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electric

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Everything posted by electric

  1. The lack of a proper domain sales and management feature is what keeps us from switching to Blesta.
  2. Thanks. We need full integration with all of eNom's domain management functionality in order to use Blesta. (We use awbs.com right now, so if we switch to Blesta it would be a step backwards with regard to allowing our customer's to fully manage their domain names and related services. And since domain registration is a big part of what we sell (after all, who sells hosting without domain's, too?)... we are waiting patiently until Blesta catches up.) As soon as Blesta includes full eNom domain name management (for all domains, including ability to transfer/update .ca domains), then we'll start using Blesta for our customer management solution, as well as recommend it to all our resellers (over 450 of them). Hopefully it will be soon.
  3. Just wondering if there has been any progress on eNom integration since I last asked about it. (Full eNom integration is the only thing we're waiting on before we can switch over to Blesta. We can't switch if our customers can't properly manage their domain names from their customer account.)
  4. This is disappointing. I was hoping Blesta would be a little more mature with their eNom integration by now. Does anyone know if this is on the roadmap for future releases? If if so... when?
  5. Where can I find information about Blesta's eNom integration and capability? Does Blesta allow all eNom domain registration features to work correctly? (Including hosted DNS management, private nameserver registration, etc.) Does Blesta work with .ca domain registraitons from eNom? Does Blesta work with SSL certificate sales and configuration from eNom? Thanks.
  6. Sure, I understand what you're saying... but hosting requires a domain name. It's not an option. You have to have one. Every single customer also has to purchase/transfer/renew a domain name. And if they don't do their domains through us.. then they'll do it through godaddy, namecheap or some other popular company that also offers hosting along with domain stuff. In other words... if you're a hosting provider and you also aren't offering domain names to your customers... you're basically pushing them into the arms of another company who is practically guaranteed to be constantly trying to upsell hosting to your customer. Why would you do that? It's a little bit like an oil change place for cars. Sure, you can create a business that sells ONLY oil change. Nothing else. But why? Not only can you make extra money selling things like transmission oil change, light bulb replacement, engine cleaning, etc... but if you don't.. the potential customer is forced to go somewhere else... and that other place is also going to sell oil changes. Pretty soon your customer will decide it's simpler/easier to just bring their car to one place instead of two. I do not view hosting and domain management as two different services. They are two essential services in the same industry that go together. We don't just sell "hosting"... We sell hosting "service". And that includes domain name stuff, since it's absolutely required for every hosting customer. I have the same opinion about SSL certificates.... Any "hosting" billing app that doesn't include full featured SSL sales/management is not designed well. Why would you purposely not sell a service that will force your customer to find the arms of a different lover?
  7. Domain selling and management is critical to our business. So it's imperative we have a system that offers full features and functionality. It's why we have AWBS, which started life as a domain management system, and then had hosting added on. I've never understood the reason why so many billing software start with hosting, and then add domain management as though it is an afterthought. It's too bad Blesta took that route. We'll revisit Blesta periodically and hopefully some day it will include full featured domain management. I suspect it'll be a lot more popular once that happens. Thanks.
  8. Thanks very much. It sounds like Blesta isn't quite ready for us yet. Hopefully they'll get the eNom module up to par soon. Once they do, we'll re-visit Blesta as a possible solution for our needs. (Aside from the eNom module, everything else looks and works great.)
  9. Hello, I've heard mixed messages about the eNom module for Blesta. Is it "feature complete"? In other words... I've heard it is missing a few critical features, and is not nearly as complete as the eNom module for WHMCS. We are looking to switch from ABWS (which is fantastic software, but unfortunately seems to be no longer actively developed) to Blesta or WHMCS. I prefer Blesta, but ultimately... we need to provide our customers with all the features and functionality we currently have. This means, full and total domain name management within their billing/customer account area. - Domain registration (including working correctly with .ca) - Domain renewals (including auto-renewal ability) - Domain transfers (for all TLDs, including for .ca) - Registration/management of custom nameservers - Management of domain (change nameservers, contact info, etc) - DNS management (if using default eNom DNS, then management of email/URL forwarding, etc..) - Management of IDProtect feature (including integration with cart system for initial sale at time of registration) - eNom SSL certificates. (All of them.) - Support for all new TLDs. Does the Blesta eNom module support all these features? If not, what features, exactly are missing and will they be added soon? (In other words, if these features are missing.. is it temporary? And if so, what is the expected date of arrival for them?) Thanks.
