Suggestions for Email Notification Templates

[GMSoftware]

I like the use of the email notification on account creation and domain creation, as well as for the help desk. I am not sure that I will use the other templates.

However, this notification system has some serious limitations. Here are some suggestions, with the hope that SW Soft will implement them in the next intermediate release:

1) We should be able to control the subject of the email messages, including with tags

2) The admin should be BCC'ed instead of being a normal recipient of the emails. In addition, the admin is inserted as the first recipient. This does not make sense and makes our customers think that they are not important. Actually, specifying that the admin should be BCC'ed should be configurable for each template.

3) We should have access to a many more tags than what is available. For example, on client account creation, we should have tags for all the client information: company name, complete address, phone, fax, etc. By including this information in the email, the client can easily verify that all the information submitted is correct. For domain creation, we should have tags for all the aspects of the hosting environment so that we can easily explain to our customers the FTP login information, the MailEnable webmail information (for those having the Professional version of MailEnable), etc.

The above is very important: for a novice, it can be very intimidating to create their domain through the Plesk interface, even if the interface is quite good for experienced users already having one or several websites. I am quite sure that most of us have both types of customers in their hosting customer base.

4) Some important templates are missing. For example, there should be templates for notification on domain user creation, and on database creation. These templates should include tags to notify the domain user and/or client the login and configuration details.

5) As Plesk admins, we should be able to easily re-send a notification, in case a customer has forgotten their account information. The same goes for domain users. For clients allowed to create multiple domains, they should also have the possibility to easily resend notifications (very useful for reseller accounts).


I would be interested to know if SW Soft has already some plans in this area for the next release. I have read in other threads, that the next version for Windows will have all the features of the Linux version. Since I am not familiar with the Linux version, I have no idea about what exciting new features we will see.

Thanks in advance, SW Soft, for your consideration.

Gilles

 

[Mertz]

I think these are excellent suggestions and I second them.

 

[Dubie]

Yes these ideas/tweaks should be added in to Plesk.
I agree
The more info we can send them the better it will turn out.
I would really like to see number 5 in there.
If I got 1cent for everytime I have had to resend info I would have Millions just laying around. lmao

Peace,
Dubie

 

[cscottgilbert]

Path to Help Desk Templates?

Great ideas on the templates.

Anyone know the path to them under 'nix?

Thanks,
scotto

 

[cscottgilbert]

Just found out -- courtesy of Plesk tech support:

The location of the Help Desk templates -- if you wish to customize the messages -- is in the MySQL psa database in the Notes and Notifications tables.

Obviously, you will want to use great care modifying these -- but they can be modified!

The only remaining issue for me is the Mail Gate -- which I documenteded previously. Plesk support said this change would likely be in the next release.

scotto

 

[GMSoftware]

Scott,

In what is this related to the email templates for account/domain/database creation? In your post, you mention only the Help Desk messages.

Furthermore, even if this applies to the email templates too, that's far from being enough: you can modify the templates directly from the user interface to start with, and this will not add the necessary tags to provide all necessary information when customers are notified.

Gilles

 

[cscottgilbert]

At this point in time, my only interest is in the Help Desk templates (as stated in my previous post) which are not editable anywhere in Plesk based on what I've seen -- but I'm new to Plesk so I may have missed it.

I haven't gotten deep enough into it to explore the email templates for account/domain/database creation.

The default email templates for the Help Desk are weak -- almost as if they had been translated to english poorly -- and I was seeking a way to edit them.

For example, I wanted to change the string

"Ticket has been commented."

to

"Ticket has been updated."


As for the tags -- I'll take anything I can get at the moment. Are the existing tags documented anywhere?

scotto

 

[GMSoftware]

Scott,

Yes the tags are documented in.... the documentation!

I had not explored the templates for the Help Desk, but indeed, if they are not even modifiable through the user interface, that's another big weakness for Plesk.

I find it hard to believe that the product is so unfinished for such basic features when it has so many other strengths. The developers have given great attention to details in many areas, yet for some of the most basic (and not complex to implement) stuff, Plesk is so disappointing.

I hope SW Soft will listen carefully to these threads. I have some doubts though since it seems that they don't care about what we talk about in these forums.

