an example of how to add a download link to your Email Fulfillment, see our File Download Delivery Email Template. If you have multiple files for a product, repeat this process. You will then want to Include Multiple Download Files in an Email Fulfillment.

License Fulfillments

A license fulfillment is typically used when you want to give your customers a license code to unlock a digital product. 

A license is a string of text which is required of the customer in order to activate or otherwise access your product. You might also call this a key, registration code or password. FastSpring offers a few different types of licenses, including creating a List, using a PHP or JavaScript Script, and accessing a Remote server. There is also a specific fulfillment that works only for digital products in PDF formats.

Additionally, FastSpring has made it easy to integrate with third party licensing companies, including AquaticPrime and CocoaFob.

For an example of how to add a license code or license name to your Email Fulfillment, see our License Delivery Email Template.

Pre-defined List

One of the most commonly used types of licenses which sets up licenses to be provided from a list that you define. You will need to choose the License Format and the License Quantity Behavior. Examples of the two License Formats are below. If a customer orders multiple quantities of one product, the License Quantity Behavior choice will determine whether you Dispense one Single License that will work for all digital copies of that product or Dispense One License Per Quantity / Units Ordered that will provide one license code for each copy of the product ordered

You will want to enter in a large list of license codes.  If you want an easy way to create licence codes, we suggest random.org, which is free and easy to use. After you have entered in your List of license codes, click Create and you will see the number of license codes that remain to be distributed to your customers.  When the number of license codes that remain gets low (to about 100 license codes remaining), FastSpring will email you to let you know, You can then enter in more license codes by simply going to SpringBoard's Store Home » Products and Pages. Select the product to which you want to add more license codes, and click Edit next to the License Generator. Then, in the right-hand column, click Add Licenses, and enter in additional license codes.

Script (PHP or JavaScript)

Another way to set up licenses is to write a PHP or JavaScript code that FastSpring securely hosts on our servers, which uses your customer's information to create an individualized license code.

Determine whether you want to create Single-Line or Multi-Line licenses. Then choose a License Name from the given options. If you choose Customizable Name, when customers complete the order process, they will be given a opportunity to put the license in another person's name.

Next choose the type of code that you will write.

SpringBoard will automatically put in some sample code that can be used to create your license codes. An example of JavaScript code that generates secure license codes is below.

You can edit the Script Source Code using defined parameters and click Run Test to see a sample of customer information and generated License Captured. You can edit the Test Input customer information, and click Run Test again, to see what effect your changed made.

Once you are satisfied with your license code output, click Close and then click Save.

Remote Server Request

This is a more complicated, but often used method for creating license codes. Setting this license type up will cause the order process to send an HTTP POST, with or without customer data, to a remote URL/ webservice on your server. This webservice will return the license string which you would like given to the customer, based on basic information sent, such as license name and quantity. This is an advanced action which requires additional technical skill and testing to set up properly. For additional details, see Setting Up a Remote License Script.

Signed PDF

This option allows you to add license name information to each page of a PDF file (whose maximum size is 70MB), which can deter customers from sharing the document. The License Template will determine the format of the license stamped on each page of the document. You need to name the PDF document and then select the PDF document onto which you would like the license information embedded. 

License Name

• Not Name Based: The customer's name will not be used to protect the PDF.
• Customizable Name: Customers will be given the opportunity to customize their license name, as shown to the right in the order process. If they enter in a Company Name, it will pre-select the Company Name as the license name; if they do not enter a Company Name, it will pre-select their full name as the license name. Either way, they will be given the opportunity to enter in their own license name.
• Email Address: While email is already a parameter that can be automatically added to the PDF, you can also select Email Address as the Value if you need it paired with a parameter name that is not "email."
• Person Name: The customer's full name will be used to protect the PDF.

Shipping Fulfillments

FastSpring offers you the ability to have your digital files physically shipped to your customers.  Acutrack or CustomCD will manufacture custom CDs, DVDS and USB drives and ship them worldwide on an order by order basis. Media can contain software, music, catalogs, or any other digital product and can be created for most computer operating systems (including Windows, Macintosh, Linux). There is no inventory to maintain, which eliminates the up-front costs normally associated with CD and DVD production, and your products are always in stock.

To use either of these shipping fulfillments, you must have an account with the shipping company with the appropriate packages, labels, and products already configured. Visit Acutrack or CustomCD to receive more information, to create a new account, or to view your existing account.

Choose the third party shipping fulfillment you want to add. Fill in settings that correspond to settings and information in your Acutrack or CustomCD control panel. If you have any problems or questions while locating these settings, please contact Acutrack support or CustomCD support for assistance.

What is the maximum file size of a fulfillment?

The maximum size of a file fulfillment on a product is 5TB. The maximum file you can upload with a web browser is 5GB, but we do not recommend this method for files over 100MB. For large files, we suggest uploading via DropBox or with the Remote URL option.

The maximum size of a file fulfillment on a product is 5TB. The maximum file you can upload with a web browser is 5GB, but we do not recommend this method for files over 100MB. For large files, we suggest uploading via DropBox or with the Remote URL option.

In addition, you can have multiple file fulfillments on a product, and then provide multiple download links to customers in the email fulfillment.

We caution against file fulfillments that are too large as they are often difficult for many customers to download successfully, especially for customers that do not have high Internet speeds.