Hi,
I've noticed an increase in the number of times the same questions are being asked here about OnDemand, namely:
- How do I install plugin X?
- How do I customize Y?
Is there somewhere we can submit suggestions for improving your FAQs and/or sign-up trail to try and reduce the number of these questions?
Take an example of a new customer who's heard how awesome and extensible JIRA is and now there's an OnDemand option so he doesn't have to worry about infrastructure:
1. Visits http://www.atlassian.com - sees a nice by "Check out our products" link so he clicks it
2. Now at http://www.atlassian.com/software - Cool!! Useful descriptions of all the products and JIRA is front and centre
3. Clicking the JIRA link we're at http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/overview - Nice!! I can try JIRA for free, but I'm gonna checking pricing first
4. http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/pricing/?tab=ondemand - Wow, that's cheap, and "It's All Included" not like those download chumps where "Add-ons available from Atlassian Plugin Exchange" mine's got "Bundled add-ons and remote integrations"
5. Ok, I'm sold I'm gonna try JIRA (http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/try/) - I'll just check the FAQs first, awseome "Trials are fully functional, so you can try any of the add-ons or plugins available. In Administration, navigate to 'plugins' and search for the add-on or plugin name to install."
6. Right, let's start my free trial (https://my.atlassian.com/ondemand/signup/jira) - Nice, simple form and double checking, "Yes, many more [add ons] may be enabled from within the administration console in your OnDemand Instance."
So he's all set up, get his confirmation email and starts playing with his OnDemand JIRA. Now he's heard of some awesome plugins and want to give those a try duing his trial, which he can right because "Trials are fully functional, so you can try any of the add-ons or plugins available. In Administration, navigate to 'plugins' and search for the add-on or plugin name to install." But, wait, the plugin(s) he wants to install aren't there.
How does he install plugins? No big deal, that's what Google is for: https://www.google.com/?q=install+jira+plugins where http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/Managing+JIRA's+Plugins is the top hit and covers everything he needs to know about installing plugins, he just needs to go to the Install tab, but he doesn't remember seeing an install tab. So he logs in to OnDemand again just to check, nope, definitely no install tab. Better go back to the documentation and read it again, oh, what's this "Some functionality described on this page is restricted in JIRA OnDemand." What functionality? He hasn't tried creating dashboards yet, maybe it's that.
After a while he heads over to Atlassian Answers and asks the question where he's told "no you cannot install plugins with OnDemand" or has his question closed as "duplicate". Neither of which gives your new customer a very good impression of Atlassian or the community.
My point is that at no stage during the signup trail do you actually give a clear view of the restrictions with OnDemand and even when you visit the full documentation and are given an indication that there are some restrctions it's not clear what those restrictions are. I don't believe you're deliberately trying to be misleading, but something's not right if the same questions are cropping up again and again.
A single link to the plugin policy or restricted functions of OnDemand somewhere along the sign-up trail would probably help and I've got lots of other suggestions if you're willing to hear them ;-)
Andrew.