The Customer Reviews Module

The reviews module lets your customers connect their own public review profiles and pull those reviews into the portal, so the feedback their business collects sits alongside their hosting. It is an optional module: you switch it on, seed the platform list, and provide the API credentials its connectors need.

Before you start #

Three things have to be in place before a customer can use it:

1. Switch the module on. Under Platform Settings → General & System, tick Enable Reviews Module and save the form.
2. Seed the platform list. The review platform table starts empty and is not populated by the standard install seeders. Run it once:

   php artisan db:seed --class=ReviewPlatformsSeeder

   That creates the Google, Facebook and Trustpilot platform rows.

3. Provide a Google Places API key. Google syncing reads the Places API, using GOOGLE_PLACES_API_KEY from your .env.

Warning: Only the Google connector actually fetches reviews. The Facebook tab cannot be used at all — its button is disabled and reads Login with Facebook (Temporarily Disabled). A Trustpilot connection can be created and stored, but its sync handler is a placeholder in this build and brings nothing back.

Note: The Enable Reviews Module switch is off until the setting has been saved at least once, even though the description reads as though it defaults to on. Tick it and save the form to be sure.

What the customer sees #

With the module on, customers get two screens:

With the module off, both screens redirect to the dashboard with “The reviews module is currently disabled.”

Adding a Google connection #

1. Open Reviews → Connections and stay on the Google tab.
2. Paste the Google Maps URL of the business profile into Enter Place ID or Google Maps URL.
3. Select Connect Google.

Warning: Despite the field label, a bare Place ID is rejected. The value is validated as a URL, so it must start with http:// or https:// — paste the full Maps address.

A Maps URL is resolved to a Place ID on the first sync — from a place_id query parameter if there is one, otherwise by looking the business name up through the Places API — and the resolved ID replaces the stored URL so it does not have to be worked out again.

Syncing #

Download Reviews, on the Active Connections card, queues one job per connection. Two limits apply:

• A manual sync is allowed once every 14 days per account. Attempting one sooner returns “You can only manually sync reviews once every 14 days.”
• Only one sync can run at a time per account; a second request gets “A sync is already in progress.”

Each run writes a sync log with a status of queued, processing, success or failed, and the failure message where there is one. Reviews are matched on their platform identifier, so re-syncing updates existing entries rather than duplicating them.

Removing a connection #

Deleting a connection also deletes every review that came in through it. A customer can only delete their own connections.

Putting reviews in the navigation #

The menu builder has a ready-made condition, Only if the reviews module is on, so you can add a Reviews link to the customer sidebar that hides itself when the module is switched off. See Navigation Menus.

Troubleshooting #