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Bandwidth & Disk Space Overuse Mailer


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Hi Guys,

 

I think this is my first post in here... I'm a down to earth 17 year old in Newquay who has always loved the Internet, so I started my own web design business at 15 and started hosting websites last year. So that's me! Here is my addon, a simple to use disk space & bandwidth use mailer.

 

When you have hundreds of customers on your database, it might be a challenge to go through them and remind them they are reaching their limits. Now in WHMCS you can charge overage, but you can't warn your users that they will be charged...

 

Customers don't like 'out of the blue' invoices, so with Bandwidth Mailer they can receive a message warning them before they reach their limit. Maybe you don't charge for overage, but this could also be a friendly message to tell them they will run out of bandwidth if they don't cut down.

 

I made it to simple to install as it uses only two files and is based on MySQL to intergrate with your existing system. There's no dirty code to edit what so ever!

 

When I was younger I didn't understand PHP and I liked simple 'wizard' setups. Now I can edit config files without thinking, but then it put me off. I didn't want to get my fingers dirty and that put me off.

 

It is easy to use, and I hope there is a lot of demand for it, as it is a missing part of WHMCS in my opinion.

 

Anyway, you can buy it here: https://b-digital.biz/members/cart.php?a=add&pid=39

 

It's £10 to buy with a lifetime of updates. It is written well, and just because I'm 17, doesn't mean I don't know my stuff :roll:

 

Best regards,

 

Josh Bonfield

josh@b-digital.biz

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As you said "it's a missing part of WHMCS". Looks a nice addon.

A few questions before I place my order:

 

a) To calculate the estimated usage and send the reminder, is it using first and last day of the month or the actual user billing cycle?

 

b) Can it send both emails (reminder based on estimated usage plus warning if account go over it's limits) or do i have to pick one of them?

 

c) Is it going to monitor disk space and bandwidth separated sending one separated email for each one of them?

 

d) Does it control how many emails it you send for each billing cycle, so i won't keep sending the same reminder/warning every day?

 

The last one:

Is there an option to get the source code (without the part related to licencing)?

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Hey,

 

a) To calculate the usage percentage is uses the stats drawn from your control panel (if supported by the WHMCS module and the setting enabled in WHMCS. cPanel, Plesk etc are supported.) So for example, my server runing cPanel calculates bandwidth usage from the first > last day of each month. So this means they get an email warning them they are at 80% and this will correllate with their cPanel account.

 

b) At the moment it will send an email for usage at one percentage. For example it will send an email out at 80% but not 80% AND 120% (which would be over). I am working toward this and it wont be long before you can set a second email which will be sent on over use. (Not long as in a month or so, if that!)

 

c) It will send one message for each service at the limit for each customer. For example, if customer A has two hosting accounts, one at 92% disk usage and the other at 87% bandwidth, they will receive two emails. One for the disk space and one for bandwidth. if you want this explained a little more just ask. :)

 

d) If it sends a bandwidth message to client A in one month, they wont get it again until the next month (if they reach their limit again). This goes for bandwidth & diskspace. The only implication for this is, the disk space reminder will be sent every month (if they are over the limit), but I will be looking at ways to improve this. If you have any ideas then please tell me so I can get it in there. Eg, every 6 months etc?

 

I hope these are the answers you were looking for, and I look forward to your reply :)

 

Regards,

 

Josh

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Hi,

 

I missed the part on your post which said about the source...

 

This is my first addon for WHMCS so I am not sure on how to price the source. I understand where you are coming from though, tas any could rip all your data. There is nothing like that in this addon, but if you wanted the source I would say you would have to contact me. This is my first addon and it's my baby. I dont want it out there... if you knwo what I mean?

 

If you're not happy with it for what ever reason, I will give you a full refund back. If it is possible to get a WHMCS developer to look through it to give it the once over and them post the encoded version on the forum I would be more than happy to do so.

 

Regards,

 

Josh

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  • 2 weeks later...

An update to Bandwidth Mailer! :-P

 

I fixed the issue which is in most new WHMCS addons which shows the SQL username & document path when accessing the file directly.

