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Managing a large estate

Managing a large estate. Deep Think Labs www.deepthinklabs.com. Some statistics. Our Estates – Azure Islands, Nova Islands. Several thousand tenants combined. 4,000+ parcels in our system. (1,000+ owned by a group.) Each year, we handle 500,000+ transactions. 50,000 support tickets.

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Managing a large estate

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  1. Managing a large estate Deep Think Labs www.deepthinklabs.com

  2. Some statistics • Our Estates – Azure Islands, Nova Islands. • Several thousand tenants combined. • 4,000+ parcels in our system. (1,000+ owned by a group.) • Each year, we handle • 500,000+ transactions. • 50,000 support tickets. • Thousands of parcels changing hands.

  3. How we handle it • Billing • Nearly completely automated. • All tier additions, overdue notices, etc. • Website & Marketing • Tied into billing system, allows real-time listings. • Pulls ‘about’ information from billing. (Zone, Prims, etc) • Support • Tools & Easy access for support staff to solve issues quickly. • Convenient Reports on Common Information (to reclaim, etc.) • Common tasks are fully automated. (Parcel transfers, etc.)

  4. Automation is key • Automation reduces errors – in things like billing this saves money. • Reduces need for customers to ‘wait on us’. Things happen instantly. • Reduces need to expand support staff to handle mundane tasks. • We automate everything we can.

  5. Our billing system • Used by us since 2004. • We built it to meet our needs as a big estate. • Every transaction since day 1 is available. • Comprehensive logging. • Search by user/terminal/region. Previously unavailable to other estates. Changing with version 5.0. (Email admin@deepthinklabs.com for beta info)

  6. Billing Features • Complete solution – handles everything between initial parcel sale to generating reclaim lists. • Flexible pricing options • Either ‘tiers’ or ‘per-sqm’ pricing, with equation support.Example: Price = (size * 1.1) * (1 + log10(total owned)) • Billing done ‘by the second’. • Bill in multiple currencies. USD, L$, EUR. • Auto-converts rate for other users. (We bill in USD, but users see L$ at exchange rate) • Group Support – multiple users (e.g. partners, etc.) • API for Remote Data Collection (e.g., websites.) • ‘Employee’ Support & ACL Permissions.

  7. How it works... • Everything done on remote server. Even user dialogs & UI interactions. • Complete logs of every interaction. • No ‘de-sync’ issue – in world meter shows server-side billing info. • Terminals update visuals (“progress bar”) hourly. • All in-world comm.'s are cryptographically verified. • Design supports OpenSim/realXtend regions.

  8. Our Support System • Majority of support is processed via email. • Dedicated Support Systems Suck. • We use Exchange 2007. • Multiple users can log into the one inbox simultaneously. • We keep an archive of every message & reply. • Email is quick & easy, and integrated into SL. (mostly.) • We also submit automated notices to that email • Parcel abandons, etc. = manual work needed. • Data sanitation requests (please confirm X owns Y)

  9. In-world Support Automation • Simplify debugging of issues. • The estate tools suck. We built our own supplement. • Automated ‘temp-on-rez’ detection. • HUD Display of Parcel Info. • Simplify Common Tasks • ‘Teleport HUD’ allows us to teleport to any terminal in the system. • In-world Pay Terminals • When an error occurs, offer to report the issue for the user. • Simplifies issue with creative user spelling.

  10. Content Automation • Terrains are designed using special terrain library we wrote for OpenSim. • We design and prototype our regions in OpenSim. (Cheaper!) • Grass, Trees, Vegetation fully automated. We design ‘theme packs’ with vegetation rules (slope, height ranges, etc.) • Shoreline waves are automated. (Built our own.) • Road Path Automation. • Integrating these into a tool we will be making public.

  11. Licensing • Contact us – we’re beta testing a lot of this to allow other estates to use it. • http://www.deepthinklabs.com • admin@deepthinklabs.com

  12. Questions?

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