MyClient Historic Q&A Archive
About this page
This page contains an archive of questions asked on the legacy Q&A platform. MyClientGlobal.com Ltd chose to retire this Q&A platform as part of the most recent website refresh, however the content remains useful and is preserved below.
Questions
What languages is MyClient available in?
Danish, German, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Italian, Norwegian, Dutch, Portuguese. More information available here: http://www.myclientglobal.com/translate/
Can I host MyClient myself?
MyClient is a cloud-based SaaS (software as a service) system - this means no worrying about maintenance or upgrades. We explain our rationale of why more in depth here: http://www.myclientglobal.com/selfhosted/
Can we have our own custom domain?
As part of fully branding your MyClient Small Business or MyClient Enterprise installation, we encourage licensees to use a custom domain or subdomain, to complete the integration with your business. For more information please see: http://www.myclientglobal.com/custom_domains/
Where is MyClient hosted?
MyClient currently provides geolocated hosting in your choice of Los Angeles, USA, or London, UK. We can provide custom geolocated nodes upon request. The servers are maintained and backed up in New Zealand.
What languages is MyClient available in?
MyClient is available in Danish, German, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Italian, Norwegian, Dutch, Portuguese. For more information about translations please see here: http://www.myclientglobal.com/translate/
Where can I change the email address for tickets?
Ticket notifications can be configured for each individual reseller staff member. A staff member can change their own email subscriptions on the Account page; or you may change settings for other resellers and staff members from the Manage System Users page.
The "Daily ticket summary" option sends the staff member a table summary of all their open tickets once each day.
The "Instant ticket updates" option sends the staff member an alert email each time (a) they are added to a ticket, or (b) one of their tickets is updated.
How can I get emailed when an Reseller creates a ticket?
The ticket system in MyClient can be used for any type of multiparty communication: reseller-customer, reseller-parent, primary-customer, reseller-internal, primary-internal or any other relation.
When a reseller creates a ticket in MyClient, they are presented with the option to escalate the ticket for support. You can choose whether resellers escalate tickets to (a) nobody, (b) their parent reseller, or (c) the primary office, from the Manage System Behaviour page > Tickets pane > "Suggest that resellers escalate tickets to" option.
If a reseller escalates a ticket to your reseller office, all members of your office will become attached to the ticket. If "Instant Ticket Notifications" are enabled for your operator account, you will receive an email notification when this happens.
This can be bypassed for selected operators by disabling the "Include in company-wide tickets" option from their operator dialog on the Manage System Users page.
Where can I change the language for the welcome email from the OBS?
The welcome email from the backup server uses the language of the new customer.
You can set the language for new customers by the Management menu > New Account Plans button > {select a plan template} > 'New Account Options' pane > "Language" setting.
Where can I change the welcome email text sent from MyClient?
You can set the email subject for this message by the Management menu > System Branding > 'Global' pane > "Welcome Email Subject" option.
You can set the main text of the welcome email by the Management menu > Text Templates > "New Customer Welcome email (if not set for reseller)". You can also override this welcome text for any reseller, from the Manage System Users page.
Storage not updating after deleting backupsets
MyClient reports on the state of the AhsayOBS server. Deleting a backupset should immediately free usage for an account. If the quota for an account does not match the total size of all backupsets, then you may consider
- forcing a quick refresh, by using the 'refresh' image button in the top-right corner of a Customer Detail page; or,
- initiating a File Validation Check for this customer, via the link in the lower-right on a Customer Detail page.
How can I group Ahsay accounts into a single customer in MyClient?
MyClient does not allow you to merge multiple AhsayOBM/ACB accounts into one. We could build such a feature, but it would be cosmetic only and not change the truth that the accounts are separate: it would be technically misleading, and make it harder to troubleshoot backup failures.<
However, there are some workarounds:
- You could maybe do this on the OBS server by modifying profile.xml files and updating client's software configuration.
- This has the advantage of merging other properties of the account (e.g. quota, email report recipients, ...)
- Additional backupsets are the preferred method for supporting multiple computers or sites for a single customer. You may of course use the "Run scheduled backup on this computer" option in the OBM/ACB client to configure which backupsets run on which computers.
- Or you can create a limited-permission reseller in MyClient, and assign the customers to the reseller.
- This gives the customer a single place to log in and check their multiple accounts.
- Or if you want, we can enable a feature for your MyClient installation to allow multiple AhsayOBM/ACB backup accounts under a single MyClient customer record.
- This centralises CRM details for the customer, but there are still obviously two backup accounts.
