Hi,

I'd like to hear opinions on the Ensim billing manager from anyone who's running it, as well as see the customer sign-up form if you're using it.


Thanks,
-Bob

Hi,

We run the Ensim CBM - I am overall very happy with it. My only issues are in regards to customizing the look and feel - which although seems to be possible, in practice isn't becuase of bad style sheet implementation. Also of note is that it literally crawls in Netscape (although runs fine in IE and Opera).

You can see the sign-pages it creates by looking at the sign-up at our web site (we haven't customized them due to the issues previously mentioned with the style sheets).

Originally posted by nmihosting
Hi,

We run the Ensim CBM - I am overall very happy with it. My only issues are in regards to customizing the look and feel - which although seems to be possible, in practice isn't becuase of bad style sheet implementation. Also of note is that it literally crawls in Netscape (although runs fine in IE and Opera).

You can see the sign-pages it creates by looking at the sign-up at our web site (we haven't customized them due to the issues previously mentioned with the style sheets).


I do agree. I am happy with it but the customization could be a little cumbersome to setup.

Originally posted by nmihosting
Hi,

We run the Ensim CBM - I am overall very happy with it. My only issues are in regards to customizing the look and feel - which although seems to be possible, in practice isn't becuase of bad style sheet implementation. Also of note is that it literally crawls in Netscape (although runs fine in IE and Opera).

You can see the sign-pages it creates by looking at the sign-up at our web site (we haven't customized them due to the issues previously mentioned with the style sheets).

Thanks Leeanne (and KevinG) for the info. I do have a few more questions if you don't mind-

Is billing done on the account anniversary, or can/will it pro-rate new signups to the first of the month and bill everyone on the same date?

Are there any provisions for working domain registrations into the order process? I went as far as I dared on Kevin's order form without actually placing an order, and didn't see a place to do this.

Is a domain name required in order to process the order and activate the account?

Can account upgrades be performed easily, and is the customer's billing status updated accordingly?

I apologise for all the questions, but I'm having a tremendously hard time digging up any info on this thing.

Thanks again,
-Bob

How much does it cost?

Sorry for the seond post.

Is the billing manager the same as the reseller automation suite?

Do it allow you to offer reseller packages, like where your reseller will have there own CP and can add domains etc. You can also set limits like the amount of B/W and space they have.

Thanks,

Originally posted by puggy106
Sorry for the seond post.

Is the billing manager the same as the reseller automation suite?

Do it allow you to offer reseller packages, like where your reseller will have there own CP and can add domains etc. You can also set limits like the amount of B/W and space they have.

Thanks,

I dont know if this offers that but there was a guy on the RS forums that was offering a reseller plugin of some sorts his name was brendon or brandon. Look in the Ensim add-on forum and you should see it.. I am also waiting for the same thing but waiting for the 3.1 release.

Originally posted by TMX
Is billing done on the account anniversary, or can/will it pro-rate new signups to the first of the month and bill everyone on the same date?

You are able to configure the system to set-up each new account by default to be either billed on a pre-specified date such as the first of the month, or to bill on the anniversary of sign-up. The billing date is not set in stone, so you can adjust it for each customer as and when you need to. If you set a specific date such as the first of the month then new set-ups will be pro-rated.

Originally posted by TMX
Are there any provisions for working domain registrations into the order process? I went as far as I dared on Kevin's order form without actually placing an order, and didn't see a place to do this.

Is a domain name required in order to process the order and activate the account?

During the sign-up process the customer is always asked to input the domain name. They are also asked to choose whether it is a new domain, a domain to be tranfered, etc. If the customer chooses new domain then it is flagged as such in the order you receive. But there is no way during the sign-up process to automatically add in the cost for a new domain if the customer selects this option. You can provision plan add-ons, but the customer has to choose these after they have sign-up and their account has been created.

A domain name would only NOT be required if you created what is called a 'custom plan' - which basically means that all the fields the customer fills out are pre-defined by you - but this is not practical for hosting plans because custom plans cannot be provisioned on your Ensim box. The plans that can be provisioned on your Ensim box have preset fields such as domain name, login name etc (you of course are able to define the attributes of your plans, just not the questions asked during set-up).



Originally posted by TMX
Can account upgrades be performed easily, and is the customer's billing status updated accordingly?

You are not able to upgrade a plan by just clicking a button. You can either set-up a whole new plan (not practical) or you can log on to the main Ensim control panel, upgrade the plan values accordingly and just adjust the cost of the plan in the CBM.

If you have any other questions I will do my best to answer them
:)

To elaborate more on what I was saying earlier about customization, I found the following issues:

1. The CBM uses two style sheets and we are only able to customize one of them - the one we can update only controls less than half of the look and feel of the CBM - so you end up with a very ugly clash of colors if you try to customize.

