Web Hosting and WHMCS Template

[austdata]

G'day All,
Are there any web hosting templates around?

Are there any that have, that can or may be integrated with WHMCS?

Just curious at the moment but if it were really good, versatile, attracted huge numbers of customers and was so cheap you might consider paying me to use it. You might just be able to twist my arm.

Cheers,

Mike

[DrJon]

There is a hosting themed template which comes with Soho - it does not compete with many of the 'big boys' websites though in looks, but it can be made to do so by a competent designer.

If you know how to do it, just about any website can be made to talk to Web Host Manager ;)

How about you design one and put it on the addons site and make a few bucks into the bargain? I'm sure there are lots of resellers out there who would love it ;)

[austdata]

How about you design one and put it on the addons site and make a few bucks into the bargain? I'm sure there are lots of resellers out there who would love it ;)

That might be worth while. Don't like my design skills though.

Cheers,

Mike

[DrJon]

I had another thought about this: WHMCS is a complete web hosting solution in itself; all the people I've seen using it, simply 'skin' it to give it their own identity.

If you really wanted it to work within a Soho site, as long as you have it installed correctly, I would have thought it would be pretty straightforward to incorporate it.

I'd be happy to quote ya ;)

[austdata]

I tell ya what, having seen your site, I might just get you to do it too.

[DrJon]

Kewl :cool:

I'm just building an automated ordering and billing system for it currently; we had a domain we used for this before, but have updated the name and location of the servers so we figured a new site was in order.

Still got some 'stuff' to go in it....

[austdata]

It may be worth your while to use WHMCS yourself. It would handle all the services you have on the web site. It can be used for web designs and all the fixed prices that are associated. Plus the unit can be hours, pages, types of page, etc.

[DrJon]

Actually, I did look into that, but the core of the system I'm using is free (never spend if I have too ;) ) and it has an auto interface to my WHM so that when a domain/hosting order is processed it does all the account creation automatically as well - it should send out the welcome email from the WHM too, but I've yet to test that.

I'm not sure that I really need all the stuff that WHMCS comes with - and apart from that, skinning it to match the site design would take sooooo long.

This one was a breeze to 'fit' into the site.

Lazy and cheap, that's me :lol:

[DrJon]

Well, so much for free :mad:

Very buggy API that just hangs everything when it tries to talk to my WHM.

Installed the trial version of WHMCS, edited a file or two and integrated it into the site, and it works (or at least the bits that I've configured) fine. It even configures the necessary cron jobs for you too!

Should have taken your advice in the first place :ehheh:

Pretty simple to keep it looking like the rest of the site even though there's still a bit to do to get it absolutely right. Turned off the affiliates but it still shows the link for instance. Still, I don't think it's too hard a task to get it looking right.

It's at http://www.webstudiouk.com/Ordering.php if you want to see how it looks.

[austdata]

That's a great integration! You should post a link on WHMCS forum for that.

I didn't do it this way :mad:, but I'd now recommend it. In cPanel, creating at least one of each account type that you are going to use. Then in WHMCS, go to Utilities and select WHM Import Script, select the "server" you created the cPanel accounts on and click on Get Account List and that should import all the details about those accounts.

Not only should that upload all your existing customers and their details but it should create the Hosting Plans you have there. That will save sooooo much typing and thinking and guessing and worrying, etc, etc.

After that, if a new customer logs in and selects a plan, WHMCS will create it for you. :lol: Fantastic, hey?!

[DrJon]

I might just do that :)

Yep, the reason I had to go with WHMCS at last was just the scenario you outline. The other scripts I was using were supposed to do that :mad: but it just wouldn't talk to the server.

Mind you, there's still an awful lot of editing of the tpl files to get it to look right - I wanted to remove the affiliate link but it just unbalances the first page - I'm gonig to have to recreate the table so the last icon will be centred at the bottom of the others.

And sooooo many options to configure :ghasp: but I particularly like the auto cron jobs. Nice :)

[austdata]

It's well developed and maintained piece of software. It does almost everything that I want and it's so versatile non-hosting people are starting to use it instead of a shopping cart.

I really must check out the custom fields one day. Maybe I should be recommending to some e-commerce customers.