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1.26 Release notes

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Release date: 20th July 2022

This release has focused on:

  • Completing the initial phase of work to integrate Flow and GoCardless 
  • Technical debt investigations focused around the activities module
  • The new components for the design system continued and will form the base of the memberships module re-design and refactor.

🎉 GoCardless is now ready to power Direct Debit payments! 

We are very pleased to have completed the initial phase of work to integrate Flow & GoCardless. In summary:

  • The whole process of managing Direct Debits is now automated - meaning once a customer has set up a membership via FOH or Online, all processes associated with taking payments are fully automated between GoCardless and Flow!

  • GoCardless will manage all compliance related email communications, such as:

    • Instruction setup
    • Payment due
    • Payment failed
    • Bank details changed

    Therefore, you will need to contact GoCardless directly to manage any content or branding they wish to include. Flow’s notifications will be silenced for GoCardless clients and therefore do not need to be configured.

  • Direct Debit reporting will be managed via GoCardless - you will be able to use their suite of reports for financial purposes. The finance data sources in Flow will not show any data.

  • GoCardless doesn’t return much detail about why the status of an instruction has changed. An instruction is either active, pending or cancelled. This is easier for admins to understand than complex BACS codes.

Creating an Instruction

A customer can purchase a recurring membership at FOH or Online. Through this process an instruction will be created and sent to GoCardless from Flow.

Note: It will take 2-3 business days for GoCardless to respond to the instruction setup request. It will either be approved or rejected. Rejection typically means the bank details do not support direct debits. This means a customers membership status will remain PENDING until the instruction has been approved.

Steps:

  1. Recurring membership is purchased and instruction created
  2. This is sent to GoCardless for verification
  3. GoCardless will respond to say it is either:
    1. Approved - now ongoing membership payments can be taken
    2. Rejected - a new instruction must be created, otherwise the membership will become SUSPENDED

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Payment Attempts

GoCardless works automatically for all payments, clients do not need to generate payment files from Flow → GoCardless. All attempts and responses (failures) are managed between the two systems without the need for intervention

The setting Max Payment Attempt Retries dictates how many times Flow will retry to take a payment through GoCardless if their failure is due to ‘insufficient funds’

The GoCardless integration follows the same process regarding membership statuses. Where a payment fails or fails after the Max Payment Attempt Retries then the instruction will be cancelled and any memberships related to this payment method will follow the status flow:

  • Active→Pending→Suspended→Cancelled

Steps:

  1. Flow generates a payment request to GoCardless
  2. GoCardless (3 days before the payment is due) submits request to BACS
  3. If the payment is successful then GoCardless notifies Flow
  4. If payment is not successful the GoCardless notifies Flow whether based on the failure it can be retried
  5. If it cannot be retired then the instruction is cancelled and membership status is updated
  6. Flow Retries based on aforementioned setting
  7. After the retry attempts are exhausted, the instruction is cancelled and the membership status updated

50F0F665-9128-47A9-A3CA-FE2564EB522F_1_201_a.jpeg

Amendments and Cancellations

The GoCardless integration keeps the BACS processes at arms length, making it easier for admins to understand the statuses and changes to the customers instruction. In short a customers bank details can be changed via Flow or via GoCardless ( through the customers bank). An instruction can also be cancelled through Flow or GoCardless (through the customers bank).

Cancellation through GoCardless

  1. Customer Cancels their instruction at the bank
  2. GoCardless notifies Flow the instruction is cancelled
  3. Flow updates the relevant customers membership status to ‘PENDING’ for resolution

Amendments through GoCardless

  1. Customer changes their bank details (via switch service)
  2. GoCardless receives new bank details, and updates the instruction
  3. GoCardless updates Flow on the new instruction. Note: GoCardless only provides Flow with redacted bank details through this process

Amendments through Flow

  1. Customer changes bank details via FOH request
  2. Flow updates GoCardless with new Bank Details
  3. GC processes a new instruction and informs Flow whether this has been successful or not
  4. Successful new instructions can then be used for future membership payments

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Link to GoCardless mandate within Flow

  • To support administrators in troubleshooting GoCardless queries there is now a hyperlink from the Customer’s instruction in Flow that takes you to their record in GoCardless. 

Mandate_Link.png

Customer notified of Direct Debit Setup

  • Additional confirmation has been aded to the online join journey as requested by GoCardless explaining that the confirmation will be received by email within 3 business days.

DD_Setup.png

End of Shift Reconciliation data source

  • A small enhancement has been added to the End of Shift reconciliation data source that allows the GL code to be grouped. This enables admins to view a summary of the amount spent against each GL code, across facilities and a relevant date range, e.g. last week, month, year etc.Group_GL_Code.png

 

Defect fixes

The following defects have been resolved as part of the 1.26 release:

  • FLOW-386 - Fixed an issue which caused Booking Terms & Conditions to always be displayed at checkout, regardless of if they had been accepted before or not.
  • FLOW-203 - Removed the empty iframe displayed when cancelling activities via the Schedule preview.
  • FLOW-432 - Resolved an issue which meant there were no warning messages or option to upload new eligibility documents via My Account before they expire.
  • FLOW-509 - The SCA expiry period has been lengthened which will result in less online join purchase failures due to timeout.
  • FLOW-520 - Users are now able to delete price adjustments without affecting any linked adjustments added using the bulk tools.
  • FLOW-634 - Fixed an issue which caused clashes to not be detected on new schedules where a clash already exists.
  • FLOW-754 - Fixed an issue which meant users were unable to view email template previews.
  • FLOW-773 - Resolved an issue which meant that users were unable to approve or reject freeze requests.
  • FLOW-557 - Fixed an issue that caused the Aged Debtor source to not refresh on schedule.
  • FLOW-743 - Resolved an issue which meant that Block Bookings were not showing on the Facility Calendar past the advance booking period.

If you have any questions about this release, please do get in touch with us on support@openplay.co.uk. 

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