Group Packages and Gifts in Arc XP Subscriptions

You may have a business based on B2B sales or just want to provide this as an optional sales channel. Arc XP Subscriptions has multiple options for Enterprise Group subscriptions management, as well as gift purchases. Group Subscriptions packages can be be used for small group membership, large corporations or providing location based entitlement.

• IP Entitlement: Provides location based access for users who are connecting with the site from a set of IP Addresses.
• Email Domain Entitlement: Medium size group options when all members will have the same email domain.
• Enterprise Groups: Client’s can build their flows for very large enterprise organizations
• Associate Subscriptions: Great for friends and family products or small organizations with limited management.

Group Subscription Packages

All group packages, IP Entitlement and Email Domain groups, are initially configured in the Group Package tab in Retail. Note: The product for your group package needs to be part of a published Offer.

IP Entitlements

Site access is granted via IP range entitlements. Users visiting from a specified IP range will be granted the associated subscription. Users must be on the client network in order to enjoy the subscription. If the end user’s company has a site license, they’ll only have access while at work (or on the company VPN).

Your business admins can manage a list of CIDR block exceptions to the paywall. Each CIDR block is associated with a specific subscription product.

You can also turn off the requirement for readers to log into a registered account prior to accessing an IP entitlement. When starting the process to create a new group package, select the IP Address option and you will now see a new toggle option for requiring a reader to sign in. When this is selected, users who are on the CIDR block will automatically get access to the Product entitlement.

Email Domain Entitlement

Access is granted to readers based on a group access code and their email domain. This provides users access away from the office and from all their devices while logged into their account.

Package Creation

After selecting the Create Group Package button the email domain entitlement can be added for your specific customers. Currently, the Owner Login ID needs to be copied from the Identity tab, we are working on making this functionality integrated and searchable in the future.

The new group package creates an access code. This code can be provided to your customer to be sent to their members. The new group package will also send a WebSocket event that will include the owner login ID, access code and required email domain so you can automatically email the new group subscription owner with their package information.

You will need to create a fulfillment page for the members to enter this access code to join the group subscription. There are three main items that users must have to add the group package entitlement to their account:

1. Group access code
2. Verified email
3. Email domain matched group package email domain

The member’s email address will be check to make sure the domain matches with the group package access code. Once users have been added to the group entitlement the subscription will show for the customer support representative in their Subscription tab and they will be listed as a group member.

Group Management

Customer Service Admin Owner & Member Management: Customer service agents can help group owners and members manage their accounts from the Customer tab under the Identity section.

For group owners, customer service agents can view the access code and the list of all current members. They can also select the box next to individual members names to terminate access to those subscriptions.

Group members accounts only show the type of product they have entitlement to through the group subscription package. Details cannot be changed or updated since these users are just members of the subscription.

The SDK and public APIs can also be used to create an end-user experience for view their group subscription information. It is recommended that an owner administrative page be created and the subscriptions screens are updated to show the subscription is part of the group package. The owner of the subscription can see all of the current members of the subscription, but they will need to contact customer support to remove members.

Enterprise Groups

For your largest organizations, we offer APIs for managing Enterprise Group subscriptions. These APIs let you build the flows to support your business and connect with your management tools. You can create and manage groups, and those groups can then access codes sent to users, all with APIs.

These subscriptions are linked to product SKUs that provide the entitlement. Before building the flows for your Enterprise Subscriptions, create or select the Product SKU in Retail that you will use. 

Supported flows:

• Create and Update Enterprise Groups
• Delete Enterprise Group
• Issue Enterprise Group Member Nonce
• Redeem Enterprise Group Membership
• Remove Enterprise Group Member

Create and Update Enterprise Groups

Once the Enterprise group is created, you can issue Enterprise Subscription nonces. The client org is in charge of creating and distributing the nonces.

Detailed API Documents:

• Create a new Group
• Update Group

Delete Enterprise Group

When you delete an Enterprise Group, the system terminates subscriptions for all members. This process can take up to 60 minutes and is not a method to reinstate the group or subscriptions without creating again and sending new nonce access codes.

Detailed API Document: Delete an Enterprise group

Issue Enterprise Group Member Access Code

The access codes for users to redeem their entitlement is a single-use Nonce that has an expiration. Clients must request the code be created and then send the nonce code, using your email service provider, to your users.

When creating the enterprise subscription group, the API returns an enterprise group ID, this enterpriseGroupID is used to issue the nonces.