Customer backup reports show how long the backup took
There are two main formats for daily email reports:
- The "Modern single-customer" used for customer email reports includes number of files, and is a little softer with bad news.
- To ensure any changes to this template do not cause additional clutter, we might remove "Updated Permissions" and replace it with "Duration".
- The "Modern multi-customer" used for staff/reseller watchlist and event-log emails displays the number of erroring backup jobs and how long it has been since last failure.
How can I send emails from my OBS only and not MyClient as well?
MyClient has a number of email reporting features, however all email reports are disabled by default. If you are interested in sending email reports, it's important to configure the branding of them first, to avoid confusing your customers and resellers.
The emails that MyClient sends to your staff and resellers can be configured from the Management menu > Manage System Users;
Use the left-hand arrow to unfold operator selection
Select an operator
Ensure the "Daily watchlist", "Daily Event Log", "Daily All customers", "Daily ticket summary" options are disabled
The emails that MyClient sends to customers:
Email reports to customers can be configured per-customer, by the Person tab of a customer's dialog.
By default, all customers are set to "System Default" report frequency.
The System Default frequency can be set via the Management menu > System Settings > Manage System Behaviour > Customer Notifications tab > "System Default value for 'Send daily backup reports to customer'" option
The System Default frequency is currently set to "Disabled" for all new MyClient installations.
As a result, no email reports will be sent to your customers, unless you override this setting for a customer or change the system default value.
If you configure resellers within MyClient, you may also block groups of resellers from allowing email reports to customers.
You may preview the email that would be received, by using the "reports: preview" link on the right-hand side of a customer detail page.
How can I change the reseller for multiple customers at once?
You can change the reseller for multiple customers by using the View Customers page:
Perform a search, or browse to find the customers you want
- If you are changing newly added customers, maybe enable the 'added' column and click the column header to sort by 'added'
Click to highlight rows, or use "select > all on page" from the menu bar
Click the "edit" button and change the reseller for all selected rows at once
How can I refresh all users on a specific server?
You can refresh users by using the Manage Servers page:
Click to highlight rows, or use "select > all on page" from the menu bar
Click the "resync" button and select "Fast (users only)"
Is there any way that an operator can be in multiple offices using the same email address?
MyClient uses email addresses as a unique identifier for an operator. An email address must be attached to only one operator, and an operator can only be part of one office.
How can I customize email reports for my reseller?
The daily report emails are built by combining a number of templates. You should be able to customise at least the header image, header text, and footer text by using the Manage System Users page > {select reseller} > Email Branding tab.
Text templates will inherit from the parent office if not set – so be careful when changing text for a reseller that has sub-resellers! If text templates are not set all the way up the reseller hierarchy, there are systemwide fallbacks on the Manage Text Templates page).
You can preview the report by visiting any one of the reseller's customers, and using the "Report: preview" link on the right-hand side of the page.
MyClient is showing different Ahsay usernames than whats displayed on the OBS?
If you want the names to remain the same, then turn on this option:
Manage System Behaviour page > Data Binding tab > "Customer metadata sync method" > "Two-way sync"
Then, any changes in MyClient or in AhsayOBS will be updated in the other (maybe wait a few minutes for background sync).
The reason this is not done by default is because in MyClient Enterprise, you can have CRM records where the customer has zero or multiple backup services. In this situation it doesn't make sense to link the backup account's alias with the MyClient customer name.
How can I bulk email all customers that have had consecutive missed backups?
The bulkmail system in MyClient allows you to select customers in the top area. If you perform your desired search on the Search Backupsets page, and then use the "Select: entire page" link, then the "bulkmail" link, the affected customers will be pre-filled into the bulkmail system.
This means you can apply your search and then directly email the affected customers.
Is there a log of actions that have happened in MyClient?
You can access this log via the Management menu > System Maintenance > "View System Notifications" page
What is the billing agent field ?
The "Billing Agent" field is solely used for tagging in exports. It has no functional purpose within the system and is not visible to any resellers.
Some of our partners have distinct separation between the company providing technical support, and the company through which the customer's contract is held / from whom the customer receives an invoice. MyClient licensees can use the Billing Agent field to determine whether a customer should be billed directly, by their reseller, or by a third company.
If you are not using MyClient for billing purposes, then you can set this field however you like. If in doubt, we recommend leaving it set identically to the 'reseller' setting.
Can I nest resellers?
Yes, however there are a few settings you should check when setting this up:
A reseller has both "Parent Office" on the reseller tab, and "Reseller"/"Billing Agent" on the Billing tab.
