Import of vB3.8.x Paid Subscriptions

[Kaelon]

Hi there,

When importing paid subscriptions from vB3.8.x., does XenForo continue to manage legacy paid subscriptions that are in-progress? For example, say a payment is made on a previous paid subscription and PayPal sends an IPN to XenForo -- will XenForo receive it and credit it accordingly?

Thanks!

 

[Jeremy]

Recurring subscriptions do not transfer.

 

[Alpha1]

It seems to me that this leads to a lot of paypal claims and loss of a significant amount of income. How to best approach this without too much hassle for paying members or taking a large loss?

 

[Adam Howard]

It seems to me that this leads to a lot of paypal claims and loss of a significant amount of income. How to best approach this without too much hassle for paying members or taking a large loss?

You can manually add a user to paid group.

What others have done is manually made a list and then added the user back again.

Some in the name of customer satisfaction, even granted those members an extra week / month for the inconvenience and saw their paid membership double (increasing their revenue), having displayed such customer support & assurance.

Although I would like to see the stock importer further developed to include this.

 

[Alpha1]

We need a double like button.

 

[Slavik]

It seems to me that this leads to a lot of paypal claims and loss of a significant amount of income. How to best approach this without too much hassle for paying members or taking a large loss?

The subscriptions themselves come over, but when they get to the end of the paid for period, they will not reccur.

 

[Alpha1]

Unfortunately that means taking a financial hit and contact each of the members to ask them to start a new subscription.

 

[Slavik]

Unfortunately that means taking a financial hit and contact each of the members to ask them to start a new subscription.

Unfortunately, while technically it could be possible to maintain recurring subscriptions, it would require some pretty horrendous bridge back to vBulletin for vb to take the recurring sub, then report back to XenForo and apply the relevent upgrade. Simply importing the subscriptions with recurring enabled would be impossible due to security.

 

[Adam Howard]

Unfortunately that means taking a financial hit and contact each of the members to ask them to start a new subscription.

Take this as an opportunity. Especially if you're moving during the holidays.

Tell them you're having a special Migration to XenForo, Holiday Promotion. Offer a small discount for people who sign up on the new plan. This will encourage people to re-sign up at that "sale price".

 

[Kaelon]

I appreciate the response, Adam. (Good to see you again, Alfa1!)

Adam - Unfortunately, I've got to say this is pretty much a show-stopper for me. Your competitors - Burning Board and Invision Power Board, for example - have a payments.php file for backward-porting to vB-era IPN calls from PayPal to catch legacy recurring payments. For many Big Boards, a large number of recurring subscriptions forms the basis of all of our revenue. By moving to Xenforo, we'd basically lose the ability to manage these legacy recurring payments and either we'd have to bulk-cancel every single recurring payment (which would lead to a huge loss of revenue - especially since a large percentage of users just "set it and forget it"), or, manually manage these recurring payments as they come in to add to people's time on the paid subscription groups (which would lead to a huge administrative overhead / headache).

Do I understand your recommendation to be:

1. Cancel all recurring subscriptions on PayPal, 2CheckOut, etc., payment interfaces.
2. Run a promotional for all users to re sign-up at a "sale price."

Am I missing something here? Why does this legacy back porting for recurring payments seem to be pretty standard for Burning Board, IP.Board, and others, but doesn't seem to be part of the core import you offer? Is this something Xenforo would consider in the near future?

I have a Big Board with hundreds of paid recurring subscribers reaching end-of-patience with vB 3.8.x after forking the software and stretching it this long, so, really understanding my options here with Xenforo would help a great deal. Thanks!

 

[Paul B]

Adam Howard does not work for XenForo.

Staff Members can be identified by the [Staff Member] banner below the avatar on the left, or can be seen on this page: http://xenforo.com/community/members/?type=staff

 

[Moshe1010]

I appreciate the response, Adam. (Good to see you again, Alfa1!)

Adam - Unfortunately, I've got to say this is pretty much a show-stopper for me. Your competitors - Burning Board and Invision Power Board, for example - have a payments.php file for backward-porting to vB-era IPN calls from PayPal to catch legacy recurring payments. For many Big Boards, a large number of recurring subscriptions forms the basis of all of our revenue. By moving to Xenforo, we'd basically lose the ability to manage these legacy recurring payments and either we'd have to bulk-cancel every single recurring payment (which would lead to a huge loss of revenue - especially since a large percentage of users just "set it and forget it"), or, manually manage these recurring payments as they come in to add to people's time on the paid subscription groups (which would lead to a huge administrative overhead / headache).

Do I understand your recommendation to be:

1. Cancel all recurring subscriptions on PayPal, 2CheckOut, etc., payment interfaces.
2. Run a promotional for all users to re sign-up at a "sale price."

Am I missing something here? Why does this legacy back porting for recurring payments seem to be pretty standard for Burning Board, IP.Board, and others, but doesn't seem to be part of the core import you offer? Is this something Xenforo would consider in the near future?

I have a Big Board with hundreds of paid recurring subscribers reaching end-of-patience with vB 3.8.x after forking the software and stretching it this long, so, really understanding my options here with Xenforo would help a great deal. Thanks!

You can always use an add-on that would do it for you. You can also pay to extend current "user upgrades" add-ons to support such an import.

 

[Kaelon]

@Brogan - Thanks, does Adam Howard's explanation that there is no currently any way to import recurring paid subscriptions reflect the current state of Xenforo? If so, are there any plans to support this in the future? Or, are there any Add-Ons, as Moshe1010 suggests, that can serve to preserve recurring paid subscriptions that were initiated under vB 3.8.x. and keep them functioning under XenForo?

 

[Alpha1]

I think its probably best to have a developer who already specializes in XF subscriptions and import, create such functionality.

 

[trizz]

has anything been done as of late to address the recurring sub issue? the payments.php for BB and IPB sounds like something we need! ;-)

 

[Alpha1]

yes, agreed. it's certainly a scary idea to migrate a big board to xenforo if it relies on subscriptions.

 

[Brent W]

@Alfa1 would you be interested in splitting costs with someone to have this created?

 

[donwon]

Yes looking to have this add on created. I can't move to XF unless I can move users without breaking reoccurring payments to paypal.

 

[Brent W]

I have asked @Waindigo for a quote that will allow us to release it to everyone. Will let you know the outcome.

 

[trizz]

id definitely be interested in a JV to get this coded up @BamaStangGuy . Please check out this thread for some recent conversation on the pitfalls that need to be addressed - http://xenforo.com/community/thread...uity-after-migration-to-xf.76173/#post-779479