Browse Author: krisp

HostBill 4.0.0 Preview: Reports/Audit tools

Soon (on 2012-10-19) HostBill will reach its 4.0.0 milestone. It took us approx. 1 year and over 28 (!) public releases to get here (you can track last year’s progress at http://hostbillapp.com/changelog).

In this blog post we’d like to show you feature that is scheduled for 4.0 release: Reports.

HostBill had (and still has) built-in statistics as graphical representation, but we realize some data look better (and sometimes has to be) presented in numbers and on paper. 4.0 comes with over 20 useful and insightful reports, such as Sales tax liability, support ticket ratings reports, transactions per gateway etc.

Best part is – reports are customizable with drag & drop, and each result set can be limited with custom criteria, to get exactly what you need in fast and easy way!

HostBill 3.9.6 Preview: Client-Configurable Bandwidth Billing

You may already know that HostBill works great with Colocation/Dedicated servers offering, allowing to measure and bill for bandwidth usage – more details can be found here: http://hostbillapp.com/features/colocation.php

With 3.9.6 we’re introducing new possibility – your clients will be able to choose their bandwidth billing method, and limits directly from cart! One mouse click in product configuration, and you can set smart product configuration.

Using this method overage rate is calculated automatically, based on pricing client selected during order.
It also allows client to upgrade to higher bandwidth limit anytime during billing cycle!

HostBill 3.9.6 Preview: Dynamic attachment uploads

Your clients will love improvement scheduled for 3.9.6 release (2012-09-28) – dynamic attachment uploads for support tickets. Just drag & drop files into upload area or choose them manually and you’re there – no more hours of waiting after ticket submit for attachments to upload. Let them load once message is being composed!

HostBill 3.9 Preview: New Client area variation: “NextGen Clean”

Our NextGen theme released few months ago changed industry outlook on client section of service provider websites. It’s time to make it even better!
With HostBill 3.9 we’re introducing new variation of this popular theme, called “Nextgen Clean” – we’ve made it nicer to eye with pixel-perfect attention to details, take a look on some screenshots or watch short style walk-trough:

A few screenshots:




Coming up with 3.9: HostBill AutoUpgrade & AutoPatch

HostBill is well known of its outstanding pace of development and rapid new releases. We’ve decided to make process of upgrade easier to HostBill users, that’s why with release of HostBill 3.9 (2012-09-07) we’re introducing HostBill AutoUpgrade & AutoPatch

This Plugin (enabled by default) periodically checks for new HostBill versions & patches – if a new version is available, administrators will see following notification:


Upgrading to latest HostBill version is simple as clicking one button:

Quick video commentary:
– Plugin checks for the latest version available
– After confirming upgrade new HostBill is automatically downloaded
– Archive is safely extracted
– Database is being updated to the latest version

Feature Overview: Order Scenarios

With recent release of HostBill we’ve completely re-designed order process in HostBill. It was scheduled for a long time and as some of our cusomers demanded it – we’ve decided to give it a go, and boy we’re glad we did!

We called this feature Order Scenarios.

Each orderpage (also known as product category) in HostBill can have different Order Scenario attached.
Order Scenarios define what steps should HostBill take after client submits the order. Following are default steps:

1. Automated Fraud Prevention – if third party fraud prevention module is enabled (like MaxMind MinFraud) HostBill can verify whether order was fraudulent, and if so it can automatically rule out such order and prevent account from being provisioned
2. Enable Invoice – You can choose to approve this step manually – if invoice is enabled it’s visible in client area and allowed to pay – for some expensive services you may want to review order at this early stage before processing it.
3. Authorize Payment – If order was submitted with credit card HostBill can automatically authorize payment before capturing it. You can also choose to authorize it manually – this way you will be 100% sure if credit card submitted is valid and with enough funds. Not only credit cards can be authorized with HostBill – you can even verify buyer PayPal to see if it’s valid!
4. Capture Payment – Order good so far? Time to collect money – you can choose to do it manually or automatically by HostBill.
5. Provision Order items – Time to create ordered hosting accounts – HostBill can do this automatically after receiving payment, just like it always did. You can also set this step to be manual and review order once again, just to be 100% sure!
6. Final order review – Account was created, but your fraud verification is delayed? You surely don’t want valid customers to wait! Provision their account automatically first and review order once it’s provisioned to finally mark order as active – this step is optional.

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Don’t follow your hosting competition with features – invest in HostBill and always be few steps ahead!
HostBill – constant innovations – changing face of hosting billing industry since 2009!

Dive into Cloud Hosting with HostBill!

No matter what you think about cloud hosting – it’s here to stay. Whether it’s best invention since sliced bread or just marketing hype – you can (and you should!) make money out of it.