These are distinct for historical reasons – we're working on bringing them together into one setting. For now, please make sure they are all set identically.
Reseller1A should have parent Reseller1
The reseller Reseller1 should be placed into a Permission Group which lets them manage their subresellers.
If you want to give Reseller1 the ability to manage their subresellers, it would be best to clone this permission group into a new one:
Management menu > System Settings > Permission Groups
Click 'Create new' and choose to clone the 'Subreseller' permission
On the Overview pane: give it a better name ("SubresellerNAME Allowed To Create New Accounts"?)
On the Staff and Resellers pane: enable any relevant options
You can then use the Manage System Users page to assign reseller1 into this newly enhanced permission group. They will then have the added ability to manage staff and resellers beneath them.
How does MyClient server selection work?
The server selection in MyClient is a little complex. MyClient allows you to customise the server options for both the reseller and in the New Account Plan template. This allows you to easily change servers for individual resellers, but it does mean that there are some nuances to the interaction. We will aim to simplify this system in the future.
When creating a new backup account: MyClient first builds a list of available servers from the New Account Plan system, and then filters this list down by the servers available to the reseller.
Then the server is chosen from this list using the New Account Plan 'default server' option.
There are some edge cases where the above is not possible, MyClient attempts to do the right thing:
If the list contains some servers but does not contain the New Account Plan 'default server', then a random selection from the list is made.
If the list is empty, then the New Account Plan 'default server' is used regardless of the reseller's available servers;
If the list is empty and the 'default server' was an automatic rule (e.g. Lowest Total Quota) then it is applied over all known servers.
How can I suspend all customers of a reseller?
You can suspend all customers of a reseller:
On the View Customers page, search WHERE Reseller is {your chosen reseller}
Ensure that a large enough number of rows are visible to see all accounts
From the top bar, choose 'Select > all on page', then click 'edit'
Set 'account state' to 'Suspended'
Enter your password to authorise the action
How can I stop a reseller from logging into MyClient?
You can prevent a reseller from logging in to the portal:
From the Manage System Users page, unfold the reseller and select a reseller operator
On the right-hand side, set 'Enabled' to 'no'
How do I find out when an account was deleted?
You may be able to find more information about the issue by searching the installation history (Management menu > System Maintenance > System Notifications link near the bottom).
MyClient normally logs whenever backupsets and backup accounts are removed, whether they are removed from within MyClient or from the backup server itself. For instance, you could search "Where message contains {account username}", or "Where type is {backup account removed in MyClient} or type is {backup account removed on backup server}".
What FQDN's and IP's should we be putting in our SPF records so mail doesn't get tagged as spam/blacklisted?
You can use the IP4 and IP6 SPF mechanisms, using the IP addresses present on the Manage Servers page within your installation. MyClient currently sends email using these same IP addresses.
Most MyClient installations are on our shared infrastructure and as a result we cannot set the fcrDNS PTR records to allow domain-based SPF entries. Please also bear in mind that if you do not have a dedicated server with us, then the IP address used by your MyClient installation may or may not be shared with other MyClient licensees.
An alternative approach worth considering would be to configure an SMTP server in MyClient and then perform additional filtering at your SMTP server, allowing you to mask the message source for any final delivery and allowing you to use the MX or PTR SPF mechanisms to whitelist your own mail server only.
How can I turn off administrative alert emails?
You can disable these emails from the System Behaviour page > Alerts tab > "Email Administrative Alert on sync errors" option.
I setup a new client today using the OBS Trial download; how does that new user access MyClient?
MyClient automatically syncs with your AhsayOBS servers in the background, and will automatically detect new users within a few minutes. This applies for any new users that are created – regardless of whether your create them directly on the AhsayOBS Web Console, via the AhsayOBS API, or via Trial Registration. Then your staff and resellers will be able to manage the newly created customer from within the portal.
If you have the Customer Portal set up, the customer will be able to log in to the Customer Portal to view report history, storage information, submit support requests and browse and restore files. For more information about the Customer Portal, please see http://www.myclientglobal.com/customer_portal/ .
What do the thermometer colours represent?
The quota-usage bar is coloured based on how much space is left on the account. You can also see this on the View Customers page.
It changes from green (lots of quota remaining) through yellow to red (very little quota remaining) – the administrator can change the exact percentage cutoffs on the Manage System Behaviour page.
The thermometer underneath each backupset is coloured in segments, based on the status of the most recent backup jobs. You can click on each segment to view the backup job report.
The colour for each segment might be green (successful backup job), light green (success with no changes), orange (success + warning), red (error), white (missed), dark grey (currently running), or another colour.
