11.28.0 Release

Production Release Date: Tuesday, June 27, 2023

Platforms: Backoffice (B2B), Online Checkout (B2C), ACME Sales (POS)*, APIs

Release Type: Minor

Downtime: None

Test Environments: Sandbox 10, POS Sandbox 11.28.0, AC Sandbox 11.28.0

*POS Application is valid through 06/17/2024

Enhancements

Backoffice (B2B) | Customer Management

A long time coming!!! We are now pleased to announce official support for viewing and editing Customers in Backoffice.


This update comes with the following goodies:

  • Improved performance on the API to get a list of customers and search for someone - we love speed!
  • Advanced search just like we have in ACME Sales (POS) - thank goodness for parity.
  • Ability to view a customer, along with a list of their membership versions if they are a member.
  • And last but not least, the ability to edit the customer information - parity with POS wins again!

Looking to enable this for your team? Be sure the following are in place:

  • Permissions assigned (CUSTOMERS_VIEW and CUSTOMERS_UPDATE)
  • Feature is enabled via Settings > Administration > Backoffice > Show Customers


Backoffice (B2B) | Membership Cancellation

That's right! You are not seeing things. Membership cancellation has made it's way into ACME Backoffice! While we wish members would never cancel, we know things change in life and from time to time they need to. Now you can do it right from the comfort of ACME Backoffice.



Now it's not perfect, but we thought it important to release to you all sooner than later while we continue to polish the feature in future releases (along with upgrade and downgrade). A few things of note:

  • The sales channel shows as POS, even though it was done in Backoffice.
  • Even if you choose to not allow cancellation via Backoffice for a given membership offering (via the Lifecycle Rules configuration), Cancel will still show as an option.


Backoffice (B2B) | Auto Renew Import Validation

For early adopters of Auto Renew, thank you! We have an update this release to help you when it comes to Imports. 


As you know, while we continue to build out Auto Renew functionality we've asked that you manage sales and changes to Auto Renew memberships directly in ACME. This is to ensure the secure token for recurring payments is generated while payment is processed in ACME. If you are doing an import and accidentally import a membership that has an active Auto Renewal, we've got your back. We'll block the import and remind you with the following message: “This membership is associated with a Subscription for Auto Renew. You cannot import changes at this time. Please modify this membership as needed via ACME directly.” 


With this change, you can continue to still do the following as usual:

  • Import customers and memberships as usual that are not associated with an active Auto Renew membership.
  • Import edits to cardholders on Auto Renew memberships via a Customer import.
  • Import changes to memberships that are no longer tied to an active subscription (e.g. if the member opted-out)


ACME Sales (POS) | Check In & Print

Another enhancement we are extremely excited to bring to you! This improvement is for all of you that sell multiple experiences for the same day. Upon completion of the sale at POS, you can now choose exactly which tickets to check in and print - single tickets, tickets per event, or all. 


A few things to note:

  • If you do not have a printer connected, the print button will be grayed out. Why be tempted?
  • If you need to reprint a ticket, you will notice that it's disabled. We ask that you go to Order Management where we prompt to make sure you want to reprint.
  • Donations will no longer show as an option to check in or print. We're not sure why they were there to begin with, so we did some house cleaning!


ACME Sales (POS) | Now scales to more iPad sizes!

Go big or go home! Our ACME Sales application has been updated to scale to a wider range of iPad sizes. Enjoy the extra space and easier touch points on devices with these screen sizes:

  • 9.7"
  • 10.2"
  • 10.5"
  • 10.9"
  • 11"
  • 12"


ACME Sales (POS) | Event Time Selection

This item takes the cake this release for being the oldest request. It's a little embarrassing for us to admit it was first logged in 2017, but on the plus side, it goes to show we do not forget! We are pleased to bring you the ability to now select a time for standard event tiles with a ticket type at POS. This works both for the current date as well as future dates. 


While we were at it, we fixed up a few more things:

  • Standard event tiles without a selected price point no longer shows a price (because that was confusing!)
  • General Admission rollup tiles now work properly with advance dates.
  • When clearing the cart from a standard rollup, the right screen returns to the detail panel instead of the splash screen.


Online Checkout (B2C) | Checkout with Forms

We have optimized how our checkout API processes forms. The checkout API can now get the form information (including the form response) directly from the Shopping Cart instead of requiring that the full form information be included the checkout call as part of a forms array. 


While this change simplifies our APIs, more importantly this change enables us to increase key security checks for our checkout endpoint without blocking real visitors with form data. 


And for a few of you that have run into issues with your forms blocked in checkout due to some of our existing security measures, this will no longer be an issue. Thank goodness!


Note: This was originally targeted for the 11.27.0 release, but was moved to 11.28.0 to enable more testing. If you are feeling deja vu, that's why!

Optimizations

Online Checkout (B2C) | Cart Performance Improvements

When switching timeslots on an event instance in the cart, we noticed our B2C code sometimes made repetitive calls to our backend to get the latest cart information. As we love for checkout to be zippy, we've optimized this and are seeing performance improvements, especially for events with a lot of ticket types.


API Performance | Membership

We have the need, the need for speed! Just like we did for a list of customers, we've improved the performance of our membership APIs. Improvements include

  • Getting a list of members
  • Searching members
  • Checking out with a membership purchase - this one especially we know impacted a few of you from time to time, resulting in a timeout and inability to complete the membership purchase. It happened rarely, but even rarely is too much. We've been tracking this and watching the logs for awhile as we dug into what was causing this. Happy to report that checkouts with memberships should be zippier.

Bug Fixes

ACME Sales (POS) | Exchanging Tickets with Payment

What is the point of having a credit card reader if it doesn't take payment? We wondered the same thing with this bug. When a ticket was exchanged at POS for a greater valued ticket, the card reader prompted for payment but it was not possible to complete. All is resolved now and working as expected.


ACME Sales (POS) | Credit Card Expiration Date

Although Doc and Marty McFly would approve, entering a year in the past doesn't really fly with credit card companies. We've updated ACME Sales to correctly alert you if you enter a year prior to the current. Back to the future!


Backoffice (B2B) | Add Cardholders when Renewing

The more the merrier right? Apparently our code did not think so after our 11.27.0 release. During a renewal if you tried to add a new cardholder, tapping "+ New Cardholder" did nothing. Buzz kill. This is now resolved. Happy adding!


API | Membership Versions

In the world of ACME, it was oddly possible for two membership versions to be the latest at the same time, although we are not quite sure how. When this happened, neither version was able to transact. ¡No bueno! We pondered our options and ultimately decided to enhance our code to prevent this intermittent strange behavior. Now when our system creates a new membership version via Import or Salesforce, all prior versions of that membership will be marked with "latest version = false", ensuring only the latest version is truly the latest.


Online Checkout (B2C) | GA4

We appreciate those of you that have given us feedback on our GA4 implementation! This release incorporates improvements from your feedback. Look for follow up comms with additional information.

New and Updated Knowledge Articles

We are continuously updating and adding new articles to our Knowledge-base in the ACME Support Portal. Below are some recently added or updated articles:

Note: To ensure Backoffice updates are as seamless as possible, we recommend performing a hard refresh of your internet browser after a release is deployed. In some cases, you may also need to reset your browser's data cache including any saved cookies and related browsing data. Please contact support@acmeticketing.com if you experience any issues after a release.