Communication channels when billing panel is offline

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Comments

  • seriesnseriesn Hosting ProviderOG

    Email and maybe a hosted 3rd party status page/outage page would be nice? Or redirection when main site is down?

  • mikhomikho AdministratorHosting ProviderOG

    Thing is with emails, I don’t want to save all emails on multiple instances.

    If the billing panel goes down, it will be a challenge to get the current list to email.
    (I know, get a database backup, sql to extract the addresses and send it).

    I’m leaning on a status page to update when shit hits the fan, more than when the billing panel goes down.

  • seriesnseriesn Hosting ProviderOG

    @mikho said:
    Thing is with emails, I don’t want to save all emails on multiple instances.

    If the billing panel goes down, it will be a challenge to get the current list to email.
    (I know, get a database backup, sql to extract the addresses and send it).

    I’m leaning on a status page to update when shit hits the fan, more than when the billing panel goes down.

    Combined that with hetrix and you got a perfect winner!

  • mikhomikho AdministratorHosting ProviderOG

    @seriesn said:

    @mikho said:
    Thing is with emails, I don’t want to save all emails on multiple instances.

    If the billing panel goes down, it will be a challenge to get the current list to email.
    (I know, get a database backup, sql to extract the addresses and send it).

    I’m leaning on a status page to update when shit hits the fan, more than when the billing panel goes down.

    Combined that with hetrix and you got a perfect winner!

    I already have a HA installation of PRTG :)

    Thanked by (1)seriesn
  • seriesnseriesn Hosting ProviderOG

    @mikho said:

    @seriesn said:

    @mikho said:
    Thing is with emails, I don’t want to save all emails on multiple instances.

    If the billing panel goes down, it will be a challenge to get the current list to email.
    (I know, get a database backup, sql to extract the addresses and send it).

    I’m leaning on a status page to update when shit hits the fan, more than when the billing panel goes down.

    Combined that with hetrix and you got a perfect winner!

    I already have a HA installation of PRTG :)

    Noice! Was it worth the investment?

  • mikhomikho AdministratorHosting ProviderOG

    @seriesn said:

    @mikho said:

    @seriesn said:

    @mikho said:
    Thing is with emails, I don’t want to save all emails on multiple instances.

    If the billing panel goes down, it will be a challenge to get the current list to email.
    (I know, get a database backup, sql to extract the addresses and send it).

    I’m leaning on a status page to update when shit hits the fan, more than when the billing panel goes down.

    Combined that with hetrix and you got a perfect winner!

    I already have a HA installation of PRTG :)

    Noice! Was it worth the investment?

    0 SEK
    Using a 100 free sensor installation plus my current workplace installation with unlimited sensors.

    My 2 cents, the best alternative when it comes to self hosted monitoring tools.

    Thanked by (1)seriesn
  • MichaelCeeMichaelCee ModeratorOGServices Provider

    I may be a hypocrite but I have to agree Twitter can't be #1. It's great and all but the reach isn't 100%.

    Thanked by (1)mikho

    Michael

  • mikhomikho AdministratorHosting ProviderOG

    @SmallWeb said:
    I may be a hypocrite but I have to agree Twitter can't be #1. It's great and all but the reach isn't 100%.

    I wont call you a hypocrite, I agree that Twitter is a good way to reach out, but it won’t reach 100% of your user base.
    Nor will Facebook or any other social media platform or discord.

    I’m leaning towards getting a proper status page, everyone who could use the billing panel will be able to see the status page and announcements there.

  • WSSWSS Retired

    @mikho said:
    I’m leaning towards getting a proper status page, everyone who could use the billing panel will be able to see the status page and announcements there.

    They don't look; they won't look. If you have a chat button, that will be used 99.9423% of the time.

    My pronouns are asshole/asshole/asshole. I will give you the same courtesy.

  • Just to say, what about Telegram? Can be used as a channel for one to multi, or as a chat multi to multi.
    In my opinion it is usable also as a replacement for skype...

  • joepie91joepie91 OGServices Provider

    @kokkez said:
    Just to say, what about Telegram? Can be used as a channel for one to multi, or as a chat multi to multi.
    In my opinion it is usable also as a replacement for skype...

    Similar to what someone mentioned earlier about Discord: I don't use Telegram. If I need to use Telegram to get information about service issues with a provider, I would look for a different provider.

    It might be useful as an extra communication channel, sure. But not as your primary one.

    Thanked by (2)vimalware skorous
  • @WSS said:

    NEVER DISCORD. NEVER.

    It's ran by furfags. Nuff said

  • edited December 2019

    @mikho said:
    Thing is with emails, I don’t want to save all emails on multiple instances.

    If the billing panel goes down, it will be a challenge to get the current list to email.
    (I know, get a database backup, sql to extract the addresses and send it).

    I’m leaning on a status page to update when shit hits the fan, more than when the billing panel goes down.

