All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
How to get Blesta support if you are not their direct customer
Hi,
I have plenty of experience with WHMCS and like many here, wanted to move to Blesta due to resent price hike stunt by WHMCS and company.
Have been evaluating Blesta from months however, it still looks half baked, most of the things are there just the sake of being there. In 5.1 they say they have improved domain management but its not.
Anyways, I have been playing with Blesta from a while and now I suppose I have broad idea of its ecosystem yet one need help sometimes but I see their community forums, they are dead as if no one visits them. Questions from last years are not answered, simple and straight forward issues do have some response but if something complicated, its not there.
Their documentation is good though.
However, if you are Blesta user and you need help, what is best way if you are not their direct customer ?
Comments
become their direct customer
No.
you can contact your reseller for support.
Join Blesta Discord ( https://docs.blesta.com/display/support/Getting+Support), or ask your reseller for help
Yea, I have a VAR License from @Francisco , and since its not a direct license I was first kinda confused with Blesta.
Joined their Discord and asked for help, and it was truly amazing
https://discord.gg/PVG2YBTa
there are a lot of good dudes to help ya
It looks like in order to save some money for someone else, I brought loads of unwanted trouble for myself by choosing Blesta.
I wish had moved to hostbill instead, it comes with loads of modules and gateway integration those are yet to be considered with Blesta or are paid third party plugins. Now to fully get what we need, will have to either look for alternative solution to get it work with blesta or code it for Blesta ourselves.
Looks like all those praises for Blesta here on LET was not really justified.
It's all subjective. Moving from one platform to another is a hell of a task and imperfect all of the way. My migration to HostBill has been absolute hell. I love it, love the plugins, but only after several days into the migration am I now confident that I even have all of the services in HostBill. And all of the accounts I had to import from cPanel/DA couldn't pick up billing cycle, amount, and dates because they didn't successfully import from WHMCS. It's looking like I could either code the fix myself or do it manually, and if I failed to code it right and had to do it manually anyway then I'd lose a lot of time, so I've just chosen to go ahead and fix it all by hand.
Starting out on a piece of software is infinitely better than migrating to it. It's not necessarily the software at fault, it's just the complexities of migrating data between two applications in a persistent development cycle.
It seems you bought into Blesta before clarifying whether it meets your requirements. That's what pre-sales tickets are for. Blesta also has both, a demo, and a 30 day free trial available. You could have just picked a cheap shared hosting with free Blesta from the various offers here and could have then tested it to your heart's content. I am sure Blesta is lacking in someaspects, just like I am certain many people here are actually happy with Blesta as it meets their requirements. The situation you are in now, as hard as it sounds, is on you. Don't drag others into this. Do your due research next time.
Your case is different, you seems to be having problem in fine tuning the migration / import things but atleast you are confident that now you have all the services in hostbill you needed. You even got email account creation feature right in billing. Here I am not yet at migration part, I am at making it work as per my requirement.
Further, I have done major switches on some big platforms (read non-billing) and had to make some adjustment or manual changes in order to get it right for you. Its absolutely overwhelming moving from one ecosystem to another at first but with time, you get clearer picture.
It may seem but it is not the case, I already used reseller route to get hands on Blesta, I did it slowly, one step at a time alongside research as much as I can do from existing user threads here, their forum, user feedbacks, demos. And they have "Pre Sales Question" section on their community forum which is actually a Ghost town, so please leave that Pre-sales thing out of question.
I have no grudges against Blesta or its feature-set but as I mentioned in reply to Jar, you can see clearer picture over time only, ie. actually trying to use it. The more I use it, clearer it is that by saving some money initially, I actually lost more than I could have saved if had gone other route.
What do you think, that I installed Blesta yesterday, tried few things, failed and then got frustrated and opened this thread. Absolutely wrong, I am evaluating Blesta for more than a month, have even peeked into their code to see if I can add things myself If I can't find it built in. Have also looked into API. Have gone through some existing hosts billing panel where they are using blesta to see it live in action.
Discussing something here is equally time consuming and hope you don't think that instead of working on my next task in list related to Blesta, I prefer posting here. But that's not the case, I came here in hope that instead of "Fragmented " and forced support at their discord, I can get some proper answers here or atleast some cues.
I was not referring to the Pre-Sales section on their forumsbut to Pre-Sales Tickets meaning to open a ticket and/or write them an email before purchasing.
This is quite often the case. While price does not always equal quality, it is quite often a reliable indicator.
It seems you looked into it, alright. Apparently it won't make you happy. Move on, in that case. Lost time sucks. But if you spent it optimizing your project then it wasn't wasted.
