Setup Guide for PolarisMail WHMCS Module

We designed the PolarisMail’s WHMCS module to improve business operations for our white label email Resellers. This module helps you manage and sell PolarisMail email accounts directly from your installed WHMCS. Also, your clients can easily create mailboxes and manage them directly from the Client Area of your WHMCS.

Follow this guide to set up the PolarisMail WHMCS module and start offering professional email hosting services to your customers.

Part 1: Server CONFIGURATION

1. Create a PolarisMail account

Signup for a 30 days free trial and get to know our professional email hosting services. Even while you’re on a free trial, you can proceed to set up the WHMCS module and fully experiment with our services. 

1.1. Signup on our Registration page and choose one of the packages available.

The username and password you choose at sign up is used to set up the module

1.2. To become a Reseller and benefit from special prices and discounts, send us a request using the Become a Reseller page and tell us more about your business. Make sure you provide us with some details about your needs (number of mailboxes and total size in GB).

More info: Frequently Asked Questions , Benefits of PolarisMail’s Reseller Program

2. Download and install the PolarisMail WHMCS Module

2.1. Download the latest version of PolarisMail WHMCS Module.

2.2. Unzip the downloaded archive and upload the folder “polarismail/”_to your WHMCS install_”modules/servers” folder.

3. Server Configuration for PolarisMail WHMCS Module

3.1. Log in to your WHMCS and from the menu choose Setup -> Products/Services -> Servers.

3.2. Click Add New Server .

3.3. In the Add Server section enter: 

• Name: PolarisMail
• IP Address: 69.28.212.201

3.5. Click on Test Connection 

3.6. Click on Save Changes

Before you continue to the next step, check if:

• Test Connection worked
• If you configured the server correctly, you would see the following screen:

If the Test Connection fails, check if you have 2FA (Two Factor Authentication) enabled for your Admin account. If you do, the connection will not work. You should create a Sub-Admin that will be used only with WHMCS and that doesn’t have 2FA enabled.

Part 2: DEFINE YOUR SELLING STRATEGY

4. Reseller Strategy FOR WHMCS

Before creating your first Product, take a moment and plan for your Reseller Strategy. Having a clear strategy helps you answer many of the questions in the next steps, especially regarding pricing and product design.

4.1. Answer these questions before creating your first Product:

a. are you going to offer “per mailbox” options? (users can add one mailbox at a time to their Order)

b. are you going to offer fixed packages that can only be upgraded to a bigger package?

c. do you want to offer both Basic and Enhanced mailboxes? separate or bundled under the same package? (Find out more about the differences between Basic and Enhanced email services)

d. what size will each mailbox have?

e. do you want to offer aliases?

f. do you want to offer distribution lists?

g. do you want to check each Order manually? Do you want to automate it? Do you want to check first if the payment was confirmed?

4.2. Take some time and create your unique offer to better suit your customers while finding some differentiating features to set you apart from your competitors.

Part 3: CREATE YOUR FIRST PRODUCT AND CONFIGURABLE OPTIONS

5. Create your first Product

You first need a Product Group for all email Products you want to define, and then you can create as many Products as you wish. 

We create only the first Product from scratch and we duplicate it each time we want to add a new one.

5.1. Create a new Product Group

5.1.1. In the menu click on Setup -> Products/Services -> Products/Services. 

5.1.2. Click on the Create a New Group button and fill in the options:

• Product Group Name: this is used with all your Email services from PolarisMail so you can name it Email
• You are free to add any description for Headline, Tagline, and Features

Each time we create a new email service Product, we assign it to this Product Group named “Email”.

5.2. Create your first Product

5.2.1. In the top menu click on Setup -> Products/Services -> Products/Services.

5.2.2. Click on Create a New Product button and fill in the options:

• Product Type: Other
• Product Group: Email (the name you gave to the Product Group from Step 5.1
• Product Name: fill in a name for your Product
• Module: select PolarisMail (the name from Step 3
• Create as Hidden: On (we hide the Product until we finish the setup

5.2.3. Click Continue.

5.2.4. Continue to edit the Product Details and fill in the other options:

• add a convincing Product Description for your customers, welcome email, tax and features
• you must check the Require Domain option
• leave the option Hidden checked until we finish this Product setup

