Appearance
Subscribers and devices
Your customers and their set-top boxes, under Subscribers > Manage Subscribers. Each box is an account in Ministra; Mintrix keeps its plan, its expiry and who sold it.
| Subscriber | A customer: name, phone, email and a note. Kept only in Mintrix; one subscriber can have several devices |
| Device | One box, known by its MAC address or its login. It has a tariff plan and an expiry date, and is switched on or off |
Every subscriber belongs to an account: a reseller, or your own when you sell directly. Its devices belong to the same account, which pays for their activations. A reseller sees its own subscribers and those of its sub-resellers; a sub-reseller sees only its own.
A device's life
- Added on a plan. A new device gets a tariff plan. It runs until today plus the plan's months, and the plan's price in credit is charged to its reseller.
- Renewed. Renew adds the plan's months to the expiry date, or to today if it has already passed, and charges the price again. A renewal can also change the plan. Renewing early loses nothing.
- Expires. When the expiry date passes, Mintrix switches the device off by itself; its history shows "Subscription expired".
- Switched on or off. You can switch a device off at any time, and on again while it has time left.
Ministra is updated before any credit is charged: if Ministra refuses the change, nothing is charged.
A box that is switched off or expired shows why on the TV straight away, with its MAC address and Try again. It comes back by itself once the device is switched on or renewed.
A device's settings
| Setting | |
|---|---|
| MAC address | The box's hardware address, as printed on it. A box signs in with it |
| Login | For boxes and apps that sign in with a login and password instead of the MAC address |
| Tariff plan | What the device gets and what each activation costs. Chosen when adding the device; changed later by a renewal |
| Expires | Set by adding and renewing the device, never typed in |
| On | Switched off, the box cannot play anything |
| Device group | At most one group (Subscribers > Device Groups) |
| Parental control | The access code and age limit the viewer sets on the box. Mintrix keeps the code only as a hash: see Parental control |
MAG devices and app devices
A device's type is set by its first sign-in: a box on Ministra's portal or on Mintrix's MAG app counts as a MAG device, one that signs in from Mintrix's other apps as an app device. Each counts against its own limit in your licence (Settings > License). The type is set once and cannot be changed afterwards. See Licence and devices.
The list shows each device's type, its model, and whether it is online: seen in the last 10 minutes. A box on Mintrix's MAG app checks in every minute while it is on; for a box on Ministra's portal, Mintrix takes Ministra's last-seen time.
Limits
- A reseller's device limit counts its sub-resellers' devices too; a sub-reseller's devices also count towards its reseller's limit. 0 means no limit. See Resellers and credit.
- Your licence allows a number of MAG devices and of app devices. Devices already on stay on; adding or switching on one more is refused once a limit is reached.
Device groups
Groups (Subscribers > Device Groups) bring devices together so Ministra can address them at once: messages, firmware updates and playlists. They are Ministra's user groups; the name is kept in both, the description only in Mintrix.
Kept in step with Ministra
- Devices are Ministra accounts and are synced both ways: saved in Mintrix they go to Ministra first; changed in Ministra they come back with the next sync.
- Subscribers exist only in Mintrix; Ministra sees each device under its own name.
- Ministra enforces the plan and the expiry on the box, so the two always agree with what Mintrix shows.
Next: Send to box, to send a message or a command to boxes.