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Release Notes - July '22

We are happy to present the FinDock July '22 Release!

note

Our release communication aims to inform you early of upcoming releases. Please keep in mind that the scope of a release is subject to change prior to the release date. Release notes are updated accordingly until the release date.

Important Dates:

  • Release to Sandboxes: June 26, 2022
  • Release to Production: July 24, 2022

NEW PILOT: Custom domains for Giving Pages​

We are happy to announce that we have begun work on adding support for custom domains to FinDock Giving Pages. So far, all Giving Pages pages are hosted by FinDock on the givingpages.org domain. With this new development, you will be able to publish pages to your own domains. Please let us know through support@findock.com if you would like to join this pilot and test this feature with us.

Payment Schedule performance update (PILOT)​

We've made good progress with the performance improvements for payment schedule runs. In testing with one of our largest customers, we've seen the generate step run time reduced by over 80%. As we expand pilot testing, we aim now to achieve these performance gains consistently across the board.

In this first phase of improvement work, we concentrated on the payment schedule generation step. With the July '22 release, we have expanded our optimization efforts to include various ProcessingHub queries in the Generate, Process & Close steps. This will further reduce the overall time it takes to run a payment schedule.

We have added Gift Aid to the scope. This effort addresses the performance of the generation step in payment schedules for creating Gift Aid submissions.

Data Quality​

Refinement of validation processing​

With this release, you can now run Data Quality validations rules on individual Gift Aid installments, instead of only through Gift Aid payment schedules.

In addition, when there are no validation rules applicable, such as with custom payment methods, we have introduced a new error message that clarifies why the validation did not succeed.

Validation rule updates​

We have updated the FinDock Data Quality rules to better reflect whether or not the issue is a true blocker or not.

Bacs Direct Debit

The following rules are now applied to SmartDebit only:

  • Contact is missing
  • FirstName is missing
  • LastName is missing
  • Address Line is missing
  • City is missing
  • Postal Code
  • LastName at least 2 char

SEPA
We fixed the collection date check which was blocking today as a valid option. The collection date for SEPA targets can be today or in the future.

Other
We updated the IBAN regex rules to include all current IBAN countries.

Gift Aid​

New donation date determination for Gift Aid submissions​

As FinDock capabilities have matured and expanded, we now have a way to set the “donation date” value for a Gift Aid claim that more closely reflects the intended meaning of “donation date” (the day the donation was paid to the charity).

Prior to this release, FinDock used the Due Date field on Installment as the donation date. With this release, we have changed the logic to use instead the Last Collection Date field on Installment. This change leads to a data set that more accurately reflects donor intention and donation payment over a wider set of circumstances.

Donation date change impact

While we do not expect Last Collection Date and Due Date to differ often, this does constitute a change of the underlying Gift Aid data in an org. This data itself ofcourse remains entirely transparent and auditable. The change also has no impact on the Gift Aid submission files themselves which maintain the existing structure and content.

For FinDock customers who use the Gift Aid extension, the vast majority of eligible installments will remain eligible. However, to be certain, we recommend using Salesforce reporting tools to confirm if any installments changed with regards to Gift Aid eligibility. For example:

  1. Run reports with the filters as shown in the following screenshots to check for installments that lose eligibility (and for which Gift Aid has been claimed or would be claimed).
    Report on declarations
    Gift Aid declaration report Report on eligibility
    Gift Aid eligibility report
  2. For installments that lose eligibility, you can decide case by case how to handle reversals or lost future claims. You can trigger a Gift Aid status update (eligibiity re-calculation and status update) by editing and saving the installment record (without changes if desired).

Giving Pages​

Handling improvement for dynamic campaign Id​

Issue: If an invalid campaign Id is supplied as a query parameter on a Giving Pages page, the underlying API call fails. FinDock cannot work with the provided value because it doesn’t have the structure expected by Salesforce. This sort of campaign Id error means no donations can be made, and the donor is redirected to failure page.

Solution: We have changed the attribute type for CampaignId from Id to String. This allows any value as an campaign Id in the API POST /PaymentIntent call (through Giving Pages or any other integration). The donor payment flow is therefore no longer stopped by an invalid campaign Id value. However, with this does not mean the donation is fully processed automatically when a faulty CampaignId is provided. The asynchronous processing of the Inbound Report record fails with a message that the campaign Id is invalid. This is the same failure mechanism already in place for campaign Id values that were structurally valid but did not exist in the org. Please always make sure to test any Campaign ID that you pass to your Giving Page URLs or the API!

Setting a default for picklists​

Issue: You can add a custom picklist field on Giving Pages page and set a default value. However, an issue with page rendering on the front end made it impossible to change the picklist value on the page itself.

Solution: We identified the bug cause the issue and fixed it so that the custom picklist values behave as expected on the front end.

Guided Matching​

Inbound report handling update​

Issue: When records have gone through Guided Review, the Has Been In Guided Review field is set to true. For Inbound Reports, this was not happening.

Solution: The field is now correctly set to true as expected for inbound reports that go to Guided Review.

Retry all rules UI improvement​

Issue: When you retry all Guided Matching rules, you could not see the results unless you did a full page refresh.

