Import-Data Script

The possibility of importing the billing data (accounts and subscriptions) in Parallels Business Automation - Standard can considerably facilitate migration of customer's data and reduce cost. If you provide Virtuozzo Containers or/and Plesk domains to your customers and feel like it is the right time to automate your business, you can import the customer billing data in Parallels Business Automation - Standard without the need to use special plug-ins or other complex tools.

All you need is to represent your customers billing data as a simple XML structure and then run the import script provided with this XML file as a parameter. The script processes one XML file per one run.

After the Parallels Business Automation - Standard installation, the import script location on your Management Node is

/usr/sbin/hspc-import/import.pl.

The sample XML file (example.xml) you can use to check how the import script works is located in the same directory.

Thus, the command line syntax to run the import script is the following:

/usr/sbin/hspc-import/import.pl filename.xml

where filename.xml should be replaced with the actual name of XML file containing customer's billing data. Please always indicate the full path to the XML file in the command line.

If something goes wrong, e.g., an XML structure is not valid, the script stops and rolls back all the changes made before an outage.

To prepare for the billing data import, you will need to create a set relevant of hosting plans in Parallels Business Automation - Standard to "move" customers to these hosting plans. When you create such hosting plans, you should take into account the fees, resources configuration, applications set, and all the other parameters of the subscription you are going to move to Parallels Business Automation - Standard for future management and billing.

When you create hosting plans in Parallels Business Automation - Standard, each of these plans gets the unique numerical identifier (ID) assigned automatically in Parallels Business Automation - Standard to all objects (including hosting plans). This ID should be indicated with the relevant tag in the XML file so that the import script could fetch the fees and other data from this hosting plan when creating the subscription.

The import script creates accounts and, for each account, one or more subscriptions that correspond to the preset Parallels Business Automation - Standard hosting plans. As a result, a customer obtains the "empty" Virtuozzo Container or Plesk domain that is managed and billed by Parallels Business Automation - Standard. The personal customer data (websites, mailboxes, home directory contents, etc.) can be manually moved into a newly created Virtuozzo Container or Plesk domain.

The structure of XML file is very simple. All XML data is placed in the <DATA> tag that opens and closes the file. The <DATA> tag contains the set of <ACCOUNT> tags. The <DATA> tag can contain as many account data (placed inside the <ACCOUNT> tags) as you need to import in one run of the import.pl script. Every <ACCOUNT> tag contains the information about account itself.

Below we describe each tag in details.

• <DATA> - this tag contains all the data to be imported. This tag opens and closes the file containing the billing data to be imported.

Below we describe all the tags containing inside the <DATA> tag:

• <ACCOUNT> - this tag contains the information about an account itself and about all the subscriptions existing on this account. The XML file can contain the data on as many accounts as you need, each account described in the <ACCOUNT> tag, all the <ACCOUNT> tags are placed inside the single <DATA> tag.

  Now we describe all the tags that contain inside each of the <ACCOUNT> tags:

  • <ACC_NAME> - the name of an account should be specified inside this tag. This name is used for corporate accounts mostly and in this case, the name is the company name. For personal accounts the customer's name is used. However, how the imported account will be finally named depends upon the special data placed inside the <ACC_CORPORATE> tag (see description below).
  • <ACC_BALANCE> - the balance of the account.
  • <ACC_ADDRESS> - The part of the account owner postal address. This particular tag should contain the street and howse number. Note that you can specify two addresses.
  • <ACC_CITY> - Again, the part of an account owner postal address. Please specify the account owner city or town here.
  • <ACC_STATE> - Part of the account address. For USA and Canada addresses only, it is necessary to specify the State in this tag (use abbreviations). For NON US AND NON CANADA ADDRESSES, please DO NOT USE THIS TAG. In this case, please use another tag <ACC_STATEALT> to specify the State or district, etc.
  • <ACC_ZIP> - The account owner address zip code.
  • <ACC_COUNTRY> - The part of an account owner address. Please specify the country in the form of a two-chars country code. Please, follow the ISO 639 standard.
  • <ACC_PHONE> - The account owner contact phone number in the format as country code|local code|number|extention.
  • <ACC_FNAME> - The account owner first name.
  • <ACC_LNAME> - The account owner last name.
  • <ACC_EMAIL> - The account owner e-mail address.
  • <ACC_CORPORATE> - This tag is intended to indicate whether the account is corporate (1) or personal (0). If you indicate 1 then the data placed inside the <ACC_NAME> tag will be used as the imported account name. If you indicate 1 then the account name will be composed of the data placed in the two tags <ACC_FNAME> and <ACC_LNAME>, which as a result will give the customer full name.

The example of XML file:

<DATA>

<ACCOUNT>

<ACC_NAME>Hosting Inc.</ACC_NAME>

<ACC_BALANCE>10.45</ACC_BALANCE>

<ACC_ADDRESS>One str., 2</ACC_ADDRESS>

<ACC_CITY>Karson</ACC_CITY>

<ACC_STATEALT>Distr of</ACC_STATEALT>

<ACC_ZIP>141700</ACC_ZIP>

<ACC_COUNTRY>US</ACC_COUNTRY>

<ACC_PHONE>8|1|1292627|</ACC_PHONE>

<ACC_FNAME>John</ACC_FNAME>

<ACC_LNAME>Smith</ACC_LNAME

<ACC_EMAIL>smith@mail.com</ACC_EMAIL>

<ACC_CORPORATE>0</ACC_CORPORATE>

</ACCOUNT>

<ACCOUNT>

. . .

</ACCOUNT>

. . .

</DATA>

Please send us your feedback on this help page