Release Notes - 2023

Various improvements have been made to the SmarterPay AIS service.

• API
  • POST added for Account Validation records
  • Properties added to the Account Validation GET response.
    • “reference”, “return_url”, “client_bank_account_id”, “account_validation_url”, “message”, “error_message”, “successful_validation”
• Ecommerce
  • Process Flow has been tweaked to improve the Customer experience.
    • Account Validation, when used, has been moved to earlier in the flow to avoid the Customer having to manually put in their account details before selecting them again via Account Validation
• Portal
  • New option, for Account Validation, added to Ecommerce Page Setup.
    • “Allow non supported banks” - Allow or deny manual entry of Account details when the customer's bank is not in the Account Validation list.

The following issues have been fixed

• Mandate V2 Webhook - spelling fix: “mandate_cancellation_count” property was incorrectly labelled as “mandate_cancelation_count”.
• Mandate V2 Webhook - New property added: “submission_date” has been added to the webhook.

SmarterPay has introduced Email Subscriptions into SmarterPay Cloud.

Email subscriptions allow Internal emails, which are emails for Company staff members, and external emails, which are emails for customers, to be sent out when “subscribed” events occur in the system.

Changes, in SmarterPay Cloud, for this new feature, are:

• A new Email Subscriptions object has been created.
• A new “Email Subscriptions” Tab has been added to Subscriptions.
• A new Email Templates object has been created.
• Email functionality has been enhanced in the Bacs Rejection Profile Record.

SmarterPay has introduced Ecommerce link generation into SmarterPay Cloud.

We have taken the Ecommerce V1 functionality, currently in SmarterPay Cloud, and redesigned it with more features and functionality, whilst still keeping the legacy version in the system.

Changes, in SmarterPay Cloud, for this new feature, are:

• A new ECommerce Branding V2 object has been created.
• The legacy “Ecommerce Branding” Tab has been renamed to “Ecommerce Branding V1” and a new “Ecommerce Branding V2” Tab has been added to Ecommerce Branding.
• A new Ecommerce Setup V2 object has been created.
• The legacy “Ecommerce Setup” Tab has been renamed to “Ecommerce Setup V1” and a new “Ecommerce Setup V2” Tab has been added to E-Commerce Page Setup.
• “ECOMMERCE LINK” Buttons added to Quick Action Menu, Customer Record, Bank Account Record, Mandate Record and Schedule Payment Record.

Changes, in SmarterPay Cloud API, for this new feature, are:

• New endpoint added for Ecommerce Branding.
• New endpoint added for Ecommerce Page Setup.
• New endpoint added for Payment Link.

SmarterPay has introduced multiple API keys into SmarterPay Cloud.

We have added the ability to have multiple API keys setup in the system. This allows integration from more than one third-party solution to have its own key, and IP access list, for greater security and control.

There is now separate IP access control for API and Portal.

Changes, in SmarterPay Cloud, for this new feature, are:

• A new “Connected Application” object has replaced the “API Key” field under System Settings.
• The “Network Access” menu item has been renamed to Portal Network Access.

SmarterPay has introduced Oauth into SmarterPay Cloud.

Also to increase security, we have added the OAuth option to Webhook Subscriptions.

Changes, in SmarterPay Cloud, for this new feature, are:

• “OAuth” and “OAuth + PKCE” added to Webhook Subscription - Security Setup.

We have added the ability to modify upcoming payments to Ongoing Schedules, in the same way that you have been able to in Payment Plans.

Changes, in SmarterPay Cloud, for this new feature, are:

• Edit button added to a Ongoing Schedule's Future Payment List.

Changes, in SmarterPay Cloud API, for this new feature, are:

• upcoming_payment property added to the Ongoing Schedule's API PUT Endpoint.

Click to view Account Validation Flow

Account validation has been introduced into the following areas:

• API - Account Validation Details
  • New API Endpoint added
• API - Creating a Mandate
  • Optional “account_validation” property added to the POST request
• API - Modulus Check
  • Optional “account_validation” property added to the POST request
• Portal - Creation of a Mandate
  • “Account Validation” checkbox added to form
• Portal - Mandate Details
  • “Account Validation URL” field added to details
• Portal - Editing A Subscription
  • “account_validation.create” and “account_validation.update” added to Events
• Webhook - Account Validation Event
  • New Event added. Note: For V2 webhooks only.
• Webhook - Mandate Event
  • “account_validation” object added to the Mandate Event

The API, for Credits, has been altered slightly, to bring it in line with the rest of the system and to add new functionality.

The changes are:

• The reference, that gets used to submit the Credit, can now be specified in the API POST request, using the “submission_reference” property. Please note that there are restrictions on what can be used in a reference, please see here for more details.
• The ID property, in API responses, now contains the ID of the record. Previously this property would contain the reference used when submitting the Credit, which has now been moved to the “submission_reference”.

The changes have been introduced in the following areas:

• API - Credit
  • Optional “submission_reference” property added to the POST request
  • “submission_reference” property added to API responses including API GET.

• RFC-0000000310
  • SmarterPay Cloud used to send out a Mandate update v2 webhook, if subscribed, every time a new payment was created for the Mandate. This behaviour has been changed so that only the first 2 payments will trigger a Mandate update v2 webhook, which usually equates to a change of status on the Mandate for “First Collection” and “Ongoing Collection”.

Optional, and configurable, conditions have been added to SmarterPay Cloud's File Format definitions.
This allows records to be ignored, during the File Upload process, if they don't match one, or more, conditions.
This is very useful if the system generating a file, for submission, adds extra lines that cannot be removed using the other features of File Formats already in SmarterPay Cloud.

SmarterPay Cloud also supports more field delimiters in File Uploads.

SmarterPay Cloud now allows you to set up to 6 approvers for the File Upload Process.

The number of approvers is set for each Import Profile, which allows greater flexibility.

An RTI reference can now be used on Credits created via the Portal or the API