Feature requests for Plesk 10

[Scy]

Hi,

After succeeding Parallels to develope something on Plesk 10 that was requested many, many times before (see my Top 3 feature request.. post on Plesk 9 forum), I am going to try my luck and request an additional feature, that I think Plesk still misses the most. It is as simple as:

1. Plesk cannot send FTP account and FTP password via E-mail Notification System when creating domain/subscription

That's correct. How on Earth this has not been implemented yet?

The thing is that if you create nice little templates in the Plesk notification system, that sends welcome e-mail when creating new clients (in Plesk 9) or customers (in Plesk 10), you can have those templates to automatically be filled with just created Plesk account and password. This is easy by adding the following lines in the "Creation of a user account" (Plesk 9) and "Creation of a customer account" (Plesk 10) templates:

Your Plesk login is: <client_login>
Your Plesk password is: <password>

and Plesk nicely replaces the <client_login> and <password> with corresponding just create credentials. This is just fine so far!

However, usually any domain (in Plesk 9) or subscription (in Plesk 10) requires also a creation of FTP account and password for it. But there is no such option in include those in the "Creation of a domain name" (Plesk 9) and "Creation of a new subscription" (Plesk 10) templates.

So what I am missing are the parametres such as:

<ftp_login>
<ftp_password>

Which would allow us to automate the sending of FTP accounts as well. Now the new client/customer doesn't automatically know the newly created FTP accounts and passwords. (This isn't usually a big issue if the ftp login and password is set to be the same than plesk login and password. However, if you try to add second or third domain/subscription to same clien/customer account, the ftp account must be a different).

So my feature request is simple: Please send a development team to implement such feature to include <ftp_login> and
<ftp_password> fields in the domain/subscription creation templates.

Could IgorG or anyone from Parallels confirm that this feature could be implemented and/or at least make a feature request out of it? Also, if you, the other Plesk admins, feels that this is the feature that is missed, please show your support by commenting this thread. I feel that on the last time I was able to push the new feature trough - let's do it again! Please comment and support this feature request!

 

[IgorG]

I have submitted your feature request to developers.
Also I think that theoretically this feature can be implemented now with Event manager and some special script for domain creation event.

 

[Scy]

I have submitted your feature request to developers.

That is a great news. I should have asked this earlier. Hopefully it will be implemented soon. I also hope everybody who would feel this feature benecifial would support the request by commenting this thread.

Also I think that theoretically this feature can be implemented now with Event manager and some special script for domain creation event.

In that case we would need some kind of step-by-step instructions how to do that. I have no idea which parametre outputs the newly created ftp account and it's password in case this would be implemented trough event manager (running for e.g. sh script that sends the notifications).

 

[lvalics]

Until will be implemented, you can use Power Toys for this. This is one of the tool from this software and is only 29USD

 

[Scy]

Okay,

As there is no "Sitebuilder 5.0" subsection yet in the forum's "Parallels Plesk Sitebuilder for Linux" section, and as currently Sitebuilder 5.0 is not a stand-alone product, but integrated with Plesk 10, I believe is correct behaviour if I shall type some feature request of Sitebuilder 5.0 on this same thread.

So IgorG, would you please be so kind and submit these feature requests also to Sitebuilder 5 development team. I also would suggest everybody who would feel these are beneficial, to support my request by replying this thread. So here we go:

First of all I have to say I like the new simpler concept of Sitebuilder 5.0. Removing the lot of complicated stages of creating pages and simply offering users a categorial based selection and jumping directly modifying pre-generated pages is just great. I also like the smaller and simpler movable editing window/panel of Sitebuilder 5.0. This is something that is very good base for developing the best Sitebuilder product ever.

However, there are some setbacks in the current Sitebuilder 5.0 product. I understand that it's a a new product and builded from scratch instead of from older generation of Sitebuilder 4.5. Keeping that in mind I still have some feature requests. I hope Parallels could implement these very soon, as they're essential to make Sitebuilder 5.0 to something really usable. I also know that many of my requests exist already in Sitebuilder 4.5 and thus may already be on Sitebuilder development team's to-do list. I still shall list them all here as I feel them missing from the current Sitebuilder 5.0:

Header feature requests

- It should be possible to modify the header logo image. Now it's only possible to disable it. Sitebuilder user should give ablity to choose an logo image from preloaded ones - or upload a own - just like in the header background image.

