PBA 5.4: Known Issues, Limitations, and General Notes
The article describes known issues and limitations of Parallels Business Automation - Enterprise (PBA) 5.4, as well as general notes and upgrade notes regarding new features.
Subscription names
During upgrade to 5.4 all existing Subscriptions on Dummy, Pen and Reseller gates will be renamed to new scheme.
For Reseller gate:
"Plan Name"
For Dummy gate:
"Plan Name"
For PEM gate:
- "Plan Name" if domain is not available
"Plan Name (Domain Name)" if domain name is available
Upgrade notes:
- Before updating check that there were no special modifications in names of subscriptions.
After Billing Period (ABP) subscription type
Provider may select After Billing Period as the value of the parameter Charge for Subscription in Service Plans. Thus, PBA allows you to create a "post-paid" type of hosting plan.
Limitations:
- PBA does not allow you to add plan(s) with different billing types (post- and pre-paid) using the tab "Allowed Upgrades/Downgrades."
- Customer cannot switch a subscription with a BSP (Before Subscription Period) plan or a BBP (Before Billing Period) plan to an ABP plan and vice versa.
- Vendor cannot change billing type from post-paid to pre-paid and vice versa for existing Service Plans if they have subscriptions.
- For Russian market functions only: to provide correct VAT Invoices, the statement date must be set to the first day of the month.
- Setup fee is always charged in advance, regardless of whether ABP, BSP, or BBP is used.
Reduced complexity of Order Flow
Limitations:
- Resellers cannot modify Order Flow (add/remove transition, change Order Flow handler or condition); they may only customize it.
- Provider cannot modify default (built-in) Order Flow; Provider may only customize it.
- During replacement of Order Flow, PBA will not change customizations, so they may become outdated.
There are no additional Order Flow templates in PBA 5.4.
Upgrade notes:
- In previous versions, PBA created a separate Order Flow for every reseller, so PBA might have hundreds of resellers with their own Order Flows.
- PBA 5.4 introduces a new feature – Order Flow customization. This offers the option to change only the notification templates (success and failure) and name of action in a transition.
- During upgrade to PBA 5.4, all similar resellers' Order Flows will automatically be combined. "Similar" means that the Order Flows have the same set of transitions, and the only difference between the Order Flows is customization, as stated above. If there are two or more Order Flows that only differ in customization, they will be combined into one Order Flow. As a result, after upgrade to 5.4, PBA will have a reasonable number of Order Flows, i.e., three-to-five Order Flows, instead of hundreds.
- If a reseller has unique Order Flow customizations, all of the settings will be moved into customization and will be available for this reseller and Provider only.
No Prorated Refund for Resource Downgrades
Limitations:
- Customer will get a refund in the event of switching a subscription from a plan with non-refundable resources to a plan with refundable resources.
The ability to not provide a prorated refund for downgraded resources is controlled by the parameter After Refund Period in the Service Plan properties: if it is set to No Refund, then no resources purchased with this plan will be refunded in the case of a downgrade.
Upgrade notes:
- After upgrade, the behavior No Refunds for Service Plans will be applied to all resources in a plan.
Refund Adjustment in when using no refund policy
When using "No Refund" option the PBA adds into order two lines "Refund" and "Refund adjustment" that balance out to 0:
- Refund for Plan A for X month(s).
- Refund Adjustment for Refund for Plan A for X month(s).
Stock Keeping Units (SKU)
Limitations:
- After upgrade to PBA 5.4, the feature will be configured in a disabled state. To start using SKUs, the Provider has to first enable it in PBA PCP at Configuration Director > Miscellaneous Settings > SKU Settings.
- SKUs will not be displayed in the Online Store by default. To show SKUs in the Online Store, the Vendor has to set the general parameter SHOW_SKU to True at Product Director > Online Store Manager > General Parameters > Order.
- SKUs are available for the external system via a new API method – OrderFinDetailsListGetExt_API.
Support of RHEL/CentOS 6 (64-bit)
Limitations:
- RHEL/CentOS 4 is no longer supported for new PBA installations.
- Upgrade to PBA 5.5 with RHEL/CentOS 4 will not be supported.
Upgrade notes:
- Provider may still upgrade an existing PBA installation installed on RHEL/CentOS 4 to version 5.4.
- After upgrade to PBA 5.4, it is recommended that you migrate the installation to RHEL/CentOS 6.
Migration to RHEL/CentOS 6
General notes:
- The following two migration scenarios are fully automated:
- Automatic PBA migration with Parallels Virtuozzo Containers (PVC) container creation & network configuration
- Automatic PBA migration into fully-configured PVC containers
- Other migration scenarios require manual actions in regards to infrastructure preparation (e.g., if PBA is installed on physical servers or in VMWare virtual machines). Most migration steps are automated, but the Provider has to manually prepare new servers for PBA migration.
Online Store structure refactoring
Upgrade notes:
- During an upgrade to PBA 5.4, the following actions will be performed automatically:
- Online Store structure will be upgraded to the new layout.
- Old directories will be cleaned up (removed/moved).
- Manual customizations will be copied to the new directories.
UI and usability changes
General notes:
- Parallels Automation (PA) 5.4 supports all existing custom skins (1.0 and 2.0 versions).
The existing skins may still be used after upgrade to PBA 5.4.
Limitations:
- PA 5.4 has no major UI changes in the Provider/Reseller Control Panel (CP).
- Both Parallels Operations Automation (POA) and PBA must be upgraded to 5.4 to start using the new Customer CP.
Support centralized logging (PCI PA-DSS Requirement 4.4)
PBA 5.4 supports integration with the centralized log server using the industry standard syslog protocol.
Limitations:
- On the server side, you can use any syslog-compatible server.
- Parallels recommends using rsyslogd for Linux and WinSyslog for Windows.
Online Store on Windows requires PHP 5.3.8 and FastCGI
If you are using IIS6 (Windows Server 2003) for the Online Store, make sure that FastCGI Extension is installed with PHP 5.3.8 and configured properly before upgrading to PBA 5.4.
Upgrade notes:
- How to enable FastCGI support for IIS: http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/247/using-fastcgi-to-host-php-applications-on-iis-60/
End of Life in PBA 5.4
- The GARANTI payment plug-in is no longer supported.
- The PAYGATE payment plug-in is no longer supported.
Upcoming End of Life in the Next Version(s)
Microsoft Windows 2003
- Windows 2003 will not be supported starting with the next version of Parallels Automation.
- Windows 2003 must not be used for new deployments of PBA 5.4. Existing deployments must be migrated to Windows 2008 R2.
RHEL4 and CentOS4
- RHEL4 and CentOS4 will not be supported starting with the next version of Parallels Automation.
- RHEL4 and CentOS4 must not be used for new deployments of PBA 5.4. Existing deployments must be migrated to RHEL6/CentOS6.
Compatibility mode in Internet Explorer is not supported
PBA Control Panel is displayed incorrectly in Itnernet Explorer if Compatibility View mode is enabled.
Solution: turn off compatibility mode in IE.
Check/Cash payment option is absent from Customer Control Panel
The Check/Cash payment option is disabled for upgrade orders in the CCP by default on the PBA 5.4 installation. It may be activated using control panel customization.
Search bar is not displayed for the list containing less than 10 items when old PBA skin is enabled
Upgrade notes:
- In case PBA is integrated with POA search bar will not be displayed for such lists when PBA is already upgraded to 5.4 version and POA is still at 5.3.
Solution:
- Upgrade POA to version 5.4.