Chargify Changelog

This changelog tracks feature changes and releases for Chargify. Subscribe to this feed to keep up to date.

[chargify-changelog]

Moving the Changelog

We'll soon be shutting down this changelog. Instead, please visit the Changelog forum on our support site for all your latest Chargify release news: http://help.chargify.com/forums/20053862-changelog

P.S. You might want to check out our latest release: v1.7.2 adds the ability to add coupons to existing subscriptions via the admin UI!

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Release v1.7.0: Taxes

Version 1.7.0 brings a brand new feature to Chargify: Taxes!

The ability to define taxes in Chargify is something that many of you, especially those in the EU, have been asking for awhile.

Check out the documentation here: http://docs.chargify.com/taxes

As always, If you have any questions, give us a shout on twitter (@chargify /cc @npverni).

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Release v1.5.0: Component Enhancements

Version 1.5.0 brings a bunch of component enhancements to Chargify. These enhancements include:

Fractional cent component pricing

Price bracket support for Metered Components (already available for Quantity Components)

The ability to archive components

The ability to create components via the API

The ability to view component allocations/usages in the Admin UI

The ability to record usage and update allocations in the Admin UI

API users, please note: To accommodate the fractional cent change we made some adjustments on our end that altered how prices are stored. Because of this, we have deprecated the price_in_cents field in favor of the unit_price field. The price_in_cents field is still returned for backwards compatibility, but may not accurately represent the current state of the component if it has been updated since the change. We recommend updating your API calls to use the unit_price field as soon as possible.

Thanks to everyone who provided feedback and suggestions. If we missed something that you were looking for, give us a shout on twitter (@chargify /cc @npverni).

Updated Documentation:

http://docs.chargify.com/product-components

http://docs.chargify.com/setting-component-allocations

http://docs.chargify.com/api-components

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Changing the default API page size

Currently, if you fetch from the API and don't specify a per_page parameter, you will get a default batch of 2000 resources. Which is, basically, just way too much.

We're making improvements to Chargify tonight which will make a fetch of 2000 subscriptions 10 to 20 times faster. However, a sample set of 2000 subscriptions results in a JSON response that is 3.2MB of text. And that's JSON -- XML would be even bigger. Even with optimized database queries, we're burning considerable amounts of CPU just to assemble a response of that size. In short, the default of 2000 was a bad idea.

Tonight, we're reducing the default page size from 2000 to 200 resources, so please plan accordingly. (A sample JSON response of 200 subscriptions is 320kB in size.) You can still request larger pages (using the per_page parameter), but just be prepared to wait for it and parse the large result.

Also, make sure you note our planned downtime for tonight at 01:00EST.

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Short Downtime Tonight

Chargify will be down tonight (Friday night/Saturday morning) for a short time while we make some database optimizations. This change will result in faster site and API response times.

When: Saturday, March 19, 2011 at 01:00EDT Duration: Approximately 15 minutes Why: Database optimizations to improve response times Expectation: During the downtime, Chargify will return a "503 Service Unavailable" HTTP response.

If you access Chargify via a web browser during the downtime, you will see a maintenance page. Any customers who visit your hosted signup page during this time will also see the maintenance page. The maintenance page directs users to the @billingstatus Twitter account which will be kept up to date during the maintenance. The @chargify Twitter account will also be updated during the window.

If you access Chargify via the API during the downtime, you will receive a response with a blank body and a "503 Service Unavailable" status code in the header.

[chargify-changelog]

Release v1.2.6: Card Expiration Emails

Want to notify your customers when their credit cards will expire? Now you can! Check out the settings tab to configure card expiration emails. Your customers will be notified 3 times in the month leading up to the expiration. 

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Release v1.2.4

Added support for Statements in the API (http://docs.chargify.com/api-statements)

Updated gateway operations to authorize credit cards on storage and update

http://docs.chargify.com/release-notes

[chargify-changelog]

Release v1.2.3 (Part 2) - Coupon Enhancements

A few weeks back we asked for your feedback on ways to improve the current coupon functionality in Chargify. We are happy to announce the release of the 3 features that got the most votes.