- It should be also possible to move header logo, text header and text subheader. There should be align/valign options like "left, center, right" as possibly "top" and "bottom" to adjust the location of the logo. It would be nice if one could also set an padding for the logo in pixels (from the border of the header area).

- Also there should be possibility to add header logo "alt text" as well as "link" for it. (Most of the users expect that clicking on the logo would lead to front page).

- Also disabling header text and subheader text (allowing using only graphical image logo) would be nice, in opposite of current feature that allows only disabling the image logo in front of the text header & subheader

(- This is not so important, but nice if possible: Setting the height of the header content should be also allowed dispite of the background image height. Now only way to set height is to set the image to be on certain height. It would be more convenient if the height could be set seperately allowing header to be less tall than it's background image, which would ease the designing process on some cases, as no different background would be needed to upload if the height is wanted to set lower/higher.)

Other layout feature requests

- It should be possible to modify also the left column, middle column, right column, watermark and background area background images. (Like choose from preselected + possiblity to upload an own just like in the header background image). Also, there should be possiblity to upload own images for inner and outer borders. This feature would allow sitebuilder to be also a tool for professional web site designers (which could simply make an laoyut in Photoshop, slice it to seperate images, and upload them to Sitebuilder backgrounds).

- Also there should be a possiblity to adjust the menu function. Now the combine main manu and submenu has javascript/css based submenu. I think many users would like to have tree-like menu, where submenu is opened under the main menu link (just like in "pages" editing tab) instead of current menu behaviour. More different menus would be nice too.

Module feature requests

- There should be additional modules (like blog, web cart, image gallery etc.) that would allow users to add different kinds of content to different pages

- These modules should be implemented so that they can be sold seperately to Plesk users allowing Plesk admins to bill extra from the modules.

Other feature requests

- There should be a some kind of automatic backup feature in Sitebuilder 5.0, like it would keep track of 5-10 "changes saved" states, allowing Sitebuilder users to revert back to one of the previous states before last save in case needed. This is essential as many Sitebuilder users are not professionals and may delete some content unintentionally. This would allow these users to revert back to previous "save" without contacting to Plesk admin.

On technical perspective this could be simply implemented by copying the whole Sitebuilder site content on each save to different folders (like Sitebuilder_save_{date}) on user's web hosting disk space. Of course this would result more consumed space, but there should be an option to disable this feature and/or set the amount of automatic saved keeped states (like from 1 to 10 etc) deleting the older states automatically. Usually Sitebuilder sites consumes something like 5 megabytes of space, so it doesn't actually matter does it take 5 or 50 megabytes (in case 10 backups are saved automatically) in modern servers.

--

So here are my feature requests for Sitebuilder 5.0 which I think are the most important. What do you think?

 

[Anton Bobykin]

So here are my feature requests for Sitebuilder 5.0 which I think are the most important. What do you think?

Hi Scy,

Thanks for the great post and valuable feedback! We are now developing SiteBuilder 5.1 and some of your header-related feature requests are almost done. It's now possible to upload own header logo image, change position (w/o managing alignment yet). You can also change position of title / subtitle.

Also we added bunch of new block modules, especially script, advertising, search, breadcrumbs.

Backup / restore site for site owners feature is now planned for 5.2, but all can be changed, since our main focus right now is SiteBuilder for POA customers.

Also we research ability to sell SiteBuilder modules separately to Plesk users using market place to get more revenue for hosters.

And please check out our new feature for 5.1 is "try before buy" scenario with Plesk.

 

[Scy]

Thanks for your reply, Anton!

Hi Scy,
Thanks for the great post and valuable feedback! We are now developing SiteBuilder 5.1 and some of your header-related feature requests are almost done. It's now possible to upload own header logo image, change position (w/o managing alignment yet). You can also change position of title / subtitle.