Good luck!
I can't say I've had an issue with Blesta. Couple of small bugs with the 5.x release, but other than one feature I'd like it does every we need.
I don't use it for shared hosting or domain management though, so I guess it could be lacking there compared with other panels.
As a direct customer, their support is 10/10 though.
Pre-sales answer is that you can do this with that --> but when you actually going to do that, you found some logic issue or may be a bug but pre-sales said it is there, so it is there.
Yes, thats what got me into it. Still looking for it though. Now on their discord from a while, where I had to explain same thing multiple time although I had explained with pictures in detailed at forum.
I don't use discord so can't comment but their ticket system (which runs on Blesta obs) works well. Always had a pretty straightforward answer.
What are you trying to do with it that it won't do?
Well, so far what I understood that even in their new domain management system, if you want offer Domains, all tlds must need to add manually ,and over that, you need to add pricing for each year ie. if you want to give user option to register for 5 years, for all five years, add pricing manually and that too register, renew, transfer.
It means, if you have 5 tlds, you want to offer upto 5 years renewal choice then you need to add 5x5x3 = 75 places to update manually, further if you are multi-currency setup then make it into 2 or number of currency you offer. ie. 150 places to edit for 5 tlds if you offer in 2 currency.
But in today's domain name scenario , you can go into 100s of tlds on any decent domain reseller program.
Just wanted to see some automation for that, and there is a little in with certain module but with glitches. There I need pointer. And I am a person who prefer documentation over reaching support all the time, and documentation were not helpful.
I was also wondering why you are not opening a ticket and prefer Discord? Discord can probably be good for short answers, but anything bigger probably just gets lost. Also, you often have to explain the same issue multiple times because (probably) various Discord members are answering or trying to help. Best to open a ticket to have a streamlined communication channel and get things sorted
I suppose ticket is not an option if you not their direct customer ! ?
In that case open a ticket with your license reseller as they may be either knowledgable enough to help you out or perhaps have a support agreement with Blesta directly so they can forward your question to them. You could probably still open a ticket and see if you get a reply. @pphillips (Paul from Blesta) is a good guy and usually happy to help
If nothing else helps get the cheapest monthly license for 1-2 months and ask all your questions with them directly.
I can't speak for the domain side of things but since I enabled auto currency conversion updates I don't have to set individual currencies per package.
Edit: but yeah, probably ticket your reseller and if not try Blesta direct? They might still try and help albeit lower priority maybe?
Well, another day lost here and I don't even know if what I am trying to do is wrong or is an issue with blesta.
I have contacted already through mail / chat and was forced to goto discord where so far out of 100+ users active, 3 have answered without even understanding the issue / reading after multiple hours of wait.
I'm on Discord now, maybe I can clarify a few things as a user
This good Samaritan helped me to understand a thing or two about Blesta but discussion with him further confirmed that even with new 5.1.2 release of new Domain Management System, Blesta is big NO if you want sell multiple TLDs. Even with limited tlds, its nightmare to configure.
Atleast for now, while exploring options, felt like I am part of BETA software program, either help them to improve software for missing obvious things or just live with what it offer.
Morevover, I wonder are there not enough Blesta users or DEVs are intentionally trying to make discrete to submit feed back or discuss shortcoming of blesta as I don't see much enthusiasm for feature requests and OPEN discussion type of culture
at Blesta (yet people say Blesta devs listen to users)
https://requests.blesta.com/topic/automatic-import-of-domain-pricing-to-blesta , this more than an year old only yet very much needed, and I don't many backers.
Further, for me having discord discussion for support confirmed that its not efficient for real issues, asking small things is fine but for that we have DOCUMENTATION. But again DEVs want things to be discrete I suppose as was forced to DISCORD citing they have way more active users. YET I got @MichaelCee from this forum to lend me help over Discord.
Update,
I tried their discord, its equally Dead as their forum and although Blesta is not free (if not very costly) but its nowhere near production ready if you are planning to sell Domains along with hosting.
Whether you are big business or small, to gain more customers, you need to be flexible and user friendly, in-case of Blesta, after spending so many more hours trying to adjust/ compromise over things, it turns out that they are missing all things you will need to acquire new customer.
For most of the shared hosting company, selling domain is not profitable part but sadly, new customer mostly start their order from searching appropriate domains for them and then they go for hosting. Even their manual domain tld setup is lacking proper "messages" on failure, it can't even suggest you alternate domains if you current domain is missing.
Small features like offering bundled domain with your hosting plans can't be done elegantly (can be done but not very friendly).