Gilles

 

[jaytee]

We are here and listening

Thanks you all for great suggestions in this thread, and don't forget to participate in our beta program for upcoming Plesk 7.5 for Windows (to be announced).

 

[GMSoftware]

Jaytee,

If you are here and listening, why don't you guys participate more in the many questions asked in the forums?

There are many examples, the last one on my side being with giving the right permissions to an Access database file so that an ASP or ASP.NET site can update the data, with a DB file located outside of the httpdocs (as best practice recommends). This question has been asked several times in the forums, with no participation from SW-Soft. I had to open a ticket with support who took me on a wild goose chase over several emails. I finally got SW-Soft admitting that this was not possible after contacting the Support Manager and demanding a resolution to the issue. I don't call that "being here".

I think that I should consider myself lucky that I had purchased the yearly support plan (despite the painful process that this actually was). I can only imagine the distress of the other users who have not purchased support, and who are left dead in the water...

I have seen several other threads with no response whatsoever, neither from peers (which can be understandable) nor from SW-Soft (which is totally unacceptable). Why do you guys allow this kind of things to happen?

I would highly suggest that if there is indeed a problem in Plesk, or if something can't be done with Plesk, you should at least respond the posts from your customers and acknowledge the facts, maybe also by indicating if you are planning a resolution in the next release. Now THAT would be great customer support!

Just my 2 cents, since you say that you are listening...

Gilles

 

[jaytee]

I wish I could find the time for forums more often - I need it for development and my other duties too, and we've been busy lately settling up the featureset for the next version. Also, I'm naturally more interested in previously unknown issues and future directions for Plesk.

As to .mdb issue, it is already resolved in the code that will be released as Plesk 7.5, and I know that maintenance team was investigating it for 7.0 last week as well - I guess they heard on forums about it.

As to threads with no response - well, these forums were intended for customer to customer support, we can not guarantee answers in forums, especially when the problem reqires logging on to the server, etc. We do have support department which is better equipped to help customers and simply outnumbers us developers

Anyway, I would not say that we are very active on the forums, but I would not call that total absense as well. We are hiring and training dedicated support people to participate in the forums anyway, you should notice them here soon.

 

[GMSoftware]

Thanks Jaytee, all this is good news. Maybe you should tell your support people to participate in the forums too, instead of relying on developers to do so. I agree with you: as developers, you should develop, not try to help customers with configuration issues.

By the way, the team was working in the .MDB issue last week probably because I escalated the issue. The similar problems reported on the forums dated back several weeks or months. Glad to know it's fixed in Plesk 7.5.

Any ETA for a possible release date of 7.5?

Thanks for taking the time to answer. Now that I know you are one of the developers, I really appreciate it even more!

Gilles

 

[AbsolutelyFreeW]

Originally posted by jaytee

Anyway, I would not say that we are very active on the forums, but I would not call that total absense as well. We are hiring and training dedicated support people to participate in the forums anyway, you should notice them here soon.

Are they going to participate anytime soon? Still no sign of them

 

[flaccid]

I can only agree that the support for Plesk and/or SWsoft's products is not decent enough. The knowledgebase tends to be useless most of the time and there doesn't seem to much documentation on the backend of Plesk and its system integrations.
Plesk uses open source products, then charges premium rates for support along side the CP. I've just installed the Plesk Power Pack and it looks like its going to take me a while to figure the config for each application and the best way to implement.
For example, whats the name of the Help Desk system and is it a SWsoft product or is it open source. Where is some documentation for it?
I don't want to release it into production without knowing how to use it... I think a lot of Plesk customers don't have a DEV environment.

...don't bother putting up a support forum if you are leaving it to the customers/developers to work things out. It could bite you in the back if clients start using an unintended implementation that becomes popular.

 

[AbsolutelyFreeW]

as far as I know, plesk has encrypted all code, there is no way to use a dev environment or implement anything..

There are a lot better open source support ticket solutions, and with more than one server, its a lot better to just disable it and install your own favourite...

 

[flaccid]

Hmm, true true. Its weird but, I have seen a couple of people mention they had a dev environment.

True on the use a dif HD system. I guess I was trying to embrace the functionality of the CP instead of resorting to o-s. Doesn't seem like there is a decent CP out there that takes care of it all....