Jump to content
  • 0

Questions for Blesta setup and intergration.


Elijha

Question

HI I'm looking at Blesta,

Firstly I'm wondering if a trial option exists, the demo looks good but I'm unsure how somethings work such as linking MY cPanel server with existing client accounts and packages to the Blesta system packages and creating and linking accounts. There is a non-trivial cost to this software so I'd like to see if what I need done to make it work for me is feasible in a reasonable time frame and hands on and trying plugin development will help.

One thing is we do work under different 'businesses' basically IT Support, Hosting/Domains and Hardware. These are treated as different 'business' under the same company or brands I guess. So they get different invoices under different names/branding/domains  -but we share the same client pool.

I can see it supports multi companies and that could suit my needs  - but Ideally I want a single authentication that could work under businessA.com/client  or businessB.com/client with different branding and links to go from one to another once signed in or even just see all correctly branded invoices in the invoice history?

Secondly under invoices from "IT Support" I want to attach a File with the invoice or at least a perma-link have a download link in the invoice to retrieve the file with a non-guessable GUID url (its list of support tickets and time used).

From what I can tell I will need some (extensions, plugins, modules - I need to find where these are defined as the differences) built or added to suit my needs,

- Fresh Desk Integration for support tickets generation / linking clients and pulling report data for invoicing
- invoice type with attachments (I want to attach a PDF of items as above)
- new Domain registrar type for renewal upon payment (TPP wholesale registration / renewal) are there good examples of this?
- Payment gateway (NAB Transact)

How does development work with licensing? .. ie can I with the one license have a copy on a local server to development off of? what are the best practices for doing so (ie test invoicing with out actually emailing invoices). 

 

Thank you.
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 answer to this question

Recommended Posts

  • 1
On 12/1/2018 at 1:54 AM, Elijha said:

HI I'm looking at Blesta,

Firstly I'm wondering if a trial option exists, the demo looks good but I'm unsure how somethings work such as linking MY cPanel server with existing client accounts and packages to the Blesta system packages and creating and linking accounts.

Yes, there is a 30-day free trial. You can download and install the software and be generated a trial key valid for that time period. See here (scroll down a little bit).

On 12/1/2018 at 1:54 AM, Elijha said:

One thing is we do work under different 'businesses' basically IT Support, Hosting/Domains and Hardware. These are treated as different 'business' under the same company or brands I guess. So they get different invoices under different names/branding/domains  -but we share the same client pool.

I can see it supports multi companies and that could suit my needs  - but Ideally I want a single authentication that could work under businessA.com/client  or businessB.com/client with different branding and links to go from one to another once signed in or even just see all correctly branded invoices in the invoice history?

What you've described is a bit different than how Blesta operates. Blesta uses "companies" to allow for multiple brands within the software, each equipped with their own company names, logos, invoice templates, clients, etc. In your case, it sounds like you use a single client across multiple brands, while Blesta has only unique clients, even across companies.

On 12/1/2018 at 1:54 AM, Elijha said:

Secondly under invoices from "IT Support" I want to attach a File with the invoice or at least a perma-link have a download link in the invoice to retrieve the file with a non-guessable GUID url (its list of support tickets and time used).

From what I can tell I will need some (extensions, plugins, modules - I need to find where these are defined as the differences) built or added to suit my needs,

- Fresh Desk Integration for support tickets generation / linking clients and pulling report data for invoicing
- invoice type with attachments (I want to attach a PDF of items as above)
- new Domain registrar type for renewal upon payment (TPP wholesale registration / renewal) are there good examples of this?
- Payment gateway (NAB Transact)

Invoices don't currently support attachments, so you would need a plugin to integrate that and its related functionality (e.g. downloading the attachments).

Typically, plugins are what you want when you are integrating functionality and event-driven actions within Blesta. Modules are specific integrations with third-party services (e.g. cPanel), and gateways are specific integrations with third-party payment processors (e.g. PayPal). We generally refer to plugins, modules, and gateways altogether as "extensions", but other customizations can fall into that category as well.

For domains, the integration depends on the module you're working with and what it supports. We're planning better domain support in general for Blesta in the future.

I haven't heard of NAB Transact, but if it accepts payments via POSTed credit cards it can be integrated as a merchant gateway in Blesta, or if it takes the client off-site to make a payment it can be integrated as a non-merchant gateway in Blesta.

On 12/1/2018 at 1:54 AM, Elijha said:

How does development work with licensing? .. ie can I with the one license have a copy on a local server to development off of? what are the best practices for doing so (ie test invoicing with out actually emailing invoices).

Each license can only be used once in a single location. However, we will grant a development license to owned license holders, and others upon request, for the purpose of making and testing your changes in a test environment.

Regarding testing invoices without emailing them, I would recommend simply not using real/live email addresses, and possibly disabling the cron from attempting to send emails automatically. I would go a step further and only use fake/test data in the test environment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Answer this question...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...