How does MyClient queue mail?
When MyClient sends an email – such as a consolidated daily backup report to a customer, or a watchlist or event log summary to your staff and resellers – the mail gets placed into the Mail Queue, and then the mail is sent in the background by another process. This has the advantage of allowing you to disable all outgoing mail until you are satisfied with the branding or content of any outgoing email. By default, mail queue processing is disabled, as you may not have configured the branding for e.g. email footers.
What does re-sync mean?
MyClient automatically syncs in the background with your AhsayOBS servers. Data is synced at different intervals based on how likely it is to have changed. This approach significantly improves MyClient's performance compared to always working with live data, and is still suitable for all usages outside extreme circumstances. If you are working with a customer and need interactive troubleshooting (e.g. you initiate a backup for the customer and need the report to appear immediately), you can force an immediate resync (a) for an individual customer by using the Refresh image button on the top-right-hand corner of a Customer Detail page; or (b) for the entire system by using the links on the System Maintenance page.
Can MyClient Estimate Heapsize?
Our understanding is that the heap size should be set based on how much physical memory is available in the server. In general for a dedicated server, the server should use as much physical memory as is available and no more – so one would normally assume about 80% of the server's total memory should be dedicated to the OBS server process, with the remainder for operating system use (e.g. thread stacks). If you have a way of estimating the best heap size for the OBS server process based on client backups per day, we'd love to hear it (It's interesting to note that larger heap sizes can actually decrease performance owing to extended GC times. It has at least a noticeable effect on restore speeds in the client software, and there's a "sweet spot" that seems to depend on a number of factors).
In the AhsayOBS Administrator's Guide, it is recommend to allocate the OBS service at least 2048MB and no more than 50% of physical memory. This is roughly in line with the above. The default installation of 6.17.0.0 on Windows sets -Xms512m -Xmx1024m – perhaps Ahsay should set the heap size based on physical memory automatically when starting the service or installing the product.
Increasing the maxThreads setting is once again hardware-dependent and best set based on a variety of factors, including aggregate network usage. It's not clear what the limit should be, although a too-high limit may cause the server to go into swap – if you have 1,000 customers all trying to back up at the default 9pm, it's better to refuse half the connections and have the client retry later, rather than attempt to process them all at once. In the AhsayOBS Administrator's Guide, no mention is made of the maxThreads setting, but all the examples have it set to 1000 (increased from the default 500). We have observed that increasing maxThreads to 1000 or even 1500 or 2000 is a very common practice amongst larger Ahsay licensees.
What is the Ping Monitor in MyClient?
The ping monitor is a basic connectivity check between MyClient and your AhsayOBS server. There are any number of reasons that might cause the monitor to fail - it might be because your server is under high load, or it could equally likely be a transient, temporary network issue.
If you are seeing a high number of alerts, there is an issue communicating with your backup server.
If you are seeing some low background level of alerts, there is probably no issue communicating with your backup server, but some requests are timing out or failing. This may or may not have an impact on MyClient's sync processes.
You can reduce the number of alerts by configuring MyClient to send the email only after two consecutive failures; this option is on the Manage System Behaviour page > Alerts tab
If you do not wish to receive these alerts, you can disable the Ping Monitor from the Manage Servers page
You can see a history of the ping monitor by using the 'Latency Monitor' link from the Manage Servers page
Why does IE8 not display the sign up form properly?
The issue is with the HTML code snippet used to embed the form into your website.
This issue is caused because IE8 does not respect the min-width attribute unless the target website declares a modern DOCTYPE.
To resolve the issue, either
add <!DOCTYPE html> to the very top of the HTML page (might have other consequences), or
add width:800px; alongside the other style parameters in the MyClient iframe HTML.
To better support IE 8 in non-strict doctype mode, we will include the above information into an update for this code snippet in our documentation.
Is there a minimum Ahsay client version required to work with MyClient?
Any 5.x version should be fine, there's no minimum version – MyClient was initially developed during the 5.x days and we still have a large fraction of customers using these older versions. Although some features are missing on 5.x servers (e.g. run backup now), MyClient becomes more powerful in other ways since MyClient adds reseller support, which is otherwise only available in a weaker form on 6.x servers.
Does creating a MyClient reseller create a AhsayOBS subadmin?
Creating a MyClient reseller does not create an AhsayOBS subadmin. The MyClient reseller system is separate to the AhsayOBS subadmin system, predating it and allowing for much greater flexibility and features.
It's perhaps a little confusing at first – please see http://www.myclientglobal.com/understanding_resellers/ for more information.
