Renew a Manual-Renewal Subscription Ahead of Schedule

Show the customer a message in the Customer Self-Service portal asking them to renew the subscription now.

The following contains relevant information about this use case:

Preconditions and Considerations

• The subscription has the Manual renewal type, which requires the customer to initiate the renewal at the end of the billing interval.
• The current billing interval has started and the next billing date has not been reached yet.
• The renewal is not combined with an alignment of the subscription. For more information, see Get Started with Subscription API > Alignment Settings.
• The call using the Renew Subscription API endpoint must be made between the start of the current billing interval and the next billing date.
• By default, the Cleverbridge platform bills the customer the full price for the next billing interval, which starts immediately. Any remaining time from the current billing interval is added to the next billing interval, moving the next billing date further into the future. If you want to suppress this behavior, set ResetBillingInterval to true.

Description

1. On May 15th, 2016, a customer purchases an anti-virus subscription for $80 annually but does not confirm automatic renewal. Instead, the customer decides to manually renew the subscription at the end of the billing interval.
2. On March 15th, 2017, the customer sees a message in the publisher's Customer Self-Service area asking them to renew their subscription now because it will soon expire. The message redirects the customer to a page that uses the Get Subscription API endpoint to obtain and display the price, new expiration date (May 15th, 2018), and other details regarding the subscription.
3. After reviewing this information, the customer confirms this purchase by clicking a Buy Now button on the page. The page uses the Renew Subscription API endpoint to renew the customer's anti-virus subscription immediately.
4. The Cleverbridge platform bills the customer the full $80 price for the next billing interval, which starts immediately. The remaining two months from the current billing interval are added to the next billing interval, moving the next billing date to May 15th, 2018.
5. The customer sees a confirmation page, which is either created by you or provided by the Subscription API. If the transaction is not successful, the page provided by the API will inform the customer about the next steps, such as updating the payment details in case of a failed payment.

This use case calls the Update Subscription Item and the Renew Subscription API endpoints as described below:

Preview of price and new expiration date (first call)

If the API call is formatted as described below, it will:

• Calculate the next billing date if the renewal is made
• Return the next billing date in the NextBillingDate parameter of the API response (so that it can be provided to the customer)
• Not change any data in the Cleverbridge system

Renew subscription for another billing interval (second call)

If the API call is formatted as described below, it will update the customer's subscription data in the Cleverbridge platform.

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Note

The UpdateAction parameter is currently used for documentation and tracking only. The value set does not affect transaction processing.

The supported values are as follows:

• For upgrades, set the parameter to upgrade(or 1 for JSON)
• For downgrades, set the parameter to downgrade, (or 2 for JSON)
• For all other changes, set the parameter to update (or 0 for JSON)

Options

Although not utilized in this use case, the following option is also available:

• Combine the early renewal with an upgrade of the subscription, for example, from monthly to yearly or from basic to premium. For more information, see Combine an Immediate Upgrade with an Early Renewal (Monthly to Yearly) and Combine an Immediate Product Upgrade with an Early Renewal.

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Tip

Get the customer's consent for changes to subscriptions. For more information, see Best Practices: Obtain Customer Consent.