Also we added bunch of new block modules, especially script, advertising, search, breadcrumbs.

That is absolutely great news! I am glad to hear that these are coming soon.

Backup / restore site for site owners feature is now planned for 5.2, but all can be changed, since our main focus right now is SiteBuilder for POA customers.

Ok. The backup / restore would be very beneficial for the customers, so I hope this will be implemented.

Also we research ability to sell SiteBuilder modules separately to Plesk users using market place to get more revenue for hosters.

Sure. Hopefully this will be implemented as well.

And please check out our new feature for 5.1 is "try before buy" scenario with Plesk.

Yes, that's the one feature i just missed from my post. Glad you can read my thoughts Anyways, as usual, you may not have any public ETA, but I hope the new Sitebuilder 5.1 will be available from early 2011 I guess?

In the meantime, I have briefly investigated the Plesk 10 integrated Customer & Billing Manager and now I would have some feature requests for that also. So could you pass these to CBM development team as well - I think these are the most important features we need before we can even consider to replace CBM with our current billing system:

Customer & Billing Manager Feature Requests:

Invoice payment reference numbers
- First of all, I noticed a lot of lacking in the invoicing and reporting features. Our businesses is based only on invoicing (trough regular mail and e-mail) and in nordic countries we need to have invoices with automatically generated reference number (with 7-3-1 method check digit [last 1 number]). This is required so that payment can be received by the bank and we can identify the payment to certain invoice. This could be implemented simply by using invoice number and calculating 1 extra digit for it for the PDF invoice that is printed on certain location on the invoice. Currently there is no option to generate this for invoices for manual payment. Also the invoice status (unpaid, paid, cancelled etc.) should be able to pass to PDF invoice, in case it's not yet possible.

Generating invoice reports & listing invoices
- Our accounting offices that is keeping our books requires that we can provide printed reports like a montly list of created invoices one month afterwards (no matter are the invoices paid or not, they must be in the books with running invoice numbers). The invoice report must have also both prices reported: withouth VAT and including VAT. It's enough that there is one single line per invoice in the report that would state:
* invoice number (running numbers)
* customer name
* invoice creation date
* total sum of the invoice withouth VAT
* total sum of the invoice including VAT
* status of the invoice [paid, unpaid, cancelled etc.]
* date for last status change [like when the payment has been received or when the invoice is cancelled]
* and paid sume (that can be different from what is invoiced).
I didn't find ability to create and print this kind of report in CBM
- Also we need a possibility to create these report with different values, like "list all the invoices that are cancelled", "list all the invoices that are paid", "list all the invoices that are paid with wrong sum" etc. Also the listing period should be freely customized when creating the report defining the starting date and the ending date as for pediod for creating the report list.
- The very best thing for creating these reports would be if user could create freely a report template (and define witch parametres will be listed on the report line) and filter the generated report lines by using some kind of search function before printing the reports. This would give user a free, excell-like interface for creating and filter required reports which would suit on everybody's needs.

Manual payment collection
- Also invoices should be able to list for manual (payment or other) status changes (like using search for invoice number, customer name, date period or any other detail) to find invoices and change their status (like from "unpaid" to "paid" and entering the paid sum and paid date - or from "unpaid" to "cancelled" and enter the cancellation date). It would be best that if these changes could be entered on the searched invoice result line itself, withouth entering to invoice page itself.

(to be continued in the next post...)

 

[Scy]

(...continuing from the previous post)

Pricing & taxes problem:
- Prices can be displayed withouth sales tax (e.g. + VAT) or with it (e.g. including VAT) in the CBM ordering site. However, in the admin side the prices are always defined withouth sales tax and the tax is added to the showed price when selecting "tax is included in the price". This causes problems in EU area (where sales tax must always be included in the price). If we want to show some exact sums for our customers, like 5.00 euros (incl. VAT 23%, which is the VAT for e.g. in Finland), we need to type the closes amount of the net price, like 4.06 euros + 23% tax, which totals 4,99 euros. If we use 4.07 euros + 23% the product price is 5.01 euros (inc. tax). So we cannot get anyways a exact certain sum of 5.00 euros (incl. tax). There should be a way to enter prices also so that they're the prices including tax and tax is calculated out of it (e.g. entering 5.00 euros and selecting "tax 23% is included in the defined price", where 23% is the amount of tax and the net price withouth tax is ca. 4.07 euros and tax amount ca. 0.93 euros.)