Solution: We improved the retry component so that it will now automatically refresh the page when the rule processing is done. This means that the latest status of the Transaction or Inbound Report is seen by the user.

Payment Request Generator​

New Tikkie batch generation handling​

Issue: When using the Payment Request Generator with a report as input, FinDock could run into generation failures when Tikkie is the reference type. For generating Tikkies, FinDock needs to call the Tikkie API, which cannot be used for generating more than 25 Tikkies (QR and URL values) at a time.

Solution: FinDock will now automatically split the generation run into smaller batches when reports are used as input.

Generate Tikkie URLs without QRs​

When making Tikkies with the Payment Request Generator, both URLs and QRs were created. For large runs in particular, this was a heavy process due to the complexity of QR codes. To make the process faster when QR codes are not needed, we have now added an option to generate only Tikkie URLs. The “without QR” options are available in the generator run configuration.

New Tikkie generation options

Core​

Support for Salesforce Enhanced Domains​

With this release, FinDock is fully compatible with Salesforce enhanced domains. Support is dynamic, so you don’t need to take any action. FinDock automatically checks if enhanced domains are in use and adjust URLs for Giving Pages assets and PayLinks accordingly.

Mandate management with aggregated installments​

Issue: In our November '21 release, we introduced a mandate check that triggered new mandate creation if the installment payment method changed (and FinDock Core re-use mandates option is off). This lead to new mandates being created for aggregated direct debit installments. During the aggregation process, the impacted installments and the resulting aggregated installment go through a payment method change (between Direct Debit and Grouped Installment). That triggered new mandate creation. This led to duplicate mandates for these records.

Solution: We’ve added new logic to the mandate check that excludes the installment aggregation scenario so no new mandates are created in the aggregation process as expected.

ProcessingHub​

New ProcessingHub disconnect handling​

Issue: If ProcessingHub is disconnected from an org when there are ongoing tasks for that org, the disconnection can disrupt data processing and lead to errors.

Solution: We have added a new check on disconnect to first confirm if there are any running processes for the org. If not, disconnection proceeds as normal. If there are, FinDock blocks disconnection and provides an explanation. Disconnection is not permanently blocked, but simply needs to be tried later when the running processes are completed.

CODA parsing update for bank serial numbers​

Issue: FinDock incorrectly parsed certain bank serial numbers in CODA files. This did not impact processing the CODA file, but resulted in incorrect serial number values.

Solution: We fixed the parsing error so the serial number of any bank is correctly interpreted and stored.

Enhanced LDV support​

We’ve completed further optimization work on ProcessingHub to improve performance with large data volume (LDV). This optimization helps ensure processing of large amounts of data does not encounter issues such as running out of memory.

MT940 support for Commerzbank AG​

We’ve added support to our MT940 file parsing for Commerzbank AG with BIC DRESDEFF100.

WebHub​

Improved handling on WebHub reconnect​

Issue: Under normal circumstances, FinDock can restore WebHub-dependent settings, such as Give Pages page configurations, when WebHub is disconnected and a new connection is established. However, under certain conditions, typically due to sandbox refreshes taking data from the Production environment, FinDock may not be able to restore those configurations.

Solution: When such instances arise, we have added new error messages to explain the situation and what your options are for deleting or restoring configurations on reconnect.

PayPal​

Multi-merchant support​

With this release, the PayPal for FinDock extension now supports multi-merchant accounts.

SEPA Credit Transfer​

Data Quality validation process​

Issue: If the Data Quality validation that runs as part of the SCT payment schedule process found errors in the Payment Schedule data (e.g. issues on the related Target configuration), the schedule as well as the selected installments would be marked as failed.

Solution: The in-line Data Quality validation now does not proceed to installment validation if issues are found in the payment schedule.

SIX Saferpay​

Improved notification handling​

Issue: If a webhook notification from SIX Saferpay confirming successful payment is significantly delayed (by hours), the notification would lead to a second, duplicate payment record in FinDock.

Solution: When a SIX Saferpay payment intent is received, FinDock immediately creates a corresponding installment with status Pending. To ensure all transactions are promptly processed, FinDock runs a sweeper batch to catch pending installments and checks with SIX Saferpay if they have been paid.

If the installment is paid, the batch creates a payment record and changes the installment status to Collected. The late webhook notification confirming the same payment created another payment record because a check on current installment status was not included by default. This has now be corrected so FinDock only updates installments that are not already in a closed state.

SmartDebit​

Generated payment reference handling​

Issue: The generated payment reference on installments is only updated when an installment is created. If the installment gets a new mandate before it is collected, the installment collection fails because the reference is still pointing to the old mandate. This impacts SmartDebit specifically because the payment reference uses the mandate Id as a prefix.

Solution: Now when a new mandate is created, FinDock checks if the target is SmartDebit, and if so, updates the payment reference for any related installment that is not closed (Collected, Reversed, Refunded, Rejected, Cancelled).

Tikkie​

Default expiration period​

Issue: If an expiry date is unintentionally set too short compared to the duration of a given campaign or other event, payments can be easily missed because of expired Tikkies.

Solution: FinDock now has a longer default of 730 days (2 years) for the setting Days Before Expiration.

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This update adds the new default value if the setting is empty. If you intended the setting to be empty, please clear the default value after the udpate.