Hosting Renewal Email Needed

[day3]

Hi,

When a domain name is in need of renewal, there is a specific email which gets sent to tell the client that the name needs renewing.

When a hosting plan is due for renewal though, there is no such email, it just uses the 'Invoice Created' email, which is also used for other things.

The problem with this is that for customers who pay yearly, getting an invoice with no specific explanation that it is for their domain renewal would be very confusing.

Is it possible to add in an additional customizable email which gets sent to notify clients that their hosting is due for renewal?

Thank you,

Peter

[cenourinha]

I would like to know this too.

[John]

You can configure different Invoice Notification periods depending on the billing cycle to give your clients on longer billing cycles more notice Setup > Automation Settings.

It's also possible using the conditional display feature to display a different message depending on the product in question.

[day3]

You can configure different Invoice Notification periods depending on the billing cycle to give your clients on longer billing cycles more notice Setup > Automation Settings.

It's also possible using the conditional display feature to display a different message depending on the product in question.

Thanks John,

To clarify what I was saying a little, when a domain is due for renewal, the client gets an email saying "your domain is due for renewal." Doesn't matter whether it has been 1 year or ten years, there's no confusion there, it's quite clear what's going on.

However, when a hosting plan is due for renewal, they get an email saying "New invoice created". No explanation of why, no way to even put the domain name in for the product that needs renewing (as far as I can see) it's just an invoice.

Apart from being confusing because it doesn't explain what it's for, it's also impersonal and bland.

I changed the text on the email template to make it say "Your hosting is due for renewal" but then discovered that the same email template is used for purchases so new clients were getting an email saying "your hosting is due for renewal" at the time of initial purchase.

What I'd love is a way to send out an email automatically which explains to the user that their hosting period is coming to an end and that they will soon need to renew. This could even be separate from the invoice.

[John]

There isn't an option to send a domain name renewal reminder-style email for products/services, but the fact that the invoice relates to the renewal of a hosting plan should be evident from the Invoice Items section of the email.

As I mentioned you can certainly use the conditional display feature to add a message such as "your hosting plan is due for renewal" so that it's only displayed when a hosting package is included in the Invoice Items array.

[day3]

John,

I need to learn how the conditional display feature works but here's my question:

I'm trying to find all of the conditional display variables (is there a list of them somewhere?) but from what I can see, the invoice items array has two: Description and Amount.

So I'd create conditional statement something like {if $item"description" eq "Name of a hosting plan"}Your hosting will expire soon{/if}

However, how does the invoice know whether the hosting plan is just being purchased or whether it's due to be renewed? In both cases, the hosting plan will be called the same thing.

Thank you for your assistance with all this!

[sohouk]

Just to expand on this thread, can you give an example of a conditional display as you mention for say Hosting?

I can alter templates, but I have no idea what to put in as a conditional statement. The example provided (copied here) makes no sense to me and I can't see where I would put something to determine if it was Hosting or not.

Here is the WHMCS example:

{if $ticket_department eq "Sales"}
Sales only operates Monday-Friday 9am-5pm
{else}
Your ticket has been received and will be answered shortly
{/if}

So, what expression would I put in if the renewal related to a product (say Hosting?)

[craigedmonds]

Can we also put conditional logic into the email subjects?

[tgriff]

Can we also put conditional logic into the email subjects?

This is an essential piece of functionality. Perhaps I should put this in the feature request forum. I couldn't resist commenting here on this thread.

WHMCS = Web Hosting Manager's Complete Solution

Since nearly every invoice we send out happens to be for our Web Hosting clients we NEED a way to have descriptive email titles informing clients that their hosting or other related service (i.e. SSL cert. etc.) is up for renewal.

I appreciate that domain renewals get clear notification - multiple times before it expires.

*At present our WHMCS install is configured to send the a hosting renewal invoice twice.
*There is no option for a third or fourth reminder.
*No descriptive title in the email.
*And only after expiration is a third reminder sent.

Having to explain to clients who overlooked the non-descript email why their hosting expired without them knowing it seems an inconvenience that could easily be avoided.

Am I missing something, or is there a way to customize invoice titles?
Does the system currently allow for a custom invoice title that tells clients what they need to know:
Your Level 1 Hosting account for {service_domain} is up for renewal

Also, is there a way to have a combined email title which would say something like:
Your domain name {xyzdomain.com} and hosting account are due for renewal.

If the answer is "not yet" - I do somewhat understand. This is in the feature request list on my end for sure

Thanks for the attention,

Happy to be a WHMCS client

[stormy]

I'm also very interested in this. I have been using WHMCS for almost a year now, my renewals are going to start this month and I've already gotten some enquiries. People are used to renew when they want to, not wait for an invoice.

[sohouk]

Can someone clarify which template is the one used fro sending out invoices?

Is it the viewinvoice.tpl one, or something else?

Trevor

[craigedmonds]

Can someone clarify which template is the one used fro sending out invoices?

Is it the viewinvoice.tpl one, or something else?

Trevor

viewinvoice.tpl = the template that opens in the browser in the billing system when you click on "view invoice" button.

invoicepdf.tpl = the template that creates the pdf file that is sent as attachment or by clicking on the "view pdf invoice" button.

If you are handy at php then both of these are easy to customise. Just make sure you backup everytime you make a change in case you ned to rollback.

[sohouk]

Thanks. I thought it was one of those.

I'll have a quick go at making the invoice items more descriptive.

Trevor

[stormy]

Am I dreaming, or did someone post some code for customizing invoices that is now gone from the thread?

[John]

Yup you're dreaming