Invoice creation from the subscriptions: better way than anniversary or proratable
Currently CBM allows subscriptions to be created invoices "anniversary" and "proratable" based on plans. Neither of these sollutions are optimal, as "anniversary" billing creates a lot of different invoices for same customer in one month in case customer has ordered several plans or upgraded them in the same month. On the other hand proratable billing solves this partly as it prorates the same month orders to same date for future bills. This is not very clear as it at the same time distorts the original ordering period of the product. Furthermore, it also splits the domain to seperate bill than web hosting package, as the domains cannot be prorated (for registration reasons), so it doesn't either help to sum different products of the same customer to same bill, as it should.

So I would like to introduce a third payment option that would be "collective monthly billing". Collective monthly billing would simply group every anniversary billed products into same invoice. It doesn't matter if the "product 1" would have billing period starting from 10th June and "product 2" from 22th June. In collective billing they would both be simply grouped together to bill that is created once in a month. All the bills would be created at the beginning of the month and all the same customer's products that should be billed within the month (or even better, within the certain customizable period, like 3 months) would be billed on the very same bill.

This would save time, bills and nerves of the customer and the billing admin especially on the cases where the manual payment for invoices is used, like in our case, as there would be generated only one invoice per customer per month.

Domains in the online store interface
- There should be an option to add any domain whois check to Online stores. Currently there is only predefined whois checks that are not included any, for e.g. European countries national domain names (that cannot be purchased from international registrars). This would be a very simple thing to implement if there would be a feature allowing to create custom whois checks for custom domains. I believe it would be sufficient if the Plesk admin could define whois server (e.g. whois.domain.fi), where's the checks are targeted and enter keyphrase for response for available domains (e.g. "*is avail*") and keyphrase match for response for unavailable domains (e.g. "*taken*" or "*not avail*"). This would allow using national domains instantly on CBM online stores
- Also customizable domain gateway (for automatic domain registration) would be very nice feature too, if it's possible to implement to most of the national european domain registrars (that have kept monopoly on their national tdl domains, which is the situation e.g. in Finland).
- There should be also possiblity to additional selections to domain products when ordering from the online store (for e.g. with fi-domains the person's ID number/company ID is always mandatory for registering the domains, as well as option to select shall the customer renew the domain himself after the initial registration period - or shall the web hosting provider continue renewing the domain instead.)

Other customization features
- There should be a possiblity to "add custom invoices" freely: to add cudifferent products and/or free lines to the custom invoice. At the moment it seems that you can only and one custom product "hourly service" with some description to the customer. Any kind of invoice should be able to created manually as well.
- There should be a possiblity to customize "customer fields" allowing to add and modify any required information to customers that are now missing (like "customer's sosial security ID" which is required information when registering .fi -domains)
- There should be also a possiblity to customize some extra fields to different products (plans) (like the product ".fi domain" would need custom field: ".fi domain renewal" allowing selections "customer will renew" or "provider will renew")
- There should be a possiblity to link these same customized fields to asked information in the online store, so that they're required or voluntary to fill depending on the setting. (I am not complitely sure can this already be done, but I decided to write it down if it cannot).
- There should be possibility to customize PDF invoices freely (It may be possible with PDF templates, I haven't yet tested it) as well as customize the appearance of Online store (something may be done already, but more customizations especially on the listings of the packages and ordering form, like in which order the questions are asked etc. Also custom fields should be able to added from the CBM.)

There are possibly a lot of other features we miss. I have yet only briefly checked trough the documentation of CBS (199 pages) and tested briefly some features of it on our test server. However already with these brief tests I found out these essential key features we currently miss, withouth we cannot even use the product at least in the Nordic countries (like Finland, Sweden, Norway, Danmark and Island).

If it's anyhow possible, please consider implementing these. I believe with these feature added most of the users would benefit so much that they would start using CBM instead of any own customized, poorly integratable billing system.

