Hi, there.  I joined today as a reseller...still getting used to how Ultima works versus my old host's reseller program.  I have a few setup questions:

1. Free Trial account.  Is it safe to delete the nnnn.ultimahosts.net site that was created for the trial?
2. Branded Nameservers:  Followed the instructions in the KB article.  Now I have the ultimahosts.net servers plus my names.  Created a new website.  It picks up all six servers in its DNS.  Is it OK to delete the Ultima servers from my domain, or do I need to manually delete them from customers?  Or, do I need to leave them in but only point the customer to mine?
3. Email MX in DNS vs. branding:  Does this have a branding capability, or does it and the SPF stay pointing to ultimahosts?
4. In Hosting Plans, just what is the purpose of the "Count Diskspace" and "Count Bandwidth" checkboxes next to the options?
5. How are add-ons supposed to work?  I was tinkering with it and created an option that I thought would allow additional disk space (i.e., an extra 500MB chunk).  When I selected it for inclusion, it dropped the site's space down to it from the 2GB I had defined for the plan. 
6. Is "Online Store" for one's hosting plans functional in the actual reseller account?  (It was in the trial account, but I didn't get to spend much time looking it over.)  If it is, how does it work from a customer perspective?  If it's visible to customers if I give them control panel access, then it has to reflect my pricing.  If it's not visible to my customers, that's just fine because I do my own promotion and billing.
7. I'm on the monthly for now to do a bit more testing before completely moving over.  How do I convert to an annual plan when I'm ready?

I do like Ultima's flexibility a lot.  I must say, however, that DNP isn't particularly user-friendly.  If the transaction pages at least had explanations of things on them it would be a lot easier to work with.

Alan

Hello Alan,

Thanks for your feedback. To answer your questions:

1. Free Trial account.  Is it safe to delete the nnnn.ultimahosts.net site that was created for the trial?

Yes you can safely delete this domain / website

1. Branded Nameservers:  Followed the instructions in the KB article.  Now I have the ultimahosts.net servers plus my names.  Created a new website.  It picks up all six servers in its DNS.  Is it OK to delete the Ultima servers from my domain, or do I need to manually delete them from customers?  Or, do I need to leave them in but only point the customer to mine?

You should delete the Ultima nameserver from your hosting space. When you override the host nameserver you should remove the ultima nameservers as these won't be used.

1. Email MX in DNS vs. branding:  Does this have a branding capability, or does it and the SPF stay pointing to ultimahosts?

You can change the SPF record to mail.domainname.com (replace domainname with the client's domain name or your branded domain)

1. In Hosting Plans, just what is the purpose of the "Count Diskspace" and "Count Bandwidth" checkboxes next to the options?

In the case where you don't tick this it won't be calculated.

1. How are add-ons supposed to work?  I was tinkering with it and created an option that I thought would allow additional disk space (i.e., an extra 500MB chunk).  When I selected it for inclusion, it dropped the site's space down to it from the 2GB I had defined for the plan.
   

It should actually add 500MB. PM me your username so I can check the settings here.

1. Is "Online Store" for one's hosting plans functional in the actual reseller account?  (It was in the trial account, but I didn't get to spend much time looking it over.)  If it is, how does it work from a customer perspective?  If it's visible to customers if I give them control panel access, then it has to reflect my pricing.  If it's not visible to my customers, that's just fine because I do my own promotion and billing.

The online store needs to be installed on your own branded URL portal. When it works the customer should be able to purchase a plan and then have it added to their account automatically. We have our own system so haven't need to looking into the functionality of the storefront.

1. I'm on the monthly for now to do a bit more testing before completely moving over.  How do I convert to an annual plan when I'm ready?

Just let us know and we should be able to facilitate this automatically.

Cheers,

Mark 

Mark,

 I'm not having the issue with add-on storage now.  I think it must have had something to do with the test account.  If it crops up again, I'll let you know.

 Of course, now I have some more questions...

One of my clients is a non-profit with 2 websites (parent org, subsidiary) and 3 domain names.  On PureHost, they're 2 completely separate entities (2 domains point to one site).  What has always been a bother for me is their databases.  Some of the tables are common to both, and I have to duplicate those tables into databases in each site (and go nuts keeping them synchronized).  I've created a plan that allows 2 websites and 4 domains.  If I create the sites for the customer under that space, can they share a single SQL database with the common tables?  Or, do I have to continue with the isolated approach?

In a similar vein, are there any disadvantages/caveats to organizing multiple sites for the same customer in this way, versus creating separate accounts/spaces for each of them?

Does email traffic count against bandwidth?

Ditto for FTP.

Thanks...

Alan

"If I create the sites for the customer under that space, can they share a single SQL database with the common tables?  Or, do I have to continue with the isolated approach?"

Yes, they can share a database.  Heck, if you provided me your database login/pwd, I could use it!  :-)

The only advantage I can see to splitting a customers' sites into different accounts would be for billing and user access purposes.

I believe Email and FTP traffic count towards bandwidth.