Potentially Mergeable Subscriptions
Instead of renewing their subscription, sometimes members buy a new one. That might be because they have switched to a different type of subscription, but sometimes it's because they didn't spot the renew button, and bought a new one instead. That can make life a bit harder for administrators, as it's harder to spot who has renewed and who hasn't.
The subscription maintenance screen identifies for you subscriptions that probably could do with merging. We don't just merge them automatically for you, as every organisation's set-up is different, and there are occasions when a member really should have 2 separate subscriptions.
Criteria for suggesting a merge
2 subscriptions will be suggested for merge if all of the following apply:
- The owner of the subscription is the same
- The subscriptions are of the same subscription product type and price option
- The subscriptions overlap by an amount that is less than the rollover period, or the gap between the end date of one, and the start date of the other is less than the rollover period.
- Any form data for the subscriptions is substantially the same (subscriptions of type Other only)
See below for a detailed explanation of what these mean, with examples, below.
Where a member has 3 or more possible subscriptions that could be merged, the subscriptions are paired up - so you merge them 2 at a time.
The Subscription Maintenance screen
To get to the Subscription Maintenance screen, click on Subscriptions in the Membership Summary section in Admin Home. Then click on the Maintenance link.
For each pair of subscriptions to merge, you will see the following information:
Owner: The name of the owner (group or individual). Clickable to the group/individual member's page.
Type: Hover over to see the full name of the subscription product/price option
Subs: The subscription id, start and end dates for the 2 subscriptions. Click on the links to vew the subscription details
Overlap: This is the number of days of overlap. If the number is positive, the later one starts before the first one finishes. If the number is negative, the number is the size of the gap (in days) between one finishing and the other starting.
Reason: This will be either: overlap<rollover (the later one starts before the first one finishes and the overlap (in days) is less than the rollover period); or gap<rollover (the later one starts after the first one finishes and the gap (in days) is less than the rollover period)
Result: The subscription id, start and end date of the subscription once merged.
Merging the Subscriptions
You can merge in bulk, by ticking the top box in the left hand column, and clicking on the merge button. To merge them one by one, click on the merge link in the relevant row.
The merge process combines the 2 subscriptions into one, with:
- the ID from the later subscription
- the start date from the earlier subscription,
- the end date from the later subscription. Note: once merged, you can change the start and end date.
- the form data (if any) from the later subscription
Orders: Any orders relating to the earlier subscription, will be linked to the later subscription. If you want to check what form responses the member completed for the earlier subscription, you click through to the relevant order(s), and view the form responses from there.
