Justin Britten

A Private Web Beta in Seconds with Prefinery

Don’t write it yourself

You’ve got some slick new Web site and you’d like to run a private beta.  Maybe this is because you’re convinced your site is so awesome you’re going to get more traffic than your ready for.  Or, maybe you’d just like to work out the bugs with a small, select group of users.  Either way, you need a process for collecting the e-mail addresses for people who are interested in signing up, generating unique invitation codes, and sending an e-mail invitation.

This process is a pain in the ass, and not something core to your awesome new web site.  Heck, you’ll probably only be in private beta for a few months so you’ll end up throwing away all the code you write to manage the private beta.

Prefinery can manage this entire process for you.  Here’s how it works …

1.  Sign up for a free Prefinery account

You specify what contact information (name, email, address, phone, etc.) must be gathered when users request an invitation code.

2.  Install the invitation widget

This is as easy as copying and pasting a few lines of Javascript.

3.  Users visit your web site and request an invitation code

The Prefinery invitation widget gets launched when a user clicks a link or image on your site.  Your users never leave your web site!

4.  Poof, an invitation code is generated

You log into Prefinery where you see the thousands of people who are begging to use your awesome new site.  Approving access is as easy as clicking a button.  Once access is approved, an e-mail (from your address, of course) is sent to the user.

5.  Users sign up on your site

We give you the secret formula so that you can decode a Prefinery invitation code when users sign up on your site. We provide code samples in various languages, including Ruby, PHP, and Python.  In most cases this process is as simple as one line of source code.

Learn more

You can learn more about Prefinery by taking the tour, checking out the screenshots, or signing up for a free account.

Announcing Major Enhancements for Prefinery

Some major enhancements are coming to Prefinery on December 10, 2008.  Here’s the complete run-down:

Personalized subdomains

Every company account gets a free, personalized subdomain.  In addition to giving you the opportunity to add a bit of branding to the URL, you will now log in to administer your betas using this new subdomain.  For example, if your subdomain is “adobe” you will now log in at http://adobe.prefinery.com/admin

Separate administrator and tester areas

As an administrator of a beta program, you will log into Prefinery using your personalized subdomain (e.g., http://adobe.prefinery.com/admin) and will interact with a management console.  Testers will access your beta at a separate location and view a unique set of pages that you have customized.

Complete user interface redesign

The first thing you’ll notice when you log in is that Prefinery has received a major facelift.  We’re not talking a nip here and a tuck there.  We mean Prefinery fled to a country without extradition and got a brand new identity.

Landing / Welcome page

Create a custom landing page for your testers using our easy to use Web page editor.  You don’t need to know any HTML to create a beautiful welcome page.  We’ll add generic log in and join links to the page, but the rest of the content is up to you.

Improved custom branding

When you subscribe to a plan with custom branding, you’ll be getting a blank slate.  You’ll have complete control over the content and styling of the page so that you may provide your testers with a familiar experience.  In fact, once you add your logo to the page, testers may not even realize they’re not on your site.

Guestbook creation

Specify what contact information is required to be gathered from testers when they join your beta.  Pick from email address, name, address, employer, job title, and telephone.

Require a survey to join

Require testers to take one of your surveys prior to joining your beta.  Perfect if you want to collect more information than the guestbook supports.  Also a great way to attach a sign up application to your beta.

Require a survey to download files

Require testers to take one of your surveys prior to downloading a specific file.  Perhaps anyone can download version 1.0, but you want to require the survey “1.0 Feedback” prior to downloading version 2.0.

Sexy survey results

We’re using a whole new package for our graphs and charts.  They’re faster, interactive, and look great when sporting your data.

Bugs, comments consolidated

We’ve combined bugs and comments.  Prefinery is not competing in the bug tracking and ticket management space.  Plenty of excellent tools already exist.  So, we’ve merged bugs and comments since both are nothing more than tester feedback.  You’ll still be able to export the data.

Plus, dozens of tiny improvements

We hope you enjoy these additions and enhancements.  We’d love to hear your feedback!