FRH Dave

Getting the same problem here. Confirmed your solution works. I did mine a little differently: I deleted the server group, then changed one of the packages to use "any". Definitely seems like a bug, and it's not just you!

Is there a built-in process for restoring a database created from the backup function? If not, what's the procedure to do so? I can't find it referenced in the manual. Thanks.

Dragging this topic back into the limelight. I don't know how I didn't notice this was added! This is great! The single biggest issue we run into is John Doe signs up for a hosting account, but Jane Smith is the developer. Jane Smith opens a ticket requesting assistance with some obscure PHP thing. When we reply, if the response goes to John Doe, John replies with "what is this, I have no idea what you're talking about etc". It would be nice to have the ability to allow a contact to semi-privately send tickets. Perhaps the tickets would still be accessible to the main client, but the main client wouldn't receive any notifications on them. This way, nothing is hidden from the client, but they also aren't getting bothered by updates to tickets that they don't understand or don't care about. If you want to put icing on the cake, allow the admin to define certain contact types for "transparent tickets". For example, each contact type gets a "direct ticket routing" checkbox. If checked, ticket responses don't go to the main user. That way, a "developer" contact can open tickets without bothering the user, but tickets from a "billing" contact would always cc the user. Finally, updating the docs might be in order here. A quick blurb explaining what the contacts are would be helpful. Also, the current screenshot simply shows "Name" as an example. It might be more helpful to show "Billing" or "Developer" or something like that; otherwise, someone might think they have to manually create name, address, phone, etc fields.

I'm getting ready to start testing with live data. Before I do, I have a few questions: What happens if the import script attempts to import a product, but my existing product price doesn't match? IE, a customer has a "Medium Dark" VPS at the old price of $24.99, but I'm currently charging $29.99. I assume Blesta will start immediately processing orders, attempting to collect payments, sending emails, etc. Will disabling the cron job kill this behavior completely? I don't want to confuse anybody with redundant emails (since I'm still live in WHMCS), let alone double-bill anyone. I'd also love any feedback on my dilemma. Out of all my VPSes, about 50 are custom packages. For example, they might have an $80 VPS with a $20 cPanel add-on, plus a 25% discount on the whole thing, bringing the price to $75. In Blesta I'm dropping my cPanel price to $15 / mo, and that VPS package's non-discount price is $80 / mo. When I import this customer, will Blesta forcibly change their price to $95 / mo? Will Blesta know enough to add a cPanel package to the account? In WHMCS, the VPS is the main package, with cPanel as a "control panel" configurable option. I'm currently about halfway through creating custom "grandfathered pricing" packages to match up on the price point. Tell me there's an easier way.

Will you be adding the ability to import packages? If so, I'd love to see it import the recurring price as well. The discounts in WHMCS generally apply to the entire package, so if I have an $85 VPS + $20 cPanel + 20% coupon code, that's 20% off $105 = $84. Because our setup in Blesta is going to be a little different, and because we're grandfathering old prices, I was planning on creating a custom package for each imported package that contains a discount. Needless to say this is going to be a little time consuming, so having Blesta do it automatically would be great.

Any updates on this particular importer?

No, the calendar is not very helpful. Their calendar doesn't have the ability to auto-populate events (create a "3-day customer followup with user ____" entry 3 days after service is activated, etc) so I've never touched it.

Good to hear! The latest version of my current billing system broke all my product descriptions and is causing issues with some emails being sent. I can't wait to get out of this spaghetti disaster.

I like the way Steven from Rack911 handles these. He contacts the vendor first and gives them ample time and opportunity to fix the problem. If the exploit is severe and the vendor's response is "meh", he'll then post about it on WHT. He won't post the exploit steps or where the exploit resides, but he'll make everyone aware that critical vulnerabilities were uncovered, that the vendor was contacted on xx/xx/xx, and that their response was "meh". In the meantime, do keep working on the import module. Lots of us are eagerly awaiting an import module for our current billing system.

The sooner the better! Can't switch until the script is ready.

Just stumbled across this thread while searching for XenServer. Looks good! I assume noc-ps is not required for XenServer? We use resellers for most of our dedicated servers, but I've been considering migrating our to virtualization over to Proxmox or XenServer open source. EDIT - From reading the link, it looks like this DOES require noc-ps, even if I'm only using XenServer (and not managing dedicated servers). Correct? That clocks in around $8.30 / month, which is less than I'm paying for SolusVM. Not bad.

And so it begins: the great Blesta community module drive.

Yes, I would LOVE to see this, but it would still need manual review. I wouldn't want it to automatically send a retention offer. Can you imagine if someone goes in to cancel their spouse's account because they're recently passed away, and the host sends out an unfortunately-worded "We're just DYING to earn your business back!" email?

This suggestion has been brought up before, and the community seemed to be against it almost universally: http://staging.blesta.com/forums/index.php?/topic/214-suggestion-remove-invoices-and-services Basically, deleting an invoice goes against sound accounting principles, is not a good business practice, and calls the integrity of the billing system into question. If you want to negate an invoice (as you described), you can simply void it out. That leaves a record of the invoice having been created, but doesn't leave an outstanding AR.

Hah - love the shot of Cody at WHMCS! The hosting industry is great. Sure we all sell against each other and compete for many of the same customers, but there's a tremendous amount of behind-the-scenes help going on. Look at how often the heavy hitters from Softlayer / Rack911 / InnoHosting / etc hang out on WHT and offer help to newbies. It's like a giant, free, master class on web hosting, and when it hits the fan, you've always got some very experienced, very intelligent people to help out. However: There's definitely a series of cliques going on there. If you're a tiny host (those of us with under a thousand subscribers), I can definitely see feeling "left out". When you're chatting with guys talking about how they just bought 14 racks worth of E5-2620s, it can be a little hard to relate about how you hope the half rack of E3-1230s you ordered last month give you enough capacity for six months' worth of new customers. There were a few vendors at HostingCon 2012 who literally walked away from us mid-conversation when they found out we were in the sub-1000 club. Not going to name & shame those vendors, but they added themselves to my personal "never buy" list. On the other hand, some of the vendors really went out of their way to be awesome to us and other tiny hosts. PhoenixNAP organized a bar crawl with open bars, and EVERYONE was invited. Bill from TheSSLStore, after talking about our projected annual revenue (we were only seven months old at the time), upgraded us to their cheapest pricing tier and spent a LONG time talking sales techniques with me. The guys from Limestone Networks chased me down (figuratively!) to chat about FRH's marketing and strategy. Now, maybe those were all just examples of good sales technique (especially since we're now working with a lot of those vendors), but being a tiny host means you don't get too many big-name vendors actively chasing you down and learning about your company while trying to earn your business. All too often, it's "the rest of the industry uses us and you will too, and we really don't care either way". Most of the keynotes we attended in 2012 were either really mediocre or just badly executed. Definitely not worth the $$$, largely due to the quality of information and presentation. I'm seriously considering getting a tradeshow-only pass for 2014.

Apparently HB licenses are selling for around $50 - $100 on hostbillforums. I'd be furious if I was one of the suckers who paid $999 a few weeks ago -- now it's worth 95% less! Agreed, their only saving grace is their order forms. Speaking of, how are the new Blesta order forms coming along? Any sneak previews?

As far as I know, they can only be ordered directly through Interworx. I believe they'll be willing to offer a free trial license so you can fiddle around with things.