Revision as of 13:25, 26 July 2009

Exports (provisioning)

Exports allow you to provision services to remote machines, databases and APIs. Some exports, such as sqlradius and sqlradius_withdomain, enable a feed for retrieving rating/usage data.

Exports can be added and edited under

Configuration -> Provisioning, services and packages -> View/edit exports

Most exports place jobs in the job queue for new, modified or deleted services. Jobs are run by freeside-queued. This daemon needs to be running before exports are acted upon.

Click on Add a new export to create a new export. Select exports from the dropdown to show more information on each export, including available options, setup and usage.

Exports are activated by associating them with one or more service definitions.

Following is a list of which exports can be associated with each type of service.

svc_acct

• acct_plesk.pm: Real-time export to Plesk managed mail service
• acct_sql.pm: Real-time export of accounts to SQL databases .
• artera_turbo.pm:
• bsdshell.pm:
• communigate_pro.pm: Real-time export to a CommuniGate Pro mail server
• communigate_pro_singledomain.pm:
• cpanel.pm: Real-time export to Cpanel control panel.
• cp.pm: Real-time export to Critical Path Account Provisioning Protocol
• cyrus.pm: Real-time export to Cyrus IMAP server
• everyone_net.pm: Real-time export to Everyone.net outsourced mail service
• infostreet.pm: Real-time export to InfoStreet streetSmartAPI
• ldap.pm: Real-time export to LDAP
• passwdfile.pm:
• radiator.pm: Real-time export to RADIATOR
• shellcommands.pm:
• shellcommands_withdomain.pm: Real-time export via remote SSH (vpopmail, ISPMan)
• sqlmail.pm: Real-time export to SQL-backed mail server
• sqlradius.pm: Real-time export to SQL-backed RADIUS (FreeRADIUS, ICRADIUS)
• sqlradius_withdomain.pm: Real-time export to SQL-backed RADIUS (FreeRADIUS, ICRADIUS) with realms
• sysvshell.pm:
• textradius.pm:
• vpopmail.pm: Real-time export to vpopmail text files

svc_domain

• bind.pm: Batch export to BIND named
• bind_slave.pm: Batch export to slave BIND named
• domain_shellcommands.pm: Run remote commands via SSH, for domains (qmail, ISPMan).
• domain_sql.pm: Real time export of domains to SQL databases .
• http.pm: Send an HTTP or HTTPS GET or POST request
• opensrs.pm: OpenSRS integration
• sqlmail.pm: Real-time export to SQL-backed mail server

svc_forward

• artera_turbo.pm:
• forward_shellcommands.pm: Run remote commands via SSH, for forwards
• postfix.pm: Postfix text files
• sqlmail.pm: Real-time export to SQL-backed mail server

svc_www

• apache.pm: Export an Apache httpd.conf file snippet.
• www_plesk.pm: Real-time export to Plesk managed hosting service
• www_shellcommands.pm: Run remote commands via SSH, for virtual web sites (directory maintenance, FrontPage, ISPMan)

svc_broadband

• nas_wrapper.pm: A meta-export that triggers other svc_broadband exports.
• prizm.pm: Real-time export to Northbound Interface
• router.pm: Send a command to a router.
• snmp.pm: Sends SNMP SETs to an SNMP agent.
• trango.pm: Sends SNMP SETs to a Trango AP.

svc_external

• artera_turbo.pm:

Packages

Price Plans

Common price plans

• flat
• subscription
• prorate
• sqlradacct_hour
• voip_cdr
• prepaid

Wholesale price plans

• bulk

• agent
• cdr_termination

Other price plans

• flat_delayed
• flat_introrate
• prorate_delayed

• base_delayed
• base_rate

• sql_external
• sql_generic

Price plans of questionable functionality

• flat_comission_cust
• flat_comission_pkg
• flat_comission

• voip_sqlradacct

• sesmon_hour
• sesmon_minute

Misc

• Some notes on Upselling

Resellers

Employees

Employees

Go to Configuration -> Employees -> Employees to view the existing employees and add new ones. It is highly recommended to add a separate account for each person rather than using role accounts.

• To add a new employee, click on "Add an employee"
• Or to edit an existing group, click on the employee number or name in the list of employees.
• Enter or edit the username, password and name. If editing an existing employee and no password change is desired, the password fields can be left blank.
• Check the "Disable employee" box to disable this employee.
• In the "Employee groups" section, mark or unmark checkboxes to indicate the access groups for this employee.

