Transactions

Most Customer Service activities involve subscription transactions. Subscription transactions are initiated by clicking the applicable button on the top of the window. Before any transaction can be initiated, an occupant and/or address must first be retrieved from the database using Find. Only then will transaction options be available. Note that most transactions require a customer with a subscription.

Most transactions entered in Customer Service will not be processed until transaction processing is completed during the publishing run. The exceptions are the payment options (payments, NSF payments, and cancel payments), which are processed in Payment Processing, and refund write-offs and grace write-offs, which are processed immediately after entry.

Transaction security can be defined to limit which users can add, modify, delete and back-date certain transactions (see Transaction Security in the Setup Manual). Security thresholds can also be defined to establish the maximum days or amounts that can be entered in transactions such as expire changes and grace write-offs (see Security Threshold in the Setup manual).

About E-mail Confirmations

When certain transactions are entered in Customer Service, such as starts, temp stops, restarts or payments, a confirmation e-mail can be sent to the subscriber. In addition, a contact record will be created for the e-mail, allowing past e-mail confirmations to be viewed in Customer Service (if the e-mail template is set up to archive).

A confirmation e-mail will be sent if the Send Email Confirmation field is flagged when entering the transaction. Send Email Confirmation will only open if:

• The subscriber has an e-mail address specified.

• The reason code selected has Send Email Confirmation set to “y”.

• The website selected (or the “*” website, if there is only one) has Send Email checked for the template in question in Website setup (see Website in the Setup manual).

The field will default as checked if Default Send Email is checked for the template in Website setup. Otherwise it will default as unchecked.

If the Send Email Confirmation field is checked, the e-mail will be sent to the subscriber when the transaction is entered.

Note: If a temp stop with a restart date and reason code are entered, only the stop e-mail confirmation will be sent, if the stop reason code and other setup allow an e-mail confirmation. The restart date is included in the stop confirmation.

When an e-mail confirmation can be sent and the subscriber who qualifies for multiple websites, Customer Service displays the Select a Website window after the reason code is entered. The window lists the available websites, allowing the user to select the website whose properties and template should be used for the e-mail.

This may happen if a product is linked to multiple websites, or (in the case of the New Password e-mail) the occupant subscribes to multiple publications.

Once the e-mail is sent, a contact record will be created. If the e-mail template is set up to archive e-mail (Archive Email is checked), you can click the Show Document button when viewing the contact transaction to display the e-mail.