Feature Updates 10/27/2021
*New* OnlineGiving.org MinistryPlatform Payment Handoff Recording Checker
We're pleased to report a new feature is now live for the OnlineGiving.org MinistryPlatform integration that enhances the integration with a payment record checker to detect and automatically fix invoice payments incorrectly marked as canceled/abandoned by MP. Over the last few weeks, our internal research team has discovered that MP can fail to record a payment towards an invoice in the event the end-user fails to complete the redirect back for any reason such as an internet outage or browser close, or similar. When MP fails to record the payment, the Invoice is updated as "Canceled" with an "Invoice Abandoned by Registrant" cancelation reason.
It's important to note that MP Payments are different from OnlineGiving.org's core payment features, which are also recorded as payments into MinistryPlatform. In this case, we're specifically talking about MP Payments that are from the PayPal style MP Payment handoff to OnlineGiving.org for processing. For these types of payments, MinistryPlatform has specified that they are to be responsible for recording the payment towards the invoice record in MinistryPlatform. Technically speaking, MP performs this payment record recording upon the redirect of the successful payment. For this reason, OnlineGiving.org does not record payment into MP for this specific use case (per the MP specifications).
The feature enhancement upgrades our platform with a feature to automatically scan MP Invoice payments successfully processed by OnlineGiving.org for the MP Payment handoff scenario that has a "Canceled" status with an "Invoice Abandoned by Registrant" cancelation reason. The invoice check is performed after two days to allow MP ample time to record the payment status correctly. Suppose an invoice is detected after 2 days with a "Canceled" status containing the "Invoice Abandoned by Registrant" cancelation reason. In that case, OnlineGiving.org will now take action to correct the MP Invoice to record the successful payment. The Invoice will be updated to include a note about the update and the status will change from "Canceled" to "Paid in Full". Additionally, payment details will be recorded on the Invoice.
While per MP specifications, it's not OnlineGiving.org's responsibility to record these types of payments. We desire to detect these scenarios and apply our integration technology to improve the level of accuracy of the MP Payments feature. Our goal is always excellence in ChMS integration. No action is required by the church to take advantage of the new feature as it's live globally for all MP churches on the OnlineGiving.org platform.
Example of an Auto-Correct MP Payments Invoice:
