Transaction ID Merge Tag no longer available, is it being phased out?

[PatODay]

We just upgraded our Click and Pledge version to 3.700.008 and noticed that when trying to add a merge tag for the Transaction ID to a Gravity Forms notification it instead adds the merge tag for order number. After digging into the issue a little more we found that in version 3.700.007 on line 757 of the class.GFCnpPlugin.php the merge tag for transaction ID has been replaced with the merge tag for order number.

The line of code previously was

$merge_tags[] = array('label' => 'Transaction ID', 'tag' => '{transaction_id}');

and is now

$merge_tags[] [B]=[/B] [B]array[/B]('label' [B]=>[/B] 'Transaction ID', 'tag' [B]=>[/B] '{order_number}');

Additionally, all lines referencing transaction ID in the gformReplaceMergeTags function have been commented out.

Is the transaction ID merge tag being phased out? I wasn't able to find anything referencing such a major breaking change in the release notes or in the Click & Pledge/Gravity Forms documentation, which still actually references being able to use the transaction ID merge tags, and it would be very helpful to know if this is a mistake or if it is a planned change as our organization uses the transaction ID on quite a number of form notifications and confirmations.

Thank you.

[CnP.Support.AM]

Good day @PatODay

Since the transaction_id and order_number returning the same value, it doesn't matter if you use either merge tag. You may use the order_number instead. However, if you want we can add that in our next release.

[PatODay]

CnP.Support.AM That's not how it works though, any form notification or confirmation which already had the {transaction_id} merge tag in it now just displays the merge tag itself instead of any value. See image:



When trying to add a {transaction_id} merge tag to a form notification or confirmation will instead put the {order_number} merge tag on there, which will display the order number, but order number and transaction ID are two entirely separate things with two totally different values. So my question is, why was the {transaction_id} merge tag removed and instead both the transaction ID and order number are to both use the {order_number} merge tag? Where was it communicated in the release notes or documentation that the {transaction_id} merge tag will no longer work as it is a major breaking change?

[CnP.Support.AM]

Sorry for the inconvenience. We have listed it as a minor issue and we apologize that we haven't mentioned that in the release notes. You may replace the transaction_id to order_number to get resolve the issue.

The reason for that change is to identify the TransactionID and Ordernumber easily. Please see:



In Gravity Forms 'orders', we are saving transaction Id as the order number. Previously in transaction id, we showed VaultGUID but in orders we are storing order number. After submitting the donation, the patrons will see vaultguid as the transaction number since both are different so to avoid the confusion we have removed it.

[PatODay]

I'm afraid I don't understand what you are saying. Before we updated from .007 to .008 we made use of both the {transaction_id} and {order_number} merge tags in different form confirmations and notifications. Here is an email notification we tested before upgrading to version .008, that was making use of the {transaction_id} merge tag and working as expected:



After upgrading to .008 this same email notification now shows the merge tag itself:



When we noticed this we went to see if the merge tag had been changed or updated:



Transaction ID is still available under the custom merge tags, so we clicked on that to see if it would drop the updated {transaction_id} merge tag and it instead put the {order_number} merge tag:



Which resulted in an email notification with the transaction number that was presented to the user was instead the order number:



If you compare that with the previous image where the {transaction_id} merge tag worked prior to the upgrade to .008 it's plain to see that {transaction_id} and {order_number} are not the same thing.

And when we go to add an {order_number} merge tag to a form confirmation that is already making use of the "Transaction ID" merge tag, which is now {order_number}:



We get:



Which is just doubling up on the {order_number} merge tag, so I don't understand why the Transaction ID is even an option under the custom merge tags if it's not actually the transaction ID or VaultGUID or whatever you want to call it, and instead it's the order number. Meanwhile, there is still an option under that same custom merge tags field for order number that puts the exact same merge tag on the page as if they clicked on the Transaction ID merge tag field.

I'm just trying to understand why the change was made, because the difference between what was shown with the {transaction_id} merge tag was extremely easy to distinguish from what was displayed with the {order_number} merge tag.

How will this affect data going into Salesforce, too? We have fields that use both the C&P Order Number and C&P Payment ReferenceID/GUID (which appears to be what the transaction_id merge tag would previously display).

[CnP.Support]

PatODay

In the previous release the GUID was being sent by mistake and it was an error. The payment GUID has no relevance to the outside world and is the tokenized payment information. The only information that is of any value for finding the transaction across all Click & Pledge assets, e.g. Salesforce, Connect, etc. is the Order Number. The GUID cannot be searched or any operation can possibly be performed on it as it is totally internal parameter.

I understand your question but the issue has been corrected in this release. Please use the Order Number for all references to the transaction. Order Number is a unique number across all transactions and it is the only parameter that can uniquely identify the transaction.

Hope that helps.