Feel free to comment my thoughts! Also I hope somebody from Parallels could comment also on these suggestions, will you consider implementing these essential feature requests.

 

[Sergey L]

Thank you Scy!
That's impressive. Thanks a lot for reviewing the software and writing down it all!

A couple of comments so far -

service" with some description to the customer. Any kind of invoice should be able to created manually as well.
- There should be a possiblity to customize "customer fields" allowing to add and modify any required information to customers that are now missing (like "customer's sosial security ID" which is required information when registering .fi -domains)
- There should be also a possiblity to customize some extra fields to different products (plans) (like the product ".fi domain" would need custom field: ".fi domain renewal" allowing selections "customer will renew" or "provider will renew")
- There should be a possiblity to link these same customized fields to asked information in the online store, so that they're required or voluntary to fill depending on the setting. (I am not complitely sure can this already be done, but I decided to write it down if it cannot).

Seems like "System Configuration > Plan, Customer, and Generic Properties" would help here. The one can add arbitrary fields for customer or hosting plan and have them requested in online store in required or voluntary manner.

- Also customizable domain gateway (for automatic domain registration) would be very nice feature too, if it's possible to implement to most of the national european domain registrars (that have kept monopoly on their national tld domains, which is the situation e.g. in Finland).

We keep our plugins open-sourced to simplify development and customization. Do I get it right you mean some generic implementation here? Could you tell more how you see it customized for different plugins? Which else monopolies we shall check additionally to ficora.fi?

- There should be possibility to customize PDF invoices freely (It may be possible with PDF templates, I haven't yet tested it) as well as customize the appearance of Online store (something may be done already, but more customizations especially on the listings of the packages and ordering form, like in which order the questions are asked etc. Also custom fields should be able to added from the CBM.)

I don't think we support PDF template yet. Could you tell more on this approach?
So far we provide simple positioning settings over our PDF layout and also ability to insert custom image and text.
I know cPanel lets editing PDF generation file, we shall allow it for Plesk too to give wider customization options for skilled customers (will require some PHP skills).

So far Online Store can be customized as well via *.tpl files (Smarty templates). We plan to change it so that more customization is available with pure CSS.

We keep scanning your feeback yet, perhaps I'll be able to post more soon.

 

[Scy]

Thank you Scy!
That's impressive. Thanks a lot for reviewing the software and writing down it all!

No problem. And sorry for my delayed reply. Here are some comments:

Seems like "System Configuration > Plan, Customer, and Generic Properties" would help here. The one can add arbitrary fields for customer or hosting plan and have them requested in online store in required or voluntary manner.

Yes I found the feature some after writing my comments here, however, no matter what kind of additions I made, I wasn't able to show the added fields in action (nor in client, plan or online store side). Any ideas what could be the reason for that? (Maybe I should open a support ticket)

We keep our plugins open-sourced to simplify development and customization. Do I get it right you mean some generic implementation here? Could you tell more how you see it customized for different plugins? Which else monopolies we shall check additionally to ficora.fi?

I also noticed that I was able to add domains with custom whois check, so it seems that there is already a generic implementation for whois check (however, that feature, I wasn't either able to get it work, but it showed every single domain available, even though it should't. I shall test some further and open a support ticket for that too.)

I cannot comment about other countries domains, but at least most of the nordic countries have their domains restricted so that they can be registered only from a single authorized registrar (like Ficora.fi in Finland for .fi domains).

Documentation for Ficora web service gateway can be found here:
http://www.ficora.fi/index/palvelut...iverkkotunnuspalvelunwebservicerajapinta.html

I am not sure is there any English documentation, sorry.

I don't think we support PDF template yet. Could you tell more on this approach?

Well I thought that CBM could send e-mail invoices where invoices are attached as PDF, instead of using HTML e-mail. I guess I thought wrong. But anyways, It could be better if the invoice e-mails could optionally have invoice attached as PDF format too for easy printing.