Recurring coupons: Now you can configure coupons to continue to apply after initial signup. This is a great way to give customers a permanent discount. Recurring coupons can be configured to recur indefinitely or for a fixed period of time.

Remaining credit: Coupons can now be configured to leave a remaining negative balance after they are applied. For example, if a customer is subscribes to a $70 product with a $100 coupon, they will be left with a -$30 balance.

Delay until after Free Trial: Previously, if you have a product with a free trial, any coupons applied to those subscriptions would be ignored. Now, you can configure coupons to delay their application until after the free trial is up.

For more information, check out the updated coupon documentation: http://docs.chargify.com/coupons

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Release v1.2.3 (Part 1) - Cancel at end of Pay Period

One feature that many users have asked for is the ability to delay the cancellation of subscriptions until the end of the pay period. This especially comes in handy when you have a product that customers pay for in advance. 

You can now accomplish this in Chargify via the Admin Interface as well as the API. For more info, check out the relevant docs:

Cancellation UI: http://docs.chargify.com/cancellation

Subscription Update API: http://docs.chargify.com/api-subscriptions (see the cancel_at_end_of_period option for updates)

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Release v1.2.2

* Fixed a bug that caused blank return params when the signup was completed without a credit card * Changed statement language for "Balance Due" to "Ending Balance" to clear up confusion over having a positive "Balance Due" and a "PAID" stamp at the same time * Fixed a bug that resulted in an Internal Server Error when search results returned enough results to require pagination

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Chargify Release Notes

We've started publishing public release notes to our docs site: We didn't keep formal "version" numbers before this, so we started the list with a very arbitrary "v1.1.0".

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Statements

Statements are a great way for both you and your customers to see a line-item breakdown of the charges, payments, credits, and activity for a subscription account on a period-by-period basis. We "pre-released" this feature 2 weeks ago and on Friday we finalized that release.

For any subscription, you can switch to the Statements view and then page between the usage periods for an at-a-glance view of everything that has affected the subscription balance. This is really handy when reviewing someone's account history.

What's really great is that you can also share these Statements with the customer via email. If you select the option, Chargify will automatically send out a pretty, HTML-formatted email to the customer when their statement period closes. You guys have been asking for line-item ability on receipts for a while, and this is our solution for that. Statements can completely replace your existing receipts, but they can also be used in conjunction if you choose.

We'll be opening up the API for statements soon, which will give you access to every piece of data that we use to generate the statements ourselves. Also, we're making available a pre-rendered HTML snippet that you can fetch via API and drop in for "native" statements, styled however you please.

Statements documentation

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Zferral integration

One of the long-standing most requested features on our feature request forum has been referral tracking. We were always hesitant to build this into Chargify because it was outside of our realm of expertise. After all, we're always urging companies to focus on what makes their product unique, and offload the hard, boring billing stuff to us.

We've been working with the fine folks over at Zferral to integrate their custom referral and Saas affiliate software into Chargify. News of the integration broke last week on TechCrunch and we released it earlier this week. Their system meshes perfectly with ours, since they allow you to set up campaigns that will reward your affiliates on both subscription signups and their recurring revenue.

We can't wait for you to try it out and let us know what you think. So mobilize your army of affiliates and reward them for sending you new business! Our Zferral integration docs and a free Chargify Developer's account are a good place to start!

[chargify-changelog]

Customizable Dunning

Chargify Dunning strategies just got a whole lot more customizable! Our latest release gives you more control over how long failed renewals are retried, and what action to take at every step along the way.

How it used to be...

The old Chargify dunning strategies lacked the ability to truly customize when customer communications were sent. Either you had us send the dunning emails or you didn't. Either way, failed renewals would trigger retries for either 14 or 21 days, at which point the subscription would always be automatically canceled if no successful payment was made.

The new way...

You decide! We've renamed the Settings tab for Dunning to "Retries and Dunning" and broken the configuration into two logical sections: Retries and Final Action and Dunning.

