ADvance release notes – September 2022

What’s new?

Product metering - qualification settings enhancement

The qualification settings used for Product metering have been amended to provide a more flexible solution.

Prior to this release the option was to allow X accesses per day/week/month/year.  Customer feedback on this was that it was restrictive as they may, for example, want to allow the access to be over a timeframe of 2 weeks, 6 weeks or 6 months.  We have therefore changed this option to allow X accesses per Y days i.e. the time parameter is always days.

As part of the release we have converted all existing settings to be in days, with a month being set to 31 days.  For example if the setting prior to the release was:

then after the release it will be:

Changes to Variant Bespoke Messaging Emails

For a consistent back-end user experience, the variant bespoke messaging emails now support the use of ##Header## and ##Footer## variables, in the same way as Text Assets.  This is to you enable to you to have unique branding for variant emails, for example for promotional offers.

If you are using bespoke messaging for variants and want to pull in the Branding Header/Footer, then you will need to add these variables to the HTML that you create for the Variant bespoke messaging email.

Prior to this change being made the messaging was always pulling in the Branding details for Header and Footer sourced from the Branding Configuration.  Following this release this is how it works:

• If placeholder ##Header## exists, the system will display the brand email header
• If placeholder ##Footer## exists, the system will display the brand email footer
• If ##Header## not found, then the system will not display the brand email header, allowing you to add your own HTML
• If ##Footer## not found, then the system will not display the brand email footer, allowing you to add your own HTML

Note : If you want variant bespoke messaging to have the default brand header/footer, then you will need to edit the messaging and add in these variables following the release

BI - Amendments to information in Payments folder

We have added a new subfolder called Next Payments under Order -> Payments in order to collect all the information about the next payment in one folder:

The Next Collection date field has been moved from the Payments folder into the Next Payments subfolder.

The Next collection amount (base currency) field no longer exists.  Instead, under Next Payments there are four newly added fields:

• Next Payment Net Value (Base currency)
• Next Payment Tax Value (Base currency)
• Next Payment Net Value (Order currency)
• Next Payment TaxValue (Order currency)

NOTE : if you have any BIs where you have filtered on or output the next collection date field they will continue to work.  However we would advise for clarity that you update them as follows:  delete the field from your BI and add the new field and save your BI.  

API - option to specify responseDateTime for some methods

The following API methods have been updated to allow an option to specify the responseDateTime. If this variable is included it will insert the preference/transaction in ADvance at the time specified. This leaves any newer response in ADvance as the latest, and means that a single client API call can insert the data without having to consider existing values held in ADvance.

• /User/InsertDPA/1
• /User/UpdateNewsletterSubscriptions/1
• /User/UpdateNewsletterSubscriptionsByEmailAddress/1

 API - Add Grace End Date to /User/GetUserSubscriptions/

There was no representation of the grace end period for a subscription in /User/GetUserSubscriptions/, only the EndDate and EndDateTime which does not include any grace adjustment.

We have added two new values to the API method’s response of GraceEndDate and GraceEndDateTime.

Fixes and improvements

• General improvements.
• The ODATA email notification has been amended to include a link to the BI query that the email refers to.
• Added Milliseconds, where available, to the Activity > Date time field in BI.
• Increased the width of the Email column in Party > Address/Contacts screen.
• Fixed an issue in BI with the field Subscriptions > Grace online end date to ensure that it always represents any grace end date for a subscription where grace is present.