Reminder: Client Area Upgrades

Meredith Huffman

Meredith Huffman

— 3 min read
Reminder: Client Area Upgrades

We're reaching out today with a reminder about the planned work coming up for our Client Area Portal https://portal.reclaimhosting.com. One week from now, on Tuesday, July 30, 2024, we will be upgrading our billing software to increase security and bring new features to our billing system. 

As part of this, we will be migrating the Client Area portal to a new URL. With this migration and update, you may see a change to the layout of your Client Area. Your services (hosting plans or domain name registrations) will not be impacted during this maintenance and upgrade. Finally, the new URL for our Client Area after the migration and users will automatically be redirected. The new location will be https://billing.reclaimhosting.com.

This work will be here soon. As we get closer, here are key dates to be aware of.

MONDAY, JULY 29 & BEFORE

The Client Area portal will be online and available through Monday July 29. If you have anything you need to do with the Client Portal, such as purchasing new plans, renewing your existing plan, or paying outstanding invoices, please make sure to do it by the 29th.

If your Shared Hosting renewal is due after July 31, and you have not paid your renewal invoice by the time of the migration, a new renewal invoice will be automatically created in the new billing system. We recommend renewing prior to the migration to avoid any confusion from duplicate invoices.

TUESDAY, JULY 30

On Tuesday July 30, the Client Area portal will be unavailable and offline for logins and account management as we prepare for and begin the work. This will have the following effects:

  • You will not be able to access or pay invoices during this time. Please take this into account if you expect to be paying an invoice or renewing your account towards the end of the month. 
  • Your hosted websites will not be offline during this time, but you will be unable to sign into cPanel through the Client Portal.
  • You will not be able to purchase new hosting plans or domain registrations during this time, in order to prevent lost orders during the upgrade.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 31 & AFTER

There are certain steps you will need to take once the work completes, starting on & after July 31, 2024.  We are in the process of updating our existing documentation to reflect the look & workflow of the new system. Once the updated guides are published and available, we'll include them in an upcoming email.

Please be prepared for the following:

  • You will need to reset your Client Area password. You will be prompted to change the password when you go to log in. Documentation on this is in progress.
  • Your cPanel password will also change. If you use SFTP/SSH regularly you will also need to change this after July 30, 2024. Documentation on this is in progress.
  • You will need to update your payment details. Documentation on this is in progress.
  • Sub-accounts will change with the new system. If you have any sub-accounts or contacts on your Client Area account profile, please be aware that you will need to remake them after the billing system moves. In the new system, "Sub-accounts" will be replaced by "Users", and you will add them by inviting them through the new Client Portal and assigning them the correct permissions. Documentation on this is in progress.
  • Regarding open invoices:
    • If your Shared Hosting renewal is due after July 31, and you have not paid your renewal invoice by the time of the migration, a new renewal invoice will be automatically created in the new system. You’ll receive an email when the new invoice is generated. If you are paying for a Shared Hosting renewal on or after July 31, please make sure you are paying the newer invoice through the new billing system.
    • Managed Hosting and Domain of One's Own invoices will not be automatically re-created in the new system; we will continue to use the pre-existing invoices in order to ensure continuity for institutional purchasing departments. If you are paying a Managed Hosting or Domain of One's Own invoice on or after July 31, and the invoice was created before the migration, please coordinate with us directly regarding payment.

We also wanted to take this opportunity to inform you about an additional change that will go into effect on July 31. As we harden our servers and improve our security, we will no longer be offering *.reclaim.hosting subdomains as primary domains for new Shared Hosting signups.

Shared Hosting accounts that already use a *.reclaim.hosting subdomain as their primary domain will be unaffected, and you will still be able to add *.reclaim.hosting subdomains to use as add-on development URLs on Shared Hosting accounts if desired.

We are continuing to work diligently behind the scenes to make this move as smooth as possible, so stay tuned as we get closer to the date. We'll follow up with reminders to make sure you are aware and prepared for the upcoming changes to the system.

If you have any questions, please follow these steps to get in touch with our support team. Thanks again for your continued support of Reclaim Hosting!

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