Released on December 14, 2011
The version 4.3 release of Wild Apricot includes the following features.
Redesign of the invoicing/payment workflow
- Any contact (e.g. not only members) can log in, view and pay invoices from their profile, as well as view an archived list of invoices and payments
- Ability to complete one or several transactions (e.g. membership application and event registration, or registrations to two different events) and pay them individually or at the same time
- Each self-service transaction will generate an invoice (except for donations) which can be paid online at any time (e.g. retrying failed payments)
- Ad-hoc invoices (e.g. manually recorded invoices) can be paid online by contacts - like any other invoice - using a link which is emailed to them
- Overpayments, partial payments, and other credits are displayed in every contact's profile - e.g. user would only have to pay net outstanding balance. For example, once invoice is created, administrator can apply discounts/credits to it and then online payment can be done for the outstanding balance only
- New 'Public memo' field for invoices (shown to buyers)
- Passwords are now generated automatically for new members/contacts and emailed to them - previously members set their passwords on sign-up during membership application
- There is no longer a concept of 'In progress' or 'Abandoned' transactions - except for donations. As soon as a transaction is confirmed, an invoice is generated and stays 'open' until a payment is either received via online payment or recorded manually by the administrator
- Reduced the number of email templates for event and membership workflows
Automatic tracking of email bounces (i.e. undeliverable email)
- Email delivery status added to email log
- If a contact has persistent email delivery problems (e.g. email no longer valid), system will automatically disable emails delivery to contact
- Individual email bounces are no longer forwarded to administrators
Ability for administrators to process credit card charges manually
Depending on which online payment system you are using, administrators can now process credit card payments from admin view in Wild Apricot.
New 'flexible' layout theme 'Granite'
The theme automatically expands/shrinks to the visitor screen resolution
Other notable changes
- Membership-related macros are now available in email templates: Member_Renewal_Date, Member_Next_Renewal_Date, Member_Since, Member_Status, Member_Level_Fee, Member_Level, Member_Level_Full
- Enabled macro EventField_... in invoice emails
- Members in Pending status can now use member-only event registration types. This enables a scenario where people can register for an event and apply for membership at the same time - and then pay once.
- Advanced search to find contacts with open balance
- Improvements to automatic recurring payments interface:
- "Invoices and Payments" tab in contact profile shows next recurring payment with next charge date and amount. There is also a Cancel button to cancel the recurring payment.
- Invoice for recurring payments are automatically generated as soon as charge is processed successfully. If charge fails, "Recurring renewal failed" email is sent to a member.
- When registering for an event, system suggests appropriate actions: "Login", "Renew membership", and "Apply for membership".
- Invoice for any transaction can now be billed to another person, i.e. event registration of "Mary Smith" can be billed to "John Smith". For self-service transactions, billing person is determined automatically and cannot be changed. Administrator can change invoice's billing contact in the administration backend.
- New button to generate and email new password to the contact. This email uses new customizable template: Settings / Contact settings / Password email
- Logged-in users will see a special warning message at the bottom right corner of the screen if they have 1) open balance 2) incomplete transactions 3) lapsed/overdue/upcoming membership renewal
- Redesigned credit-card entry screen and moved all of the payment processing code into a separate application as we go through the formal PCI compliance certification
- Theme override failsafes implemented to reduce the chances of site malfunctions when Theme Overrides are used - and make troubleshooting easier
- Member ID renamed to User ID (long overdue since this field has always applied to all contacts, not just members)
- WebDAV: '%' or '&' in file names are automatically changed to '_' when file is uploaded (Before this change, trying to upload files with those characters led to upload failure)
- Forgot password will now say if email entered is not found in the database
- Dozens of small bugs exterminated (we do not publish the full list as each one typically applies just to one or two clients, so such a list would be useless to most others)