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Don’t know where to start? Start with a stable billing system + cloud platform that suits your pocket. Here are just a couple of ways on how to bring IaaS to your customers with minimum hassle, and most importantly with fully automated provisioning through HostBill:

Method 1: Have few more bucks to spend on hardware? Build your own cloud!

Consider OnApp – integration with HostBill includes Cloud, CDN, Load Balancers
Or try CloudStack – sell cloud/vps with rich end-client interface

Method 2: Little less money for hardware? How about Cloud VPS service?

HostBill provides feature-rich integration top VPS control panels like:
SolusVM
Citrix XenServer
Virtuozzo
VMware ESxi

Method 3: Just starting? Let other worry about hardware – time to resell cloud!

Number of VPS/Cloud hosting providers already offers HostBill modules, including:
Vps.net
Dediserve
RackSpace
Linode

Any control panel/platform is missing for you? Let us know – we can automate everything! 😉

HostBill 3.1.4 release – changes/improvements

It’s been a week – so time for another update from HostBill team!
Lets take a glimpse of today-released, all new, HostBill 3.1.4:

Further OnApp improvements

Our already great integration with OnApp Cloud just got better! Your clients will now have access to the new backup-related features, including:

Backup->Template conversion
If you offer cloud/vps backup space, you can now add them the ability to convert their backups into re-usable OS Templates from HostBill interface with just few mouse clicks – simple as that!

onapp_backup_convert

Backup Schedule
If you enable Schedules in related OnApp user roles your clients will see new option in their client area interface – Schedule Backup. With this option your customers will be able to manage their automated backup schedules, allowing them to create daily/weekly/monthly/yearly backups.
onapp_backup_schedule

New ticket department permissions

Now you can use additional settings in your Ticket departments including:
– Allowing staff member to reply using email
– Prevent customers from closing a ticket opened by staff member
– Prevent customers from re-opening a ticket closed by staff member

Of course there is lot more in the new version. For full list of changes/fixes go to hostbillapp.com/changelog/

I’d like to take the opportunity and wish our valued customers and friends Happy Holidays and a New Year from HostBill team. It’s been an amazing year for us, full of great integrations, major HostBill improvements and number of great new customers to work with.
See you in 2012!

Overview of new HostBill features

A lot has changed since the last post on this blog – our development yet again gained momentum and we’ve introduced a number of cool new features in HostBill. Lets take a quick tour of what’s new in HostBill:

Invoice templates

Everything is marketing – even invoices sent to customers. Make sure your invoices stand out! With new HostBill feature – invoice templates – customizing your HTML & PDF invoices sent from HostBill is really simple! Just use built-in editor to create your own, professional looking invoice, and impress your customers! No programming skills & file edits required! Learn more here.

Translation tags

Now HostBill is the first and only, 100% Multilingual billing system! Each aspect can be translated to your customer’s native language – product names, email templates, registration fields, form elements, news, knowledgebase & much more! With easy to use translation tags you can generate a tag, that will be replaced with value in visitor language – simple as that! Learn more here

PowerDNS integration

PowerDNS is the best Open Source solution for Managed DNS hosting available. Now with our feature-rich integration you can give your clients ability to manage their DNS records in a fast and user-friendly way trough the billing system interface. Learn more about this integration at PowerDNS Feature page

OnApp module re-built

Our integration with OnApp is already known as the best-one available, we’ve decided to make it even better by introducing fresh client area template & a set of brand new features. Make sure to check our OnApp feature page to learn more about recent improvements.

Direct Order Link plugin & few updates from HostBill dev team

What we’ve recently been up to? It’s been a while since the last post here, in case you haven’t noticed yet we’re posting updates and plugins more often on our second blog – extras.hostbillapp.com. So whats new in HostBill?

  1. HostBill 3.0 has been released few days ago, featuring major domain management updates
  2. We’ve introduced OnApp:LoadBalancers integration as the only billing system on the market!
  3. Security has been significantly improved + we’ve added built-in security manager.
  4. Languages are no longer kept in database, you can easily manage them through Admin: Language manager
  5. I could go on like this for a long time…

…but why not develop something now? OK!

Introducing: Direct Order Link Plugin

If you’re already using HostBill you probably know that you can use Direct order link for services, so client can add product to the cart without selecting one from the list by visiting a certain URL. Now with Direct Order Links plugin you can do much more! How to use it:

– Log in as an administrator & activate Direct Order Link plugin

– While logged in, visit your client area -> cart

– Select product, configure it the way you want (add addons, set forms elements, set values, billing cycles, discounts etc.)

– Click on Generate Now

– You will receive direct order link that will contain your current cart configuration – send it to customer for rapid checkout process!

Price: FREE Download
To install: Extract archive in your main HostBill directory and follow screencast guides to activate.
This plugin will be included with HostBill 3.1 by default