  10. I agree with Jonathan on how this should work. Client logs into their account area, goes into the package details of their hosting service, and clicks a big "RENEW NOW" button. Blesta creates an invoice with a due date of whatever is the current expiry date of the service. If the invoice is paid, then the expiry date is extended by whatever is the service/package billing term (annual/monthly/whatever). Admin side doesn't need anything, because if we (admin) want to do this we can simply log into client's account and click the RENEW NOW button to create the invoice for them. I think the box to create multiple invoices like Jonathan said is overkill and not especially useful. In 12 years of hosting we've never had a single customer ask for multiple invoices to be created. The do, however, frequently want to pay for the next year/month even if the current term hasn't auto-created an invoice yet.
  11. +1 Customer should be able to renew their service early (at any time) if desired. For example, if customer knows they'll be away on holiday when their package normally renews.. then they must contact us to manually create an invoice and modify their package expiry, etc. It would be better if they can just click a simple "renew now" button and do it themselves.
  12. Licensecart, that is a good overview of the various billing systems. Here's some more: AWBS: Launched in 2001 (or maybe ealier) as DRAMS (Domain Registration And Management System). Later split into DRAMS "Regular" and DRAMS "Hosting Edition". Eventually combined into AWBS (Advanced Webhosting Billing System). Completely closed/encrypted code. Has tons of features and functionality, mostly bug free, and is very well supported. Sadly, there have been no updates or new releases since early 2013, and is considered abandoned by many license-holders. (Although support is still fast and excellent.) WHSuite: As of Sept 2014 it is still in Alpha status. It is about 95% unencoded, and is created by experienced developers and is built around a modular framework API that is open to everyone. (Similar setup as Blesta.)
  13. Agreed. Even though AWBS appears to be dead (no new development for the past 1.5 years), it is still very good. It's reliable (no serious bugs), and the support is still fast and excellent. Honestly I think AWBS is still better than any of the billing systems available right now. It has so many features, the domain mgmt. system is better than anything I've seen. I really can't understand why the owners/developers have not continued development. But whatever. We're still using it, and would love to see an import utility for Blesta. If we are going to switch to anything, it would most likely be Blesta. (I think there are actually quite a few people still using AWBS. After all.. why not? At one time they had a very large user base, and there really hasn't been any reason for all those users to switch to anything else. The reason the forums are dead are because it's bug-free, stable, software that already has all the features people need. There's little reason to visit the forums and post.)
  14. I just wanted to add my support for this feature request. In addition, I like the idea/requirement specified by FRH Dave. It is definitely necessary to be able to see visually why this price is special. Perhaps the ability to add a custom discount in addition (or instead of) a price over-ride is a good idea, along with a description of the price over-ride and/or discount. This way, when the invoice is created, the original/full price is put, along with the discount/over-ride price, so customer knows they are getting special pricing, and why. Thanks.
  15. Having lots of modules, plugins, and features is only nice if you actually need them. If WHMCS does something that Blesta doesn't, and you actually *need* that feature... then go for it. Use WHMCS. (And be sure to let the Blesta developers know about the feature you needed, so they can be aware of it.) Otherwise... if you don't actually need all those features and functions that WHMCS has... it is just software bloat and adds no real value to your business. In that case, then you should choose the software that meets your needs, and gives you the best sense of trust and partnership. Do you trust the WHMCS company? Do they seem like the kind of company you want to rely on for the most important and critical part of your business? (Billing, customer management, etc...) Software features is just one part of making the decision. If you don't actually *need* the many features included with WHMCS, then why include those features in your decision?