This API returns a different nonce every time is being called, and the client is in charge of distributing them. The client is in charge of using the nonces returned by the API and sharing them with the users. If you share the same nonce with multiple users, only the first one redeeming the nonce will have an active subscription. Once the nonce is emitted it will be valid for 14 days.

Important Note: Please make sure you are keeping a record of the nonces issued.

Detailed API Document: Create a nonce for an enterprise subscription

Redeem Enterprise Group Membership

You must build a UI for users to enter their nonce access code. The nonce access code is single use, and by default has a two-week expiration period. A logged-in user will be able to redeem a nonce. If the nonce is valid a new subscription will be started.

Redeem an enterprise subscription

SDK Method: Sales.redeemEnterpriseSubscription(nonce: string)
If the nonce is valid, a new subscription is started. As part of the response you will get a subscriptionID, which indicates a new subscription was started.

Remove Enterprise Group Member

Group members are removed by terminating their Enterprise Subscription. This can take up to 60 minutes. The nonce that was used to create the user’s subscription is needed to terminate their access. This can be found using the Subscription extract. More details on the Subscription extract can be found in the data extract framework documentation.

To get details for a specific user, you can look up based on the date their subscription started.

{ "startDate": {{StartDate: timestamp format}}, "endDate": {{EndDate: timestamp format}} }'

For each Enterprise Subscription started, the data extraction framework will return info like:

"clientId":"{{uuid}}"
"paymentPartner":"Enterprise"
"group.accessCode":"`{{nonce}}`"
"group.groupPackageID":"`{{enterpriseGroupId}}`"
"group.listName":"`{{EnterpriseGroupName}}`"
"subscriptionId":"`{{subscriptionID}}`"
”status”: “`active`/`terminated`“

Once you have the nonce code for the user, you can call the terminate API. This call creates a batch job and if there is a subscription associated with the nonce, the subscription will be terminated.

Important

This API will return 200 responses, since this API is creating a batch job. This is regardless of if the subscription will be terminated successfully or not.
If you want to make sure these subscriptions were terminated you will need to proceed with any of the following options:

1. Get a new report and check the status.
2. Grab the subscription status by calling GET /sales/api/v1/subscription/{id}/details.
3. Check the subscription status via CSR.

We currently do not have an API returning all members in an Enterprise Group. The client is in charge of keeping all the records based on the nonces issued and the info provided by the subscription extracts.

Detailed API Document: Terminate an enterprise subscription

Associate Subscriptions

For small groups, under 10 users, clients can also offer seat-based licenses which leverage the associate subscription feature of products. When configuring a product, you can specify how many users the subscription owner can share their subscription with. The person who purchased the subscription maintains sole ownership of the subscription, and can share the benefits of the product with the allotted number of people. Each associate must have their own Identity account and password.

To pursue this strategy, you could set up a Basic Access — Group of 10 product that allowed for up to nine shared associates. You could then set up a special price for the product (perhaps eight times more expensive than the typical Basic Access subscription) and a dedicated offer page.

Gift Subscriptions

A gift subscription makes giving easy and can be enjoyed day after day. Customers know the value of your subscription and want to share that with their friends and family. With a little setup and development, you can create a gift purchase and redemption experience for customers to give and receive subscriptions.

Gift subscriptions options are created based on a Gift Price. A checkbox is available when creating a new price that allows you to enable the price to be gift-specific. This Gift Price flag will be available through the getOffers API so the checkout flow for a gift purchase can be optimized.

Gift prices can only be charged using a one time rate and cannot be reoccurring. Gift recipients can update their subscription near the end of the term to continue their entitlement with a standard subscription price rate but the initial gift purchase is a one time payment.

Gift Purchase

You will want to design a gift purchase flow that collects recipient details and information so the gift can be properly delivered. The SetRecipientDetails API enables you to save the recipient’s name, email, a short message, and the date when the gift redemption email should be sent. This API also sends out a WebSocket event with this information enabling you to send a customized message to the recipient for them to redeem their gifted subscription.

Gift Redemption

A gift redemption site lets the recipient register a profile or log in and connect their account to the gift subscription. Once they have redeemed the gift it will show in their active subscriptions lists. You can create a link for customers to redeem their gift by embedding the gift token and have the link go to a page you managed. This page should extract the token from the link to call the Redemption API. See Group Packages and Gifts in Arc XP Subscriptions.

Gift Subscription Reporting

The financial transaction report will show both subscriptions which will need to be accounted for when using the report.