maxsuite Diagrams

Services

Services

Services lists everything the business pays a vendor for, such as servers, hosting, licences and subscriptions, with what each costs and when it next renews. It is the page that stops a surprise invoice. Servers from connected provider accounts come in by themselves; anything else, including servers at a provider MaxSuite has no connection to, you add by hand.

In the sidebar under Servers & apps → Services. Needs: Projects, Costs.

The list

One row per service:

  • Service: its name, with the vendor underneath.
  • Address: a server's public IP address, when it has one.
  • What: the specs, such as size or plan.
  • Cost: the price in its own currency.
  • Renews: how far away the renewal date is. It turns to a warning inside 30 days.
  • Renewal: auto or manual.
  • Status: active, suspended, or gone at provider for a server the provider no longer lists.

Above the list are totals: how many services there are, and Spend per currency. Search filters the list. With none, it says "No services tracked".

Rows arrive in three ways:

  • Typed in by hand, with Add service.
  • A server added by hand: any service with an IP address is a server. It appears on the Infrastructure map, domains pointing at it link to it, and the projects running on it show.
  • Brought in by a provider account. A server provider connected under Integrations (provider accounts), or a Contabo account, puts its servers here with their monthly price. One machine is one row: a hand-typed row with the same address is matched, not duplicated. What the provider no longer lists is marked gone at provider.

If a provider account was connected as Only me, the services it brings in are seen only by the person who connected it, and by administrators.

Add a service or a server

  1. Click Add service.
  2. Fill in Service (the name), Vendor, Billing (Monthly, Yearly or One-off), Cost, Currency, Renews on, Panel / billing URL and Notes.
  3. For a server, also fill in its IP address, the Account at the vendor that holds it (when you have more than one there), its Location and Specs. Keep the server's password in MaxPass, not in the notes.
  4. Save. It now appears in renewals, cost reports and the reminders below.

When you edit a row that came from a provider, only the fields you could type yourself are written; what the provider reports is kept.

Row actions

  • Renew: pushes the renewal date forward by one billing cycle once you have paid. A service with no date gets today's date. It does not record a payment in Costs.
  • Test reminder: sends the renewal notice now, marked [test], to the service's owner, or to you if it has none. Nothing is recorded as sent, so the real reminder still goes out on time.
  • Map: opens the Infrastructure map on that server: the domains pointing at it, the apps on it, and when each was last seen. The map needs its own access.
  • Cost split: how a server's cost is divided between the projects it serves, by apps, evenly or by weights you set. A Contabo server is divided evenly unless somebody chooses otherwise, and its monthly draft bill uses the same split.

Attach a service to a project

Edit the service and pick its project. Per-project cost reads zero until services are attached.

Who can do what

PermissionIn plain words
View services (infra:read)See the list, totals, servers, vendor spend and the renewal text, and send the renewal list to yourself.
Manage services (infra:write)Add services and servers, edit, renew and delete them; send a test reminder; run the reminder sweep now.

See People, roles and permissions.

What happens on its own

JobWhenWhat it does
renewal-remindersEvery day at 08:00 UTCReminds each service's owner of renewals: once a week before the date, once on the day, and then once a week while the date has passed and nothing has moved it. It covers manual-renewal services that have an owner. A reminder already sent is never sent again. Press Renew, or put in the next date, to stop them.

Reminders arrive as notifications. See Notifications and alerts.

Needs

What agents can do

Reads run straight away. Everything else asks a person first unless a rule on Approvals allows it. See Agents and approvals.

Read the inventory (read-only):

  • infra.list: services.
  • infra.get: one service in full.
  • infra.servers: every service with an IP address, typed in or synced, with vendor, account, address, region, specs, cost, renewal and project.
  • infra.expiring: what renews within the next N days.
  • infra.vendors: spend grouped by vendor.
  • infra.summary: counts, what has expired or expires within 7, 30 and 90 days, and monthly spend per currency.
  • infra.renewalText: the whole inventory as plain text, grouped by urgency.
  • infra.unassigned: services on no project, with the project each name suggests.

Keep records (asks first):

  • infra.create records a service.
  • infra.addServer adds a server by hand, with a name and its public IP address, and optionally its account, location, specs, panel address and MaxPass login.
  • infra.update and infra.updateService change a service, including its project and, for a server, its address and details.
  • infra.renew rolls a service forward one billing period.
  • infra.remove deletes a service record with its reminders. Costs already logged for it stay in Costs.

Send reminders (asks first):

  • infra.sendDigest sends the renewal list to you as a notification. A key that does not act as a person is refused.
  • infra.runReminders runs the morning sweep now.
  • infra.testReminder sends one service's reminder now, marked [test].