5.2.5. Go to Module Settings tab

• Module Name: ‘PolarisMail’ (or the name you chose in Step 3)
• Server Group: optional, only if you previously created a Server Group
• Account type and Default quota: should be left blank – these are legacy options which are overridden by the setup we’ll do at Step 5.3
• Twofa: check to allow customers to activate two-factor authentication for email
• Management access for Aliases, Distribution lists, Accounts, and Forwards: check all or any. It authorizes your Customer to manage that specific feature from its WHMCS
• select how an order is completed based on your Strategy from Step 4

5.2.6. Click the Save Changes button.

95.2.7. Click on Pricing tab

• Payment Type: Recurring
• Click on “Enable” for each of the frequencies you want to accept
• Price: enter your Product price for each frequency you enabled (you can also leave it to $0.00, depending on your Strategy from Step 4 for pricing)
• Allow Multiple Quantities: No (customers should not be able to purchase multiple quantities of the product)
• Optional: set up the rest of the options, based on your Strategy

5.2.8. Click on Upgrades tab

•  Choose how the customer will be able to upgrade the Product – to a different product (choose the Products you want to show as an option) or using the Configurable Options of the existing Product (check the “Configurable Options” box)

5.2.9. Click the Save Changes button.

5.3. Create a Configurable Option Group

Each product is described by a Configurable Option Group, which defines how many mailboxes the product has, how much storage in GB per mailbox, how many aliases and distribution lists.

We create only the first Configurable Option Group from scratch and we duplicate it each time we want to add a new Product.

5.3.1. From the menu choose Setup -> Products/Services -> Configurable Options

5.3.2. Click on the Create a New Group button and fill in the options:

• Group Name: only visible to you, so give a good description
• Description: anything
• Assigned Products: choose the Product we created in Step 5.2

5.3.3. Click the Save Changes button

5.3.4. Click the Edit button of the Group you just created to continue editing

If you don’t want to offer a Configurable Option to your customers after you create it, you can edit the value and set it to 0 (zero). To hide it entirely from your Customer (no matter its value), you can click on “Hidden” for the Option you want to hide.

5.3.5. Click on Add New Configurable Option five times to create the following Options. You can choose Option Type as Quantity and the Add Option with a value of 1 to start with ( we’ll edit them later). Use copy-paste to MAKE SURE YOU USE THE EXACT SAME NAMES:

• Total Mailboxes
• Total Enhanced Mailboxes
• Mailbox Quota (GB)
• Total Aliases
• Total Distribution Lists

5.3.6. Click on Edit for each Configurable Option to continue the setup. For each of the five Configurable Options, based on your Strategy from Step 4, fill in these fields:

• Option Name: must be one of the following: Total Mailboxes, Total Enhanced Mailboxes, Mailbox Quota (GB), Total Aliases, Total Distribution Lists
• Option Type: choose the one that fits your Strategy at Step 4
• Option Value(s): add as many Options as your Strategy needs and edit the content to a value between 0 and 100 that defines the quantity for this specific Option
• Pricing: for each Option set a price based on your Strategy from Step 4, for each payment you enabled at Step 5.2
• Click the Save Changes button to save the Configurable Option

5.3.7. Check the Hidden option for the Configurable Options that you want to hide from the Customer at order time. For example, we can specify a Product has 5 Aliases and hide the “Total Aliases”, so the Customer doesn’t see this in his Order but still benefit from the 5 Aliases.

Create all five Configurable Options and use the exact names that we provide in this guide. These five Configurable Options are tied to our back-end, and any change or missing Configurable Option makes the Product unusable. You must set a value for each option, even if it’s zero.

If you need help to create a custom setup, our team can help. Simply send your request to support@polarismail.com.

Part 4. Test your Setup 

6. Check your configuration

Go through your setup for Product and Configurable Options once again and make sure you didn’t forget anything. Some of the most common mistakes are:

• You skipped Test Connection from Step 3. First make sure you can connect to PolarisMail back end
• You didn’t specify Require Domain on the Product
• You didn’t create a Configurable Option Group for the Product
• You didn’t assign a Configurable Option Group to the Product
• The Configurable Option Group doesn’t have all these Configurable Options: Total Mailboxes, Total Enhanced Mailboxes, Mailbox Quota (GB), Total Aliases, Total Distribution Lists; they have a misspelling, or they don’t have a value assigned, even if it’s zero

Remember, the pricing is the sum of the price you set on Product and the prices you set on each Configurable Option.

7. Place a test order to verify the setup of the WHMCS module

The best way to see if your setup is finished is to place a test order. Go through the whole process: 

• Place an order and specify a domain
• Accept the Order
• Log in as your Customer and create some mailboxes

If everything works as expected, you’re good to go!