  16. I'm not sure about this. The problem is that we can have several hundred payments per day. We won't see any notes included with a payment unless it is somehow brought to our attention. So my thinking is that for this feature to work, it must somehow create a note that is then put into the dashboard of the software so billing admin can see it. Or, the "note" would simply be a shortcut of a new ticket in the billing/support ticket system. Thanks.
  17. electric

    Shorter Urls

    I agree with this, and would like to add my opinion that "short" URLs are important. It would be good for Blesta to have a "enable short urls" or "enable url rewriting" function, sort of like how wordpress does it. Then make those long unwieldy URLs into nice-looking short ones. Our current billing software (not Blesta, at the moment), we "solved" this problem by creating our own redirection script to handle incoming URLs, like this: http://ourdomain.com/go/login (Redirects to our customer login page.) It's a bit clunky, but works ok. Unfortunately, it isn't a permanent URL rewrite.. it's just a URL redirect. It would be fantastic if Blesta could actually include URL rewriting into their code so we can have nicer URLs.
  18. Contact eNom or your parent reseller and ask them for help. It is their job to assist you with using your eNom credentials properly. Also make sure you have enabled your eNom API, and set it up properly, etc. Go to the eNom support system and read the documentation on how to use the API and set it up correctly.
  19. Perhaps. The point I am making is that having a public roadmap that shows what features will be added (in what order) will be beneficial to potential Blesta customers such as myself who are evaluating and comparing the software against various other alternatives. For example, I have a list of basic features I need to support my business. When I research the various software possibilities, I have ruled out Blesta because it does not have some of those features. If I can see that those features are on the list to be added... then I will be much more likely to re-consider Blesta as a possible match for my needs. Without the roadmap, I am limited to spending a lot of time digging through old posts in the forums to see what Blesta management might have posted in response to someone else asking about that feature... and it's likely that info is outdated, irrelevant and possibly misleading at best.
  20. Without providing the API error you are seeing, it's impossible for anyone to assist you.
  21. In all honesty, a roadmap would be a great "feature" for Blesta to have when prospecting for new license sales. It would certainly allow people like me to make a more informed decision on whether we want to use Blesta or some other billing system. If I know that needed "feature x" and "feature y" are in the queue (and what order in the queue), then I'm much more likely to consider Blesta. Furthermore, I would argue there are few features so secret they can't be added to a public roadmap. Of course, if there's some radical new feature that no other billing system has, then it could be left out. However, I see no reason why any feature that exists in other billing systems shouldn't be included in a public roadmap. It would only serve to show Blesta management is serious and knowledgeable about the direction of their software, in order to make it fully competitive with the others available. Thanks.
  22. In all honesty, whenever we get fraud with paypal it is often with a verified account. It's not at unusual for someone with a verified paypal account to get hacked, and their account is used for bad things (like signing up for web hosting account and then sending spam or porn or whatever). In my opinion, a "verified" paypal account is just as likely to be fraud as any other payment method (except bitcoin).
  23. Yes, this is something we would also like to see. Admin should be able to set which fields are non-editable. (Make them all editable by default.) Maybe also link this to groups, so only certain group can edit certain fields, etc...
  24. In that case, it should be fairly straight-forward as long as you can get the good folks here at Blesta to allow you multiple IPs for your hostname. (I'm not sure how they restrict the licenses. ie: If it's by hostname or by IP or both.)
  25. Are you wanting to have website failover, or load balancing? ie: What kind of "redundancy" are you looking to accomplish? If you want to have load balancing, then you could do that now as I think Blesta license would be associated with your front-end load-balancing device or server. Then the back-end would be transparent to Blesta, as you split services between the machines in your cluster. If you're talking about a failover setup, then this would be possible if you can get the Blesta folks to allow you to have multiple IPs associated with your license. In that case, you would have the same licensed hostname, but with multiple IPs.
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