However, if you are not into domains or missing domain tld will not affect your new customers acquisition, then its good and quick. Its well coded, well documented but sadly you can do only so much with it currently.
If due to WHMCS price hike, Blesta keep getting traction then might get near competition in terms of usability in next 2-3 years (I doubt though seeing the current attitude of devs).
I wonder, had gone through lots of Blesta vs WHMCS thread , people said that their domain name part is not good but it works, but no one ever said its that bad. From my point of view, its completely ignored or people over Blesta doesn't understand that how much effort one need to have for customer acquisition in terms of basic features and UI. Specially when people are using ready-made solution (read blesta) and paying for it. Its developer friendly but that doesn't mean people should code everything themselves instead of working on their core business.
Our Discord has nearly 800 users and growing and is pretty busy most of the time as some above contest. It's a good place to go for community help. The forums are only less busy than they used to be because most go to our Discord.
Importing TLD pricing is on the roadmap (though it can be done with our namesilo integration), the initial release of the domain manager addressed the biggest concerns. A single location to manage TLDs and set pricing. Different register/renew/transfer prices. Renewal notifications. Selling domains for manual registration, and more. We'll be rolling out more features and more registrar modules over time, something in just about every planned release but the initial release is a huge step forward.
We can't officially accept tickets from non-direct customers who get Blesta free or at a significant discount, but we don't turn people down who open a ticket. As long as we aren't overwhelmed, we will help anyone who opens a ticket. If your license is with a reseller, we can't re-issue or make any modifications to your license because we can't verify it's really yours. As some others mentioned, if direct support is critical for you, there's a solution for that.
We get dozens of pre-sales questions on our Crisp chat. You have to understand that our forums are not the only communication channel. Our website chat is busy just about all day. Did you reach out to us on there?
Hello Paul from Blesta,
Until certain point, was hoping that I can get it working for my simple use-case , was even ready for some compromises but as I got to know more deeply about it, I realized that have already lost lts of time and energy.
But again, no grudges against Blesta, my opinion or experience about Blesta is all over this thread, and its just what I felt when I was dedicately trying to get it work for me. Had even plan to contribute One or two modules those are currently missing in it. Buts now other story.
@pphillips ,being nice on public forum is good thing but should be open also to customer's suggestion and views.
@Saahib As much as I understand your frustration, there's also something to keep in mind:
All things considered, I am sure Blesta team is doing their best. They are (afaik) not that big a team though, which is why it is not easy to maintain compability, handle support, keep KB up to date AND push out many new features. If you feel like hiring a dev team to add those features you mentioned I am sure both, Blesta team and clients will be more than welcoming it. But is important to understand Blesta does (probably) not have the manpower and financial backing WHMCS/cPanel or Oakley Capital has, for that matter. That being said, I wish you best of luck. It is good that there are alternatives like ClientExec and Hostbill out there and it's not only two panels. That way everyone can make their choice.
For example? In the last few years, we've implemented hundreds of new features. It's available in our change logs. Of course what you want is the only thing that matters to you, and that's understandable, but Blesta does far far more than it did several years ago.
Blesta 5.1 handles domains significantly better than previous versions, and that will continue to improve.
Just about everything we implement is directly due to customer feedback. No dev team has the resources to implement everything that is suggested, and not all suggestions are equal or should be implemented.
@Saahib I can understand your frustration. But the way I'm perceiving it, you're asking for something exactly tailored to your methods and expecting their Discord community to be on-par with on-demand real-time support. Sometimes specific programs or businesses don't operate exactly the way that you want it or might not demand what you need. Blesta as a product has matured significantly and has resolved many people's needs, but it seems like the current iteration isn't something that fits your needs yet and that's ok.
Maybe it's best for you to go with an alternative solution that fits your demands and requests. I mean people have suggested ideas to resolve your problems. There are other ways to do business and work than the way you want it, and that's fine. I wouldn't default to "Blesta sucks" when it doesn't line up to what your specific needs are.
Remember that your license isn't from Blesta directly and instead from a third-party. Blesta doesn't do business with you, instead they do business with whoever gave you your license with the understanding that whoever gave you the license will handle the communication in-between. They're being professional to try and work with you directly, even in a public forum. But if you need that tailored/direct line of communication, you can definitely purchase your license directly from them and have that direct line of communication. Many companies purchase licenses directly from the company that make it for this exact reason. It's also why some companies purchase support contracts directly with the developers to receive that guaranteed on-demand support you're asking for.
Sorry but you have to do the same on WHMCS. Instead of a pop up like on the new domain manager WHMCS opens a pop-up window.
So unless you have a real problem I don't understand your problem.