Employee groups and access control

To setup employee access control or agent/reseller virtualization, you need to setup employee groups. Go to Configuration -> Employees -> Employee groups to view the existing groups and add new ones. The system starts with a "Superuser" group which has access to all functionality for the first agent.

• To add a new group, click on "Add an employee group"
• Or to edit an existing group, click on the group number or name in the list of groups.
• Enter or edit the group name.
• In the "Group limited to these agent(s)" section, mark checkboxes next to the agents this employee group should be able to see. Employees in this group will only see customers of the selected agents in the system and reports.
• In the "Group access rights" section, mark or unmark checkboxes to indicate the access rights this employee group should have. Rights marked with an "*" are global rights which provide access to global data which is shared among all agents. Their use is not recommended for groups which are limited to a subset of agents.
• After adding a new group, don't forget to go back and add or edit employees to place them into the new group.

Billing

Invoice events

• Use invoice events to implement your business rules for re-sending invoices and late notices, retrying cards, suspending, etc.

Configuration -> Billing -> View/Edit invoice events

• The freeside-daily script should be run daily to bill customers and run invoice collection events.
  • Typically, this is accomplished with an entry in the freeside user's crontab such as:

    0 0 * * * /usr/local/bin/freeside-daily

  • If running freeside-daily manually, ensure the TZ variable is set to your timezone with a command such as:

    TZ="US/Pacific" freeside-daily fs_daily

• If any monthly events are enabled, the freeside-monthly script should be run monthly.
• Invoice events can also be used to implement agent-virtualized invoices. (add more info)

Invoices

Templates

Typeset (LaTeX) invoice templates

Prerequisites

• Almost all distributions include the necessary prerequisites listed here, manual installation is practically never necessary.
• Install Ghostscript (gs)
• Install teTeX or TeX Live
• Ensure that the pslatex, dvips, and pdflatex command line utilities were installed

Content setup

• Edit the invoice_latexreturnaddress, invoice_latexfooter, invoice_latexnotes, and invoice_latexsmallfooter configuration options. If you are adventurous, edit invoice_latex as well.

Logo setup

The EPS logo is for PDF and printed invoices.

• For best results, save a vector format logo in EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) format.
  • Your graphic artist can create vector image from a bitmap (tracing etc).
  • Converting a bitmap such as a JPG can work (the bigger the better), but it may render in lower quality, blurry or with the "jaggies" (especially when actually printed, not just viewed as a PDF)
• Resize the logo to 90pt X 36pt: epsffit -c 0 0 90 36 yourlogo.eps >logo.eps
• Copy the resized logo to /usr/local/etc/freeside/conf.your_datasrc/logo.eps
• Problems? Try bin/strip-eps <oldlogo.eps >trynewlogo.eps

The PNG logo is for emailed and online invoices.

Freeside ships with a logo of 92 x 62. Any logo close to this size should work with the default HTML template.

HTML invoice templates

• Place your logo in PNG format at /usr/local/etc/freeside/conf.your_datasrc/logo.png
• Edit the invoice_html configuration option or the /usr/local/etc/freeside/conf.your_datasrc/invoice_html file. HTML invoices use Text::Template with <%= and %> delimiters.
• The following configuration options can be set to override the default behaviour of using the invoice_latex* data transformed to HTML: invoice_htmlreturnaddress, and invoice_htmlfooter, invoice_htmlnotes.

Plaintext invoice templates

• See the Text::Template documentation for details on the substitution language.
• You must call the invoice_lines() function at least once - pass it a number of lines, and it returns a list of array references, each of two elements: a service description column, and a price column. Alternatively, call invoice_lines() with no arguments, and pagination will be disabled - all invoice line items will print on one page, with no padding (recommended for email invoices).
• Descriptions of variables are available in invoice_html

Misc

Manually setting next invoice number sequence

• With PostgreSQL, to number invoices starting at 5000:

  SELECT SETVAL(cust_bill_invnum_seq, 4999);

• With MySQL:

Payment Receipts

The payment_receipt_email template is used for manually applied payments.

Credit cards and Electronic checks

• Real-time credit card and electronic check processing
• Batch credit card and electronic check processing
• Credit card expiration alerts: Customize the alerter_template configuration option and run freeside-expiration-alerter daily.
• Credit card decline alerts: Customize the declinetemplate configuration option and set the emaildecline configuration option.

Misc

• Setting up Encrypted Credit Cards
• Setting up Texas Tax
• Setting up VoIP
• Need to print to Windows printers? Follow steps 1-4 of Share Your Windows Printer.
• Setting up Slony replication and failover
• Using a non-standard PostgreSQL Schema