Can I have a second user using MyClient which could see only a some of our OBS users accounts?
It is possible by creating a MyClient reseller and assigning the customers inside MyClient. The MyClient reseller system works independent of OBS subadmins, so you do not need to migrate any OBS users. You can create any number of MyClient login operators under a MyClient reseller.
Can we direct customers from our home page directly to MyClient to create new backup user accounts for Ahsay?
Yes you can - you can add iframe html to a page on your own website to provide a way for customers to sign up directly. The signup form mirrors the signup process within MyClient, so it respects all your custom plan offerings and configuration.
In MyClient, from the Management menu, choose System Settings > "Configure access to external forms and API methods" and create a new access key for your primary reseller for the "External Forms \ Signup Form" option.
Once you have created an access key, you may embed the signup form into your own website using the following HTML:
<iframe src="https://YOUR-MYCLIENT-INSTALLATION/ext.signup_customer/?apikey=access_key" style="min-width:800px;border:0;margin:0;padding:0;" allowTransparency="true"></iframe>
For more information, please see the documentation on http://www.myclientglobal.com/embedding_myclient/ and http://www.myclientglobal.com/external_forms_and_api/ .
A tool that simplified remote seed loads
This would be a great utility , maybe with a upload progress bar !!!
A tool that automatically scanned a computer to determine approximate data usage prior to installation
Would you be interested in a stand-alone version of MyClient to run on your own servers
Would you be interested in a tool that automatically moves accounts to balance storage between multiple backup servers?
Would you be interested in automatically create Adgroups and assign them to customers across all your OBS servers
Automatically creating and branding software agents for all your resellers instantly, that are always up-to-date
Support for creating invoices in MyClient
Support for prompting for payment details during account signup in MyClient
Command-line tool that can.... (click for tool details)
Retrieve and manage OBS settings, fix common scheduler errors, transmit logs offsite, modify backup account settings and backup server hostname?
Sales force integration
Can I send backup reports to one email address and alerts to different one?
Set the customer to daily-on-failure only with the one email address, and then let's create a custom report for the every-day email address
Then create a custom report: to create custom report: [[on the search-backupsets page, search WHERE customer is {the customer} ; you should see all their backupsets ; then save the search with a good name like "{customer's name here}" then from the Management menu > Manage Event Handlers create a new rule Every Day (at time: 7.00 am) ---> Send Custom Backup Report (backupsets: your saved search; template: modern single-customer; recipient: their email address)
How can I set the user home for new accounts on a server?
It is possible to set the User Home directory for new accounts per- plan template (System Settings > New Account Plans > {select plan} > "Backup Server" tab). You can create new account plan templates for your reseller, and then assign the plan templates to the reseller by the Permission-Group system.
If the User Home is not set for your new account plan template, then the per-server default can be set on the Manage Servers page - and if the User Home is not set there either, then it falls back to the AhsayOBS server itself to choose the User Home directory.
We have a Ahsay Proxy Re-director, Can Resellers create new accounts on their OBS instead of ours?
The answer is absolutely yes – one of MyClient's main uses is as a reseller portal covering multiple AhsayOBS servers. Resellers can view and manage their customers and create new customers unified across many AhsayOBS servers, without requiring any direct access to AhsayOBS.
We have a number of other features for your resellers, such as consolidated email reports; a comprehensive permission system; centralised backup job troubleshooting and management; sign-up forms that can be directly embedded into the reseller's website; the ability for a reseller to sign up a customer, but have the customer enter their own password securely and privately; and many more.
Can you explain the MyClient refresh intervals
MyClient automatically refreshes in the background. However, different data is synced at different time intervals based on how likely it is to have changed. Most data should be up-to-date within 15 minutes. This includes new and deleted backup accounts, all backup jobs, and new backupsets.
Backupset deletions are a rarer occurrence and owing to the design of AhsayOBS, require a much greater load on the AhsayOBS server to verify. As a result, MyClient checks for backupset deletions at a much lower frequency. If the backupset was deleted from within MyClient, it is obviously aware of the change immediately.
If you are working with a time-sensitive issue, you can of course refresh all customers immediately from the Manage Servers page, or a single customer by pressing the 'refresh' image button in the top-right corner of a Customer Detail page. This allows you to perform interactive troubleshooting from MyClient.
In this case as you have a dedicated server with us, we can increase the frequency of backupset-deleted checks to help avoid this happening again.
We do suggest having your resellers work from within MyClient instead of logging in directly to the AhsayOBS server – this allows MyClient to be aware of changes immediately rather than waiting until the next refresh.