Integration with custom provisioning system

[GLStephen]

I've looked at how to write a custom module and I have a basic understanding of that code at this point. I still have a couple of questions though:

Our system provisions trial accounts with a unique ID. When I hand the user off to WHMCS to process the upgrade for that account I need to track the ID through the WHMCS order process. We provision a very high number of trial accounts and I would prefer to not provision the initial setup via WHMCS because it is a barrier to signing up. Once they are interested in upgrading a professional looking billing system becomes an advantage, but not during the trial period. So, how can I track that information through the order process? I imagine it can be placed on the query string when I send them to the order pages? When the order hits our custom module where will it be?

When I provision the order in our system I need to track an ID coming back from the provisioning system. Where/how can I store that info?

I don't see any mention of this in the module setup documentation and was curious if anyone had any good info on this sort of thing?

-Stephen

[niels]

Hi Stephen,

I used to do it the other way around: have my trial system create a billing account and invoice using the WHMCS API. WHMCS then automatically sends customer a login for the billing system (which I matched to their trial login) and a link to pay the invoice. This allowed the provisioning system to keep track of the invoice_id and check whether or not it was paid.

Although that worked fine, I ended up switching that around and giving WHMCS full control over provisioning. Mainly because this is what customers seem to expect.

Niels