So far we provide simple positioning settings over our PDF layout and also ability to insert custom image and text. I know cPanel lets editing PDF generation file, we shall allow it for Plesk too to give wider customization options for skilled customers (will require some PHP skills).So far Online Store can be customized as well via *.tpl files (Smarty templates). We plan to change it so that more customization is available with pure CSS.

Any improvement for customizing PDF invoice templates, online store layout and generally everything shown for the customer would be warmly welcomed.

We keep scanning your feeback yet, perhaps I'll be able to post more soon.

I shall keep posting as soon as we'll get time to review the CBM better. I believe I have a lot of feedback to give, and would be very happy to give it, if Parallels really take it in consideration for implementation.

I especially miss the reporting features in CBM. All the invoices, orders, customers, subscriptions and plans should be able to search by filtering them by date (both from and to date) or any status (paid, unpaid, cancelled etc). There should be able to add/remove/modify any statuses (or even extra fields for invoices too) and filter them by those. There should be ability to create a report templates, which would allow outputting invoice reports for any date and form. This is the most essential feature request imho, which we need before we can even consider taking CBM in action.

 

[ArduinoP]

Hi,


in my opinion DKIM signature is a feature that you need to add to Plesk, as lot of people like me use a server for newsletter, and SPF and Domainkeys signature are not enough for some ISP.

I will really need to get cP that allready have this option.


Thanks.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

How about a feature that's comparable to cPanel's EasyApache?

 

[NeuroPsyche]

Release date for Sitebuilder 5.x ???

We need a Sitebuilder program that has all the modules of Sitebuilder 4.x.

Does anyone know the release date of when an update to Sitebuilder 5.0 will be available that has the missing modules? We need the forum, blog, forms, sitepal, image gallery, etc... all back. We have new customers that cannot create or even access Sitebuilder 4.5.x and are forced to build sites using SB5. ... SB5 does not have the functionality of SB4.5.

 

[IgorG]

NeuroPsyche,

Thank you. Your question is very well known to all responsible persons because you have created a lot of identical posts about your problem on this forum. I promise you that it will be considered and I will inform you with results as soon as any solution will be known.

 

[IgorG]

SiteBuilder 5 is not continuation of SiteBuilder 4.5, it is a new component of Plesk 10, therefore you shouldn't wait the same functional.
However, we understand that these units are necessary to our customers and we use the best efforts, that they have received that they want, therefore in our plans there is a support of forum and gallery and even a blog with a shop. We can't give exact dates. Track updates on Parallels site.
Thanks for your interest to SiteBuilder. We are always glad to help you.

 

[Sergey L]

Well I thought that CBM could send e-mail invoices where invoices are attached as PDF, instead of using HTML e-mail. I guess I thought wrong. But anyways, It could be better if the invoice e-mails could optionally have invoice attached as PDF format too for easy printing.

Sorry. That must have been some misunderstanding from my side. PDF invoices are supported in CBM and sent in emails as attachment.

Regards

 

[defy]

SiteBuilder 5 is not continuation of SiteBuilder 4.5, it is a new component of Plesk 10, therefore you shouldn't wait the same functional.
However, we understand that these units are necessary to our customers and we use the best efforts, that they have received that they want, therefore in our plans there is a support of forum and gallery and even a blog with a shop. We can't give exact dates. Track updates on Parallels site.
Thanks for your interest to SiteBuilder. We are always glad to help you.

Seriously? It has the same name, and it's a version step up from the last one, surely you can't expect people not to assume it will provide the same functionality. I'd like to know how to get EShop in Plesk 10 Sitebuilder, and if thats not possible, how can I run version 4.5 under plesk 10? Generally newer versions of software maintain old features, and new ones.

 

[Anton Bobykin]

Yes. eShop is in development phase right now and will be available as part of Panel 10.3 release. SiteBuilder will also change versioning to Panel (10.3). I hope this will reduce confusion between old SiteBuilder and new.

We considered idea to change product name, but decided to stay with SiteBuilder as name for this new product.

 

[gtsupport]

- add custom services to PSA-health-monitor

i would like to add nginx etc. to the PSA health-Monitor 8) - it's currently not supported, and the new Health-Monitor is great! Much better than the old one!