In Retries and Final Action, you can choose how many times you want to retry the failed renewal before the subscription is either canceled or marked as unpaid. For example, now you can choose to simply mark the subscription as unpaid after the first failed renewal attempt and manage subsequent retries yourself. Optionally, you can choose to send the customer an email at the end of this retry period, and you can even BCC yourself.

Under Dunning, you can configure periodic dunning emails that can be sent to your customer at any point in the retry process up until the retry period ends. The content of these emails has always been configurable, but when they were sent was not. Now you're in control!

This feature is intended to give you more control over how you interact with your customers, and hopefully allow you to manage the dunning process in a manner that is better aligned with your business practices. Let us know what you think on Twitter or here in the comments.

More detailed documentation is available: Chargify Dunning Documenation

Also, the new 'unpaid' subscription state is documented: Chargify Subscription Unpaid State Documentation

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API Change - "Credits" become "Adjustments"

We're making a small change to the Chargify API and we wanted you to know about it. If you use the API to pull Transactions or create Credits, then you'll want to read on to see what's changing. If you don't do either of these things, you shouldn't need to change anything. Read on to learn about the details of the change and the new functionality that's coming with it.

What's Changing

We are changing the way Chargify "Credit" Transactions work behind the scenes. Today, Credits deduct an amount from a Subscription's balance, but are represented with a positive "amount". For example:

Old Subscription Balance: $40 Applied Credit Amount: $30 New Subscription Balance: $10

Since it would be nice to also adjust the balance up in some cases, we're introducing Adjustments. Adjustments with positive amounts make the balance go up, Adjustments with negative amounts make the balance go down (like Credits). For example:

Old Subscription Balance: $40 Applied Adjustment 1: -$30 Applied Adjustment 2: $5 New Subscription Balance: $15

Internally, we're converting all existing Credits to Adjustments.

What this means for you

If you create Credits today via the API, then you'll still be able to make the same API call you do already - you'll still specify a positive amount to credit, which will cause the balance to go down. However, the resource that is actually created will be an Adjustment with a negative amount. This will be reflected back to you in the API response when you successfully create a Credit - the amount will be negative and the transaction_type will be 'adjustment'.

You'll also be able to create Adjustments -- both positive and negative -- directly from the API and forget about Credits if you want.

If you pull Transactions via the API, you will no longer see transactions with transaction_type of 'credit'. If you display account transactions in your app or service, you may need to add support for the new Adjustments.

Implementation Date

These changes will go live between 1am and 7am EST on Saturday, December 18th.

Conclusion

With the introduction of Adjustments, you'll have more control over the current balance of your subscriptions and be able to make arbitrary changes much more easily.

This change has made us think about introducing versioning to the API, but we're holding off on that for now. Since creating Credits still works just as it did, and we're only extending functionality by adding Adjustments, we hope that no one will need to make any changes to their implementations. If you have any concerns or comments, please let us know

[chargify-changelog]

Activity Stream and Gateway Logs

Early this morning we released a new view on your Chargify Dashboard! Now, when you sign in and access a Site you will see a stream of recent "Activity" that includes all of your signups (both successful AND unsuccessful), renewals, payments, and more, to give you a better overall view of "What's Happening". You'll also see a breakdown of your signups and revenue this month vs. last month, per product, to see how you're stacking up to past performance. We've been collecting the data for the events for a while, but we just turned on improved tracking this morning. Hence, events from before this morning won't contain as much rich information as the events going forward.  Note that for failed signups you can now see the reason for failure and, in most cases, clicking on the reason text will take you to a Gateway Log view. This view is helpful for viewing the full response from the gateway to and to diagnose issues.  Clicking on "View all events" from the bottom of the Dashboard's Recent Events will bring you to a filterable view of all of your Site's events. Clicking any of the filters at the top will narrow your view to only those events.   We hope you enjoy!

[chargify-changelog]

Modify the next billing date

We recently launched the ability to modify the next billing date associated with a subscription. Possible use cases for this feature include:

Extending a customer's trial period

Adding extra time onto a customer's subscription

Aligning subscription renewals with a date that makes more sense to your business' lifecycle

For documentation on what dates Chargify tracks, and how to modify them, you can check out: http://docs.chargify.com/billing-dates