I though we should put some clarification on that. What manual mode is? If you browse HostBill admin section, you can notice checkboxes on the top and the bottom of account and domain details screen.

I’d like to explain shortly what it does.

What it is doing?

Click it and you’ll see that overview of window changed – background color changed to violet as well as account listing background, so you can notice you’re in manual mode. Once being in manual mode in accounts you have the ability to run every function of current module, no matter what current account status is.  Manual mode is for non-typical situations – for example when account is out of sync with server, you want to change account status w/o running module function or you want to change account domain or username in order to synchronize it back with server state. Situations may be different and as it turned out manual mode can be used for situation we didn’t even predicted.

In normal mode only logical actions are allowed – for example if account is Pending you can only run Create command, change accounts username/password/domain in HostBill for future account creation in your control panel.

Same is for domains – in manual mode turned on you have access to all registrar functions, no matter of current domain status – you can additionally change registration period and expiration date if for some reason you weren’t able to synchronize these details automatically with HostBill. You can also change registrar and registration date – everything which is unusual for regular HostBill functioning.

To sum things up – manual mode is your friend if anything goes wrong, if your account or domain is out of sync with HostBill or if you forgot to manage your accounts using HostBill and used control panel instead. For normal work turn it off, so you can be sure that you won’t make any random mistakes.

Found interesting way of using manual mode? Write in comments why and when you’re using it.