    The easiest way I see to handle this issue is to simply have a place that collects e-mails to [email protected] first, then relays the ticket e-mails into the ticket system. This allows you if your billing system has issues, to directly login to the support@ e-mail box and process emergent issues while the billing panel / support desk is down. While it may not immediately create a ticket number, you could at least respond to those needing to be addressed urgently and then once the billing system is back online, the e-mails get forwarded and ticket is generated. If needed you can go back and add comments to the tickets from the replies you sent directly via e-mail while things were down.

    This has the benefit of the customer not even having to do much different than they would usually, simply let customers know if they ever have issues submitting a ticket because the billing portal is down or having an issue, that they can just send a simple e-mail to you.

    That's how I look at it, at least. Also, while I feel like I shouldn't have to say this, your e-mail platform for your domain shouldn't be on the same server / location as the billing panel, so if the one location goes down you still have access to the other and vise versa.

    my 2 cents.

    Cheers!

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  • WSSWSS Retired

    @foxone said:

    @WSS said:

    NEVER DISCORD. NEVER.

    It's ran by furfags. Yiff yaff

    FTFY.

    My pronouns are asshole/asshole/asshole. I will give you the same courtesy.

  • edited December 2019

    A plain text /static html 'site' on a different host, with time-stamped event descriptions.
    Link to it in the footer template of your ticket notification emails.

    This is all a host needs.
    Only communities need a 'Room' for chitchat or meeting-format discussions.

    Let's make www great again.

  • avelineaveline Hosting ProviderOG
    edited December 2019

    We have a dedicated domain (https://misaka.fail) which uses different DNS and backend storage to provide status page.

    Our email domain is still using our own DNS service so it may be down when our DNS is fully down, but it's unlikely to happen as we have many locations and robust health check system.

    Misaka.io | Blazing fast AnyCast DNS with 60+ POPs GeoDNS, AXFR, DNSSEC supported.
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  • terrahostterrahost Hosting ProviderOG

    If I’m not checking in an Asylum, I will take a look.

    Theres also a couple of status pages on my list.
    http://staytus.co/ Being one of them.

    We recently switched to Staytus on terrahoststatus.com. It's great, and with the Markdown mod (see github) you can also format the text nicely :)

    Thanked by (1)vimalware
  • WSSWSS Retired

    The fact that you all are shitting over DNS means you don't have enough upstream providers. If you just offsite them all, and have enough transit points, a 404 means that the world is fucking over.

    My pronouns are asshole/asshole/asshole. I will give you the same courtesy.

  • WSSWSS Retired

    That said, host.clownpenis.fart isn't the end of the world.

    My pronouns are asshole/asshole/asshole. I will give you the same courtesy.

  • PureVoltagePureVoltage Hosting ProviderOG

    Always a tricky one, ideally setting up a redundancy system for your support/billing panel area would be best however not as easy to setup.
    Maybe a good option would be having a status page with some type of notifications that can be updated if the main site is down. Twitter is public, chat applications are not the best option either.
    Email is often a great thing to have, we use email, phone, live chat, and our ticket system. Twitter is kind of a last resort however for major outages that can be at least something.

    Sure someone could take some ideas from here and whip up a little service offering.

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  • mikhomikho AdministratorHosting ProviderOG

    @terrahost said:

    If I’m not checking in an Asylum, I will take a look.

    Theres also a couple of status pages on my list.
    http://staytus.co/ Being one of them.

    We recently switched to Staytus on terrahoststatus.com. It's great, and with the Markdown mod (see github) you can also format the text nicely :)

    You used to use: cachethq.io, what made you change?
    They seem very similar, could you point out why Staytus is "better" ?

  • terrahostterrahost Hosting ProviderOG

    @mikho said:

    @terrahost said:

    If I’m not checking in an Asylum, I will take a look.

    Theres also a couple of status pages on my list.
    http://staytus.co/ Being one of them.

    We recently switched to Staytus on terrahoststatus.com. It's great, and with the Markdown mod (see github) you can also format the text nicely :)

    You used to use: cachethq.io, what made you change?
    They seem very similar, could you point out why Staytus is "better" ?

    They are very similar, but Staytus is in our opinion better. We changed mainly because of a few bugs in Cachethq. For instance when creating a maintenance post, it would be removed from the site once it hit the time on the post. It made us essentially create issues for maintenance to keep the history and it didn't work well.

    Staytus works great, has an API and we've integrated it into Slack for both our customers on our slack community and ourselves.

    Thanked by (2)mikho vimalware
  • milkboymilkboy OG
    edited December 2019

    How about simple Chatbots? though it takes time to set up, its better in the long run & more versatile than status page IMO

    Plus it means less people to hassle you.

  • gestiondbigestiondbi Hosting ProviderOG

    @WSS said:

    @mikho said:
    I’m leaning towards getting a proper status page, everyone who could use the billing panel will be able to see the status page and announcements there.

    They don't look; they won't look. If you have a chat button, that will be used 99.9423% of the time.

    I confirmed. 99% they take the time to open a ticket without checking the status page first.

    Gestion DBI Inc. | Telecommunications and IT
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