Reoccurring Paypal Subscriptions

What this does (added in first post)

With the current vbulletin subscription set up, it only charges your members one time. So if you have a pay based site, or forum area they have to keep subscribing, and causing them to waste time and effort (and maybe you lose money)

What this does, is give you the option if you want one time payment (standard vb) or reoccurring payment.

When you choose reoccurring the script has them sign up for a reoccurring payment, as paypal sends you confirmation each time you get a subscription payment, your system will now update their access time.

This will save your members from having to resign up all the time and hopefully save you some money


For instance, say you have a paying member?s only area, and you want them to have to pay $10 a month.

With this you can charge per month and it handles all the charges, and every month they send another payment automatically your script gets updated and sets their new expiration.


This has been asked for many times and IMO should have been in to begin with.

Enjoy and I will help as I can.

Note from the new supporter: This hack is now being actively supported again. I have updated the install instructions to work for version 3.0.7, and we can now begin to work out any existing bugs. This code is still raw and has not been tested extensively due to the difficult nature of testing paypal transactions.

[amykhar]

Create a usergroup with the permissions that you want your paid members to have.
Change the permissions of your registered usergroup so that they can't see the threads, posts, etc.
In your navbar template, do a conditional to show a link to subscribe to your registered usergroup. After they subscribe, promote them to the new usergroup with access.

Making this work is going to hinge on how good you are with template edits and such so that you make it clear to your users what they need to do to see your content.

I would also edit the template that users see immediately after they register. The screen should inform them that the final step is to pay up.

But, this bit of advice is off topic for this thread. Please post your future questions in the other thread so that others may help you as well.

[mfarmerhi]

Curious if the reoccurring Email reminders problem was solved?

[amykhar]

Reocurring email reminders was not a problem with this hack as far as I know. What was solved is that it stopped emailing people who have pay-pal subscriptions which automatically renew.

Make sure you didn't change the frequency that the subscriptions cron job runs. If you did, your subscribers will get multiple emails.

[mfarmerhi]

Yea Amy, that was what I was asking.

So, I was looking at the coding and it looks like it would be relatively easy to add in trial periods (PayPal allows for up to 2). You'd just need another 2 variables (trial period 1 and trial period 2 -- you can enter -0- if you don't want trial periods) and this hack would offer ALL the functionality PayPal offers...

Has anyone else added in trial periods?

[kmike]

I noticed the notification url form field is missing from this hack:

PHP Code:

<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"notify_url\" value=\"$vboptions[bburl]/subscriptions/paypal.php\" /> 


Is it deliberate? It causes vB to not perform any action after payment has been made, if there were some actions set (such as usergroup change and forum permissions updates).

[amykhar]

Originally Posted by kmike

I noticed the notification url form field is missing from this hack:

PHP Code:

<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"notify_url\" value=\"$vboptions[bburl]/subscriptions/paypal.php\" /> 


Is it deliberate? It causes vB to not perform any action after payment has been made, if there were some actions set (such as usergroup change and forum permissions updates).

The return doesn't do what you think it does. To make the actions happen, you have to set up your ipn url at paypal, as per the instructions in the subscriptions system.

"notify_url" is for the paypal verification script to send a notice to vbulletin and say if the payment is done or refused...

"return" is the one to send you back to page X... if you want to modify that url so users are taken back to a thanks page of some sort, you can do that with THAT input.

[kmike]

IPN setup isn't available for all types of PayPal accounts.
Specifying notify_url at the form submission time is a more compatible way for notifications to work, and in fact vB itself does submit it, so I see no valid reasons of the field removal in this hack.

[mfarmerhi]

Originally Posted by kmike

IPN setup isn't available for all types of PayPal accounts.
Specifying notify_url at the form submission time is a more compatible way for notifications to work, and in fact vB itself does submit it, so I see no valid reasons of the field removal in this hack.

A question regarding trial periods: It appears that this hack uses straight forward PayPal code (the same that would be provided by PayPal if one were to enter the prices and product info through their code generator).

Is there any reason why you can't simply generate the code from PayPal, including trial periods, and paste it in the appropriate places in this hack?

Seems to me this hack would easily allow for trial periods (e.g. 1 week for $5, then $10/mo there after).

[amykhar]

Originally Posted by kmike

IPN setup isn't available for all types of PayPal accounts.
Specifying notify_url at the form submission time is a more compatible way for notifications to work, and in fact vB itself does submit it, so I see no valid reasons of the field removal in this hack.

Have you tried using the subscription service without this hack and without ipn? I don't believe it works for you because the subscription code is looking for specific variables passed back by the IPN.

[kmike]

Yes, subscriptions worked nicely before this hack installation.

This is taken from one of the numerous manuals on PayPal integration:

Alternatively, you can activate IPN by including the notify_url field in your PayPal
button. This field specifies the URL of a script that can process the IPN.

This is from Business::PayPal::IPN perl package man page:

PAYPAL IPN OVERVIEW

As soon as you receive payment to your PayPal account, PayPal posts the transaction details to your specified URL, which you either configure in your PayPal preferences, or in your HTML forms' "notify_url" hidden field.

[amykhar]

To replace the notify url line, simply go to includes/functions_subscriptions.php and find (2 time)

<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"return\" value=\"$vboptions[bburl]\" />

Add After:

<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"notify_url\" value=\"$vboptions[bburl]/subscriptions/paypal.php\" />

BUT. I'm NOT going to guarantee that when subscriptions are renewed that they will be processed correctly if you use the notify url in there rather than the IPN. Unless you are not using IPN, I would leave the hack installed as before, which we knew worked.

It may work fine with the notify url, but if it ain't broke for you, I don't suggest that you "fix" it by adding in the notify url.

Amy

[concreteweb]

Originally Posted by amykhar

Have you tried using the subscription service without this hack and without ipn? I don't believe it works for you because the subscription code is looking for specific variables passed back by the IPN.

Hi Amy,

Same thing happened for us. Successfully using the subscription service for about a year. Did your mod last week - the subscription works up to a point - it connects with PayPal, sends us an email and the customer an email - but now it does not update the account on our forum.

I've tried out the code above - doesn't make a difference. We are running the 3.0.3 (patched for the security bugs.)

This is the first time I've had a problem with a mod. :ermm:

[amykhar]

As I said, I can't guarantee that it will. The reoccurring subscriptions are sending back specific ipn variables that I just don't believe would be sent the other way. I haven't had a chance to look at vbulletin 3.5 yet to see what it offers in subscriptions. It may be a moot point if it handles recurring subscriptions out of the box.

Amy

[concreteweb]

Originally Posted by amykhar

The hack, as it is, installs fine. And, it sets up the recurring subscriptions fine. What isn't working right is something that isn't working right with subscriptions in general - even without the hack installed. Some times, payments don't process and subscriptions aren't added or updated.

We've had some time to test all of our subscriptions.

Here's an update from my earlier message today.

1. All of our regular non-recurring subscriptions work fine - everyone gets their account updated a.o.k.

2. None of the recurring subscriptions get their accounts updated.

It sure looks like this is an issue with the mod since standard subs work like a charm.

Comments anyone?