HN Explorer

How does this not exist yet? "Email Setup Guide" as a service.

10 points by apinstein ↗ HN
Like many SaaS web site or ISP businesses, we provide email services for our customers. And like many of these businesses, roughly half of our support time is helping people set up their email.

I can only imagine how many HN'ers have this exact problem.

What I'd like to see is an web app that has an exact walkthrough of major email programs with step-by-step instructions, similar to this: https://portal.plus.net/support/email/setup/index.shtml

However, with the exact account info sent in via API so that the "walkthrough" is 100% accurate for the customer doing the walkthrough.

I'd think the app should be 100% HTML5/Javascript, where the API is done either via XHR or just in the GET params. It could even be open source, so that you could just grab the repo and drop it on your server and program in 1 webhook to provide the account info.

The 95% use case is for straight-up IMAP setup. Mail.app, Outlook Express, Outlook 2007, iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, Palm, Windows Mobile, maybe a couple others?

Alternatively it could be run as a business, with the system hosted as a SaaS app, on SSL, with a small annual fee to use it for your business (maybe co-branding or something).

Anyway, I think that this should exist, is doable in a pretty small amount of time, and would literally save me 100+ hours a year.

I know I'd be happy to sponsor getting such a project off the ground (maybe Kickstarter?) and would guess it'd be very easy to raise the amount needed to make it worth the time to do it.

Thoughts?

7 comments

[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 25.9 ms ] thread
noibl
Gmail's setup guide is pretty good too: http://goo.gl/IIMgg

And yet yesterday I had someone call me up after I provisioned them with a Google Apps account and the link above (Google Apps's Settings screen links to the IMAP version of it). They thought they had to set up a Gmail account first because all the screenshots show 'username@gmail.com' instead of 'username@myappsdomain.com'. The screens were also alien to them because they showed a different OS version.

This is definitely fixable. I like the idea.

apinstein
It's ok, but it's specifically for GMail. Lots of phones have magic wizards for GMail, so that doesn't help for us setting up IMAP.

Plus, it's not branded, and not editable in the sense that it could be improved by the community based on feedback from customers to eliminate confusion.

dstein
It sounds like you want to find developers to solve your business problem. Isn't that what job boards are for?
apinstein
Um, no. I am looking to participate in creating this either as an open-source thing (with initial funding by me) or to be a "first customer". I would rather not have to hire someone to do this; but I'd happily kick in money to get it started. It seems like a problem that 1000's of people have that is perfect for an open-source solution.

So I thought people here might also have this problem and like to participate/collaborate, or know of such a solution, or want to build it with me as a first customer.

Doing this myself would be a last-resort.

johngalt
While I share your pain as a sysadmin. Exceedingly few people will pay for this, and the ones that do pay won't want to pay very much.

Automated training/guides have been around for a long time, but every shop I've ever been to just has one guy/gal that everyone asks for help regardless of documentation.

apinstein
Yes, but isn't it a horrible waste of time? Wouldn't people much rather prefer to tell a client "I've created a personalized walkthrough for setting up your account on your device" -- try that and if you still need help, please feel free to call back.

Self-service FTW?

johngalt
I completely agree, sounds like we both want the same thing, but wouldn't a better method be to just script the setup? If it's already detailed and personalized why not just have it as a script that goes through and sets it all up?

If all the information is already captured why only display it on a screen and make the user copy?

edit: I'm not familiar with the scripting environment on mobile devices, but this is very doable on normal machines. I don't remember the last time I had to setup outlook.