 

It can now send up to 4 emails at once. For example:

 

Client A has reached 85% of bandwidth on Monday. They receive an email warning them they will be charged. (email is editable from within WHMCS and you don't have to charge overage)

 

Clent A reaches his limit (100% or above) and is sent another email telling him that he will be charged for every megabyte of bandwidth used & can upgrade from his client area. Job Done. WHMCS Invoices and all is complete.

 

The same can happen for disk space, but I tend to just notify them when they get close. When they reach 90% of their disk space usage they get an email warning them. They can upgrade & this notification is free of charge. Done.

 

However you can send another to them when they reach their limit if you allow soft limits etc.

 

There is now documentation inside Bandwidth Mailer which you can access from within your WHMCS.

 

If there are any feature requests for this, please do let me know.

 

One I just thought of would be to add a billable item when the first notification is sent (if enabled & needed).

 

All percentages and emails can be customised to suit your WHMCS installation. Once again, installation is dragging two files to your system & entering your license key inside of WHMCS.

 

Best Regards,

 

Josh

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Righto Josh (Mr Expert),

 

Let's see you do this....!

 

Your next mission, should you choose to accept it, is to add a feature whereas the customer can purchase additional disk space/data blocks online via the client area and have it modify their limits within the cPanel server they are on.

 

This would give the customer the chance to add extra data and a pre-paid (lower cost) and save on excess usage charges whilst maintaining their current plan.

 

Of course, you'd need to be able to provision a second part to this module to drop the limt back on the 1st of each month.

 

This is most certainly possible, so let's see if A) You can do it/want to do it and B) how good your 17yo coding mind is :P

 

Don't mind me, I'm a smartass! :D

 

Dale

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  • 1 month later...

Hi Guys,

 

Thank you for everyone who has brought Bandwdith Mailer! It's really opened my eyes to the varieties of people who use WHMCS, all around the world :)

 

Unfortunately, my introductory price for Bandwidth Mailer has now ended, but there are many new features & improvements to it!

 

But the good news is, there are many new features in Bandwidth Mailer since its first release including:

 

 

  1. Added functionality to send warnings before the limit has been reached AND after the limit has been reached to notify for example, "you are now being charged for overuse".
  2. Added documentation with FAQ & examples of emails that you can use.
  3. Added functionality to allow debugging. This will display mail that would be sent to customers if the cron was run.
  4. Added the ability to send all messages to your customers from within the admin area. This saves having to wait for the daily cron to run, or even if you don't use the cron.
  5. I have also fixed all the bugs that cropped up in the first release.
  6. Also, I'm available on Skype for you to talk to if you have any questions & feature requests.

 

I will be releasing a new version when I have enough features to warrant it.

 

The planned new features are:

 

 

  1. Choose how often disk space overuse message is sent (eg Once every 2 months or 6 months)
  2. Disable mail being sent to specific clients/services

 

The new price for Bandwidth Mailer is £25 & then £10 every year after.

 

If anyone does have any requests for Bandwidth Mailer, then I will do my best to materialise them :)

 

Best regards,

 

Josh

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@andy18

 

It uses the data that WHMCS draws from the API of the control panel.

 

So if the data is shown in WHMCS (Data such as Disk Space & Bandwidth Usage) then Bandwdith Mailer will work fine.

 

As far as I know, all the other control panels manage bandwidth like cPanel, as in it is per calendar month, then there will be no problems. If there is a problem (ie, the CP's count bandwidth per month as of account creation), I will bring out a new release which will support this.

 

Regards,

 

Josh

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Hi Dale,

 

I have worked out a method to do it, but I need some more time to get it into PHP & working without errors, then make it client proof :twisted:

 

I don't know how long it will take, but I will deffinately be coding something along these lines.

 

I have a lot to do right now, but when a couple of my projects are out of the way I shall get cracking. :)

 

Regards,

 

Josh

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Hi Josh,

 

Thanks for the heads up. I have checked with WHMCS but apparently the disk usage and bandwidth report which comes by default in WHMCS does not calculate the disk space and bandwidth for both Helm and DotNetPanel as there's no report generated for those servers that we have. Upon contacting the support, they said they plan to get this supported in coming future. So I guess we cant get this roll out at the moment from our side.

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