2. Adding any customization to the sign-up pages causes the HTML code of those pages to be generated incorrectly and basically not load in most cases. Head tags start appearing at the bottom of pages, multiple style sheet links are included. It is basically a mess. Not customizing the pages is the only way to avoid problems.

Originally posted by OKIHost
I dont know if this offers that but there was a guy on the RS forums that was offering a reseller plugin of some sorts his name was brendon or brandon. Look in the Ensim add-on forum and you should see it.. I am also waiting for the same thing but waiting for the 3.1 release.

There will be a Reseller feature in the new 3.1 version of Ensim, but I also saw the post regarding the third-party addon. It is probably advisable to wait for the official Ensim one.

Originally posted by puggy106
Is the billing manager the same as the reseller automation suite?

Yes it is. I have seen it called both the Customer Billing Manager (CBM) and the Reseller Automations Suite. I think Customer Billing Manager is the official name given to it by Ensim.

Originally posted by puggy106
Do it allow you to offer reseller packages, like where your reseller will have there own CP and can add domains etc. You can also set limits like the amount of B/W and space they have.

Using the CBM you can have resellers because customers are able to provison additional plans via their login area in the CBM. These plans are billed to them - but they can only resell individual pre-set plans as defined by you. If you look at our reseller program you will see what I am talking about. The new Reseller option coming in Ensim 3.1 will be the thing that allows you to offer bulk reselling which is where you give a reseller a portion of disk space and bandwidth and allow them to resell it as they wish.

Well said Leeanne. You covered all the bases.

Oh, I forgot to mention ... just incase Ensim is reading this ... the Ticket system .... please, please, please can you have it email the customer when a response is made to their ticket and email the service provider each time the customer adds to the ticket!

Currently only the service provider gets an email, and that is when the ticket is opened. No email is sent to the customer and the service provider doesn't get an email if the customer updates the ticket. Making the ticket system way harder to manage than it should be.

Originally posted by DaHOST
Well said Leeanne. You covered all the bases.

:D Well at least I have verified that others have come to the same conclusions as me!

BTW ... the 'generate statement' button which says that if you click it a statement will be generated .... is it just me or do you too also think it is stupid that the statement that is generated isn't actually sent out :eek:
At first I thought it was a bug or something ... why would you gerenate a statement that you cannot send :laugh: But apparantly not, I asked and they said it wasn't supposed to email out the statement :confused:

Anyway, non of the things discussed here are mission critical and my overall experience with the CBM is that it rocks. It really has made our lives at NMI Hosting much easier - I am sure the bugs that currently exist will be fixed eventually.

Originally posted by nmihosting


If you have any other questions I will do my best to answer them
:)

Just one more, then I'll leave you alone :)

You can either set-up a whole new plan (not practical) or you can log on to the main Ensim control panel, upgrade the plan values accordingly and just adjust the cost of the plan in the CBM.

Does the CBM allow you to do this on a per-customer basis? For instance, "customer A" is currently on a standard plan, but needs an extra 100 mb of space - can I individually customize his account and modify his monthly charges accordingly, or would the plan he's currently on have to be modified across-the-board?

Thanks again for all the info, it's been a huge help.

-Bob

Where can I get the CBM to use with Ensim's Webppliance?

Originally posted by TMX
Does the CBM allow you to do this on a per-customer basis? For instance, "customer A" is currently on a standard plan, but needs an extra 100 mb of space - can I individually customize his account and modify his monthly charges accordingly, or would the plan he's currently on have to be modified across-the-board?

A plan definition - a plan template you set up with certain values - is used to create plan instances. Once you create a plan instance for 'customer a' that instance is no longer connected to the definition that created it. So even if you change the values of the plan definition, instances that have already been created by that definition do not change. To change the values of a plan instance you have to edit the instance itself, in the Ensim WebAppliance control panel, not in the CBM. The only aspect of an instance that you can change in the CBM the recurring price of the plan.

But if for example 'customer a' wants 5GB more bandwidth per month, you can attach a recurring charge for this to the customers plan instance as an add-on. Therefore 'customer a' would see his/her regular monthly fee for their hosting plan and an seperate charge for the extra bandwidth. The CBM would automatically charge for that bandwidth every single month until you cancelled the addon. You can do the same for extra POP's or disk space, anything basically.

:)

Originally posted by GoldenTiger
Where can I get the CBM to use with Ensim's Webppliance?

Regardless of where your Ensim is server is hosted, you can actually go to any provider who offers the CBM and they can hook you up for a monthly fee. WebReseller.net seem to the ones most openly offering the CBM. I looked at Rack Shack and they don't see them mentioning it.

How much is CMB from webreseller.net?

Originally posted by puggy106
How much is CMB from webreseller.net?

I am not sure puggy106, you should email sales@webreseller.net and ask them. They generally offer the CBM as part of their dedicated server packages, but I heard Rob thier CEO say on web hosting radio recently that they could also offer it to those whose server was hosted elsewhere.