Small but big things seem true if you are using PayPlans. PayPlans is a big bucket of features in which users would not get focused on every point, but some small special features lead to deeper value in your membership site.
How to change the price or type of any existing plans?
PayPlans provides the option to change or modify an existing plan or any of its parameters. Let's say you have created a fixed plan and after some time you want to convert the same plan into a higher price or recurring type then you can simply change its value or create a new one.
Impact in case of Renewal and Upgrade
If you want the previous plan to work as it is for existing customers then you should create a new plan and make sure the existing created plan is invisible and published. In this case, the existing users will avail same benefits for which they have subscribed.
However, if you want the new changed configuration to affect existing customers; in case of renewal or upgrade then simply do changes in the existing plan itself. Now changed configuration will be applied to all newly created subscriptions too.
Is Plan Accessible Through URL?
Our customers used to ask - is it possible to show plans inside a module or an article?
Here is the possible solution - If you want to sell a single plan or want to highlight one plan at a time then rather than showing a complete plan page you can make it render using a menu link. You can display the plan in various ways by which you can access individual plans through individual URLs in terms of modules, menu links, buttons, inside any Joomla article, etc. Display plan menu is never easy than this - just place a menu link in your desired place.
Menu link for individual plans
http://yoursite.com/index.php?option=com_payplans&task=plan.subscribe&plan_id=PLAN_ID
Replace PLAN_ID with the actual plan_id and yoursite.com with your domain name.
Is Discount Code Applicable Through URL?
PayPlans supports passing of coupon codes via the URL parameter. You can share the checkout link with your customers by using the URL below.
http://yoursite.com/index.php?option=com_payplans&task=plan.subscribe&plan_id=XX&coupon_code=YY
Replace XX with the actual plan_id, coupon_code with the actual discount code and yoursite.com with your domain name.
Why do we say - Do not change the encryption key?
The encryption key provides an important security layer to all keys generated in PayPlans. PayPlans uses this encryption key to encode the ids of all records and generate different encrypted keys for subscriptions, invoices, etc. Simply, a different encryption key will never generate identical keys and thus enhance your security.
Remember if you set it once and have recurring payments then it should not be modified in the future, else your upcoming recurring payments will get failed.
Offline vs Admin Payment - Are they the same?
The offline payment app is used to collect offline payments (wire transfer, cheque, cash, etc) from users and in this case, users will select offline payment from the frontend which will automatically create an invoice and put it in the checkout state.
Once the site admin adds a transaction from the backend, the invoice will get paid and the subscription gets active.
If the site admin wants to provide a free / paid plan to any user without creating any impact on revenue then he should use Admin Pay using apply plan functionality in the user tab. This will increase sales, subscriptions, coupons, and discounts but not revenue.
And if the site admin wants to provide a paid plan from the backend which must be considered in revenue then directly mark the subscription as active from the subscription screen. It will automatically create an invoice and transaction and add it to the revenue, sales and subscriptions columns.
Why PayPlans Plan type Menu is required?
PayPlans is capable of creating human-readable and clean URLs for both human and search engines.
This PayPlans plan type menu is required for proper routing of PayPlans.
If you do not want to show this menu to users then create a hidden menu and place it there.
Block Non-Subscribers
Using the Block Non-Subscribers feature site admin can force users to subscribe to a plan if users do not have any active subscriptions.
A user without an active subscription will be redirected to subscribe plan page to complete the subscription process.
With this feature, users will not be able to access resource until he has an active subscription.
You will find this parameter in PayPlans > Settings > General, under General Tab Feature.
Auto Delete Dummy Records
You will find this parameter in PayPlans > Settings > System.
Auto Delete Dummy Records feature allows the site admin to remove the subscription and its related records which are not used by the customer after a specified period of time.
It will only delete records that have subscription status as No-Status.
Unnecessary dummy records created by the One Click Checkout plugin belonging to the user Not_Registered will be removed as well.
By default value of the Auto Delete Dummy Records parameter is set to Never.
Show Custom Content on Invoice
You will find this parameter in PayPlans > Settings > Invoice under the Invoice Layout section.
The site admin can add custom content such as text and tokens in invoices using the Custom Content feature.
Site admin can use tokens to write dynamic content related to configuration, subscription, invoice, plan, transaction and user. E.g. Adding token
[[INVOICE_COUNTER]]will show the invoice counter on the invoice.To view the Tokens you need to click on the link View Tokens.
To use any token copy the complete token value
[[INVOICE_COUNTER]]and place it in the custom content block.
Apply Plan
You will find this in PayPlans > User, in the toolbar you will see the option Apply Plan.
Apply Plan allows the site admin to allocate a subscription to any user free of charge.
A subscription assigned to the user using Apply Plan by the site admin will have an invoice and transaction with the amount of 0, even if that plan has any positive amount.
Change Currency in Settings?
To change currency site admin must first change it in the backend PayPlans > Settings > General under the Localization page. Once the new currency has been set, all existing plans must be edited individually and saved again to reflect the new currency.
The recurring subscriptions to the plan made before the currency changes will not be affected. Only new subscribers will see the new currency.