I set up an event and I enabled “Payment required to rsvp”. A parent RSVP’d from the IOS app. He did RSVP and then received the message saying that payment was not possible on the mobile app. But his RSVP was recorded even though he did not pay.
We are having the same issue
This could also happen from the web interface if someone goes through the process to add the event to their cart but does not check out.
As of now it does require a leader to go look at the Attendance, View All Payments page to see who is listed as RSVPd without purchasing, you then either reach out to the participant and ask them to complete the Cart purchase or click the button to charge their account.
I know this is not ideal and it was brought up to TT admins, I will bring it up again to see if there is anything that can be changed to keep this situation from happening.
I was thinking through this issue and possible solutions to propose when it hit me that there could be a bigger issue. Say a participant does the RSVP and doesn’t realize they have to check out, then the RSVP is not recorded or the Cart is cleared and RSVP is removed after 24 hours. Then the day of the event comes and the parent shows up with their scout thinking they RSVPd, now the leaders do not have any record of the RSVP so have to decide does the Scout get to go, multiply that by several people and you have in my opinion a bigger issue. Isn’t it better to have the RSVP with no payment show up so you have a record of it and can reach out to the parent before the event and get the payment taken care of?
Just to put it out there, in order to accept payments through an iOS App, the fee for Apple is like 30%, even though TT has their own Online Payment and Cart it is not allowed in the iOS App. People must complete their transaction in a web browser, could still be on their mobile device but has to be browser.
@malekem, @jp1, @adeelmysore, @MGigax, @curacao, @JenniferHartung, @JustinWeaver, @JosephGray, @asgenaux, @sbozarth
1 Like
@AaronStorey
Just playing devils advocate here, I’m not truly this bull-headed. I’m actually a rather gentle giant haha…
When does personal responsibility and accountability come into play? My answer would be, if you didn’t pay you don’t go. Simple as that. That’s life, and I bet they wouldn’t make that mistake again. The phrase “lack of planning on your part does not necessarily constitute an emergency on mine” comes to mind.
Now, what we do in my unit, we have deadlines set 1 week before the activity in question. That gives us a week to plan the final logistics and publish the trip roster and details to everyone. When the person who thinks they’re going doesn’t see their name, they come running asking why and we get it sorted before departure day.
I suppose my main point here is we can’t build a scout management system that sets the bar so low there is no responsibility on the part of the users. End users need to do their part too and coddling them doesn’t help them or us as admins.
1 Like
@JustinWeaver,
I personally agree 100% and would have no issue in my own unit saying sorry you didn’t complete the transaction, I am all about personal responsibility in our unit.
I was just trying to put it out there that these are possible issues and get feedback.
Dave and I chatted about this and came up with a couple ideas.
- I proposed removing the cart all together for units that are not using an external payment processor, like PayPal or Stripe. The main reason the cart was implemented was to save on fees for units using those services, at that point one transaction is recorded for several RSVPs and only one transaction fee, previously they paid for every member of a household that is doing an RSVP and for every event. Those using Money accounts as ledgers for tracking, what do you think about the idea of removing the cart all together and going back to just straight RSVPs and individual transactions for each event and person doing an RSVP?
- Have the cart expire after a short period of time thus removing the RSVP all together, there would be a notification showing this will expire after XX min. Again this goes to personal responsibility for completing the transaction. An add on to this could be an e-mail that goes out when someone adds something to their cart reminding and giving them a link to complete the transaction in their browser, this helps address the mobile app not being able to complete the transaction.
@AaronStorey
For the two options you mentioned…
-
I think the cart needs to stay. The option to pay for multiple things and multiple people under one transaction is such an asset. We can’t go back on that now.
-
I like the idea of having carts expire after a period of time with a warning/countdown to the user. I’m not sure I understand what you mean by removing the RSVP. I still want to see a list on each event page of who is going/paid, who is not going, and who hasn’t responded.
At the end of the day, the crux of the topic is, a person should not show up as going on the event page if they have not actually paid. If they signed up as going and their payment is just sitting in a shopping cart unpaid, their name should not be listed under going.
Yes, the RSVP is recorded when the item is added to the cart, not when the cart transaction is completed, it seems like that will not change. I have not specifically talked to Dave about that but I would imagine a change in this behavior would be a large undertaking to program.
If the cart transaction is not completed then that RSVP is removed when the cart is expired. It would be a narrow window where an RSVP would be recorded without the payment actually being processed.
Going back to the idea of the removal of the Cart for Units not using the payment processing services, PayPal or Stripe.
I would love to get feedback from any others with that situation, do you see it as an asset?
I was thinking through the RSVP process and trying to remember what it was like before the cart existed, I am not sure the Cart really saves that many clicks when doing RSVPs for multiple people, again this is only for Units not using payment processors, it is absolutely necessary for those Units using PayPal and Stripe to save on fees.
I do think people have gotten used to it but I do remember when it came out it confused many of our users, to this day many of our users forget to check out.
@malekem, @jp1, @adeelmysore, @MGigax, @curacao, @JenniferHartung, @JosephGray, @asgenaux, @sbozarth
So, having read the reasons above, I now understand the issue more.
Of the two options above, I do like having the cart expire as long as there is an automated email that goes out notifying the user that their RSVP has been rescinded. Basically, today, I have to go and manually email users when they forget to perform the payment step – I would much rather have TroopTrack do this for me. (My least favorite troop admin task is chasing people down for money!)
Then I think that the TroopTrack Setting of "Payment required to rsvp” would actually be living up to its name.
@jp1,
The idea of an e-mail going out was not envisioned as a notification the cart expired it was a reminder to complete their checkout process and give a link to do so. This email was trying to help with the fact that check out cannot be done from the Mobile App, it must be done from the website directly.
The two ideas listed were really for different groups of users of TT. One group that does not use payment processors, just remove the Cart all together. The other group that uses payment processors would keep the cart but have it expire after a period of time.
I very much like the expiring cart and email idea. I would also support a two-step expiration. That is, all open carts receive an email warning with a link to payment and if not paid within a certain amount of time, the rsvp is rescinded and a alert email sent. I agree – let TT be the bad guy asking for money.
@malekem, @jp1, @adeelmysore, @MGigax, @curacao, @JenniferHartung, @JosephGray, @asgenaux, @sbozarth,
The feature for a cart transaction to expire has been implemented. After 2 hours the cart transaction will expire. Thank you everyone who gave feedback on this issue.
1 Like
Aaron,
Awesome, but I think it broke something. Maybe it’s unrelated, but I can no longer go into an event, View Payments, Add Attendee, and then Charge Fee. Once I do a Charge Fee, the account list appears, but when I click Create Money Transaction, nothing happens. This started the day this change was announced.
I did try withdrawing them and re-adding, and I still get the same thing.
Sean
1 Like
“View Payments” = Attendance:View All Payments
Sean
Thanks @sbozarth, I got this over to the dev team to let them know. It also seems there is an issue with the Cart Expiration countdown timer, at least in Safari on Mac. It does work in Chrome on Mac.
I came here with this issue as well. The ‘Create Money Transfer’ button is broken. As treasurer, I manually add Scouts to events on the daily so hoping this gets fixed quickly.
@SarahCampanile I just tested and was able to manually add a participant to an event from the Payment page and successfully create money transfer.