WooCommerce - How to create a maintenance plan product in WooCommerce

QLM can be used in conjunction with WooCommerce Subscriptions via the QLM WooCommerce plugin to add a maintenance plan to your perpetual license product.

A maintenance plan product cannot be sold by itself. It has to be sold as a cross-sell of another product.

First, create one product for your perpetual license product as described in this article. The maintenance plan product will be configured as a cross-sell of the perpetual license product.

To set up a maintenance plan product, follow the steps below:

• Install WooCommerce Subscriptions. Note that this plugin is not free.
• In the WooCommerce Subscription settings, go to the Checkout tab
• In the Payment Gateways section, enable Paypal (this article assumes you will be using Paypal to process payments)
• Click the Paypal link and configure the following fields:
• Set the Paypal Email field to the same email account as your business PayPal account
• Check the Paypal Sandbox field (during the testing phase)
• Fill in the 3 fields under API credentials. API credentials are available from your Paypal account under Profile / My Selling Tools / API Access / Update / View API Signature. If you cannot find your API credentials, follow the instructions in this article to request them.
• You can also find detailed instructions on this topic here.
• Click Save changes
• Next, you need to configure IPN in PayPal. To do so:
• Log in to your PayPal account (login to the sandbox during the testing phase)
• Go to Profile / My Selling Tools / Instant Payment Notifications and click Update
• Enter the following URL: http://yourdomain.com/?wc-api=WC_Gateway_Paypal
• Click Save

 Next, we will create a subscription-based product.

• Click Products / Add Product
• Enter a product name
• Set Product Data to: Simple Subscription
• Important: Do NOT check the Downloadable checkbox
• Set the Subscription Price as needed. Example: 15 per year for all time

Next, we will add some custom fields. If you do not see the "Custom Fields" section, click the "Screen Options" drop-down on the top right-hand side of the Product page and make sure the "Custom Fields" checkbox is selected. If you do not see a "Custom Fields" checkbox, make sure "Virtual" is not checked.

In the Add New Custom Field section:

• Click Enter new
• In the Name field, enter: is_maintenanceplan
• In the Value field, enter: true
• Click Add Custom Field 

• Locate the Product Categories section on the right-hand panel
• Click the + Add New Product Category link
• Enter: qlm
• Click the Add New Product Category button
• Make sure the new category qlm is checked.

Finally, click the Update button on the top right to commit all your changes to the product.

To add the maintenance plan product as a cross-sell:

• In your main product, go to the Product Data section
• Click Linked Products
• In the Cross-sells field, type the first 3 letters of the name of the maintenance product then select it.
• Click Update

Note that you could also use a plugin such as Forcesells to force the maintenance plan product to be added to the cart.

 Now locate the QLM item in the WordPress left-hand panel and click it.

In the Settings for the API section, enter the following information:

• End Point: Enter the URL to the QLM License Server. Example: https://qlm3.net/qlmdemo/qlmLicenseServer/qlmservice.asmx
• QLM Version: 5.0.00 OR 6.0.00
• User: Enter the user associated with the WooCommerce provider
• Password: Enter the password associated with the WooCommerce provider
• Click Save Settings

You can optionally configure the QLM plugin to send an email when the order is placed. Click the QLM / Email Templates section to configure the email that will be sent to the end-user when an order is placed. Email templates are configured per product.

• Enter a header for the email
• Select the product
• Enter the body of the email
• Finally, enter the footer of the email
• Click Update

 To place a test order:

• In the WordPress left panel, click Products
• Locate your main product and click View
• Click Add To Cart
• Locate the cross-sell maintenance plan product and click it
• Click Sign up Now
• Click View Cart
• Click Proceed to Checkout
• Enter your Billing Details and click Continue
• Click Continue for Additional Information
• Select your payment method and proceed to pay
• Once payment is completed, go to the WordPress left panel and click WooCommerce / Orders
• Locate the order you just placed and click it
• If the Order Status is set to Pending Payment, set it to Processing then click Save Order in the right-hand panel.
• At this point, a license key should have been generated and the maintenance plan should be enabled.
• In the Order details page, scroll to the bottom of the page and locate the License Keys section. It should contain the generated key(s).
• In case an error occurred while processing the transaction, a note in the right-hand panel displays details about the error.