AbleCommerce Shopping Cart Software

When a user views their "MySubscriptions" page from the My Account area, it only shows the ACTIVE subscriptions. In my opinion it should show EXPIRED and active subscriptions but I can't seem to figure out how to show that information. They need to see when their prior subscriptions expired just like in an order history. I also go into the Admin area to try and view expired subscriptions but it doesn't seem you can. It only filters active/inactive/all but that doesn't give you any way to view EXPIRED subscriptions.

Any suggestions to improve the My Subscriptions page to show a user's subscription history of both expired and current subscriptions?

I'd also like to see improvements to the admin area of course.

Thank you.

NC Software wrote:Any suggestions to improve the My Subscriptions page to show a user's subscription history of both expired and current subscriptions?

Expired subscriptions are automatically purged by the AC7 maintenance routine. That's why there's no option to view them in AC7.

I just finished a nice project for a client that wanted full Authorize.Net ARB (Automatic Recurring Billing) support. End result came out well. Shoppers have option to add a recurring plan to an existing one-time purchase. Checkout automatically registers the correct ARB plan settings with Authorize.Net. ARB plan details get recorded in a new table so opt-in and opt-out reports can be generated.

Also has admin-side management page to see ANet status of all ARB's, active or not. Admins can cancel any ARB plan from the same page. Also has shopper-side user controls to allow shoppers to see their ARB plans and cancel their own subscription with automatic email confirmations.

When a scheduled ARB charge occurs at Authorize.Net, my module automatically creates a new order in AC7 with correct payment info so the admin has an order to fill. Basically hands-off since ANet handles all the credit card storage and charging the card at the designated interval(s).

Basically subscriptions/ARB the way it should be done in AC7.

Now I just need to come up a way to manage/sell software maintenance and renewals. Should be a fairly easy extension of the above.

Expired subscriptions are automatically purged by the AC7 maintenance routine. That's why there's no option to view them in AC7.

Okay, I'm going to report this to AC then, this is not the correct way to handle this. Subscriptions are like Digital goods, they should never be deleted, they should be "expired." I'm not sure what the intention of the Active/Inactive is with a subscription. I can't see a scenario of having a subscription marked "Inactive" but I guess it doesn't hurt. In my world I can only see working with expired/non-expired.

Users need to see their prior subscriptions and when they expired. For example, we keep cloud backups 6 months after the subscription expires. As the lovely AC 7 doesn't send out a reminder e-mail that your subscription is about to expire, would you like to renew, we have situations where subscriptions expire and the user doesn't know of it, time goes by and their cloud backups are purged. We have to explain to them when their prior subscription expired, the date data was purged, etc. It's not a great way to do business.

Hence, My Subscriptions should show expired and active subscriptions, just like digital goods. Subscriptions are order items and should not be purged.

Subscriptions are extremely important in this era as recurring revenues are the thing now. It's great that AC 7 offers subscriptions, I hope AC 8 will polish it with renewals extending existing expirations, not creating completely separate subscription entities, reminder e-mails to capture business, offer discounted renewals prior to an expiration (within a window such as 30 days prior), e-mail that you're about to expire, and probably a 1-2 week after expiration offer.

NC Software wrote:I'm not sure what the intention of the Active/Inactive is with a subscription. I can't see a scenario of having a subscription marked "Inactive" but I guess it doesn't hurt. In my world I can only see working with expired/non-expired.

Remember, subscriptions are not always activated in an automatic fashion. You can sell a subscription and leave it inactive, like if you need some sort of manual verification process internal to your business. In that case, you would want to filter by inactive subs so you can quickly find the one ready to be activated.

Agree with you totally though. The vast majority of subscription-based sales would be automatically activated and expired ones are a gold mine of revenue you cannot dig in the present form of AC7.