Question about Subscriptions

[Kimmie]

Is it possible to set up a subscription that is more than "monthly"? what I would like to do is set up "30 days, 90 days, etc), but I need to make sure that this can be done so that if someone sets this up their sub knows not to expire for that long since they will be recurring.

[Arantor]

Sure you can, when you set up the subscription you can set the number and the type, type being days, weeks, months or years.

[Kimmie]

Awesome! I have another question

I have someone who does not like the idea of having their card charged every month automatically. I know that with the host I use, I have it set up as a sub so that I do not have to worry about it, but they still automatically send me an invoice every month.

Will this service do that as well? It would make it much easier on those so that they can simply pay the invoice when it comes due instead of having to purchase a sub, cancel it before their next due date, purchase another one, cancel it, etc.


And if they cancel it before their next due date, they still have the access for that period right? like if they purchased a 30 day sub and cancelled it 15 days in, they would still have that other 15 days before it booted them out of that membergroup right?



I also have some who can not always pay the same amount every month. Not sure what I can do for them other than tell them to purchase a sub, cancel it some time before the due date, and then when it runs out, they can purchase a different one, cancel it, etc.

[Arantor]

Paid subs can also be used in a non-recurring way, so people can sign up as and when and not necessarily have it automatically renew at the end of the subscription. There aren't very many good ways to handle this with PayPal so ultimately some of this is going to be down to the user to be a little proactive.

IIRC if they do cancel the auto renewal, yes it should continue to be in force for the remainder of the period they bought it for.

[Mark S]

Is there an option to NOT auto-renew?  I didn't see any but, maybe I'm missing it.

[Arantor]

Sure there is, when taking out the subscription the user can elect not to have it automatically renew... I do this all the time.

[Kimmie]

Sure there is, when taking out the subscription the user can elect not to have it automatically renew... I do this all the time.

Oh so when they are in the process of getting the subscription, they have the option of telling it to not renew? Ok.. that makes things for me a little easier....

And I assume at this point, the forum does not send them any sort of invoice or anything. The reason why I bring this up is because just as with my website hosting, I am not paying for a product, I am paying for a service but they still send me invoices every month so I have that paper trail.

With that being said, I think I have another question..lol. Is there a way to pull up some sort of report that shows me who has what subscriptions, when they expire, if they are recurring, etc?

Will they have any way of pulling any sort of report up showing what sub they have, the payments they have made, etc?

[Arantor]

No, no sort of invoice is handled. But if they do auto-renew, there is still a paper trail because it's all managed at PayPal's end, not SMF's - when subscribing, PayPal is told that it is a 'subscription' and sets up billing appropriately.

Sure you can get a list, it's in the subscriptions area...

[Kimmie]

SMF really should have made a How To or a Faq on this, it would have made it a lot easier...lol.


I think that is all the questions I have for now. I am setting these up to start August 1st so I am trying to get all the information I can on them without having to shut the site down and going through everything myself since there is no way to set all this stuff up without it being turned on and active.

If I have more ?'s I will be back  lol

[Kimmie]

ok I have another question..lol

This part:

Send Reminder Email:
Days before subscription is due to expire to send reminder. (In days, 0 to disable)

Email to Send upon Completion:
Where {NAME} is members name; {FORUM} is community name. Email subject should be on first line. Blank for no email notification


do I need to do anything on my servers end to set this up since that is where the emails will be coming from? Or is this just a pm it sends and not an actual email? What does it mean by "Completion"? Is this the reminder email they get from the site, or will this be an email they get once they purchase the sub?


Another question: What happens when paypal denies the payment due to them not having the money? How does the site know paypal denied it? How does the site know their credit card was declined if it is? Do they still get the access anyways?


And what is this setting for?  Subscription price varies on duration ordered

[Kimmie]

Didnt want to keep editing my post so I will put my next question here.


If I set a reminder to be sent 5 days before their sub expires and they renew it on that same day (5 days before their current one expires), does the forum know to wait until the current one expires before the new one kicks in? Or will they lose that 5 days

[Arantor]

do I need to do anything on my servers end to set this up since that is where the emails will be coming from?

Nope, it just uses the forum standard email to send this. If your server is set up to send other emails (registration, notifications etc.) this will be sent the same way.

What happens when paypal denies the payment due to them not having the money? How does the site know paypal denied it? How does the site know their credit card was declined if it is? Do they still get the access anyways?

PayPal notifies the forum in the event of successful payment and until that notification is received, nothing happens.

And what is this setting for?  Subscription price varies on duration ordered

Normally a subscription is for one duration and one price for that duration. This allows you to set up one subscription with multiple prices depending on how long it is purchased for.

If I set a reminder to be sent 5 days before their sub expires and they renew it on that same day (5 days before their current one expires), does the forum know to wait until the current one expires before the new one kicks in? Or will they lose that 5 days

It depends. If it's a renewal of the *same* subscription, it will extend it. However, if you set it up so that each duration of subscription is a different subscription type, it won't extend it because it won't know that the two are supposed to be the same thing, if that makes sense. That's really what the 'price varies depending on duration' setup is for, so that you set up 'one' subscription.

(What happens is that the subscription type is sent as a number to PayPal, and that's how it knows to call your forum and tell SMF what's been signed up for. If the number is the same, it updates, if not it adds the subscription to the user's account. One subscription with multiple price points is still one subscription.)

[Kimmie]

ok one more question, and I want to THANK you for all your help on this

Email to Send upon Completion:
Where {NAME} is members name; {FORUM} is community name. Email subject should be on first line. Blank for no email notification


Is this the "reminder" email they get x amount of days before their sub expires, or is this an email they get after they have completed purchasing this subscription (like a thank you email).

[Arantor]

IIRC that's the email they get once they subscribe.

[Kimmie]

ok so do we know what that email says, or do we have any way of controlling what the reminder email says?

[Arantor]

Um... it says whatever you write in it. If you don't write anything, no email is sent.

I can't remember about the remainder email, that might be one of the standard email templates (see either THemes/default/EmailTemplates.english.php or the Email Template Editor mod)

[Kimmie]

Um... it says whatever you write in it. If you don't write anything, no email is sent.

I can't remember about the remainder email, that might be one of the standard email templates (see either THemes/default/EmailTemplates.english.php or the Email Template Editor mod)

The reminder email was the one i was referring to since it is not the one you can do yourself on the sub page.


"do we have any way of controlling what the reminder email says"

[Arantor]

Yes, and I provided the details: either edit Themes/default/EmailTemplates.english.php where the text is, or use the Email Template Editor mod to do that.

[Kimmie]

oh ok I will have to go look.


You would think whoever thought this thing up, and came up with the idea about the "completion" email would have thought "hey we have the setting right here for how many days on a reminder and since it sends an email too, why not let them do that one as well"  lol

Someone did not have their thinking cap on that day

[Arantor]

Thing is, most of the time, the general reminder email is fine, I don't know anyone who wanted to modify it before, while the completion email would be useful to modify because it can be used to tell people what they can now do having subscribed (and of course, personalises the thank-you as well)