Update C&P Transaction Fields by SKU

[kwclick5]

It would be helpful to be able to update C&P transaction fields by SKU. Ideally we would to be able to set the Campaign like we can do to Primary Campaign Source on the Opportunity. For example, we have a form with a dropdown to select which campaign people want to direct their funds to and each campaign should get a customized receipt. We have a C&P Designer template that pulls in the customization for each particular campaign (basically campaign name and a few other things). However, it pulls the campaign name from the C&P Transaction record which would be empty in the case of this form. That leads to needing to create manually many more autoresponder settings to send out the customized receipt instead of having one or two that automatically update with fields.

Having the ability to update custom fields created on the C&P transaction by SKU could also fill this role. You could maybe limit it to those custom fields not created by Click & Pledge, so data you use wouldn't be overwritten. Then those fields could be used in C&P Designer email autoresponders (like a text field for Campaign Name).

Actually, now that I think about it, pushing the SKU onto the C&P transaction record could also be a workaround for this. We could then use custom formula fields (checking if the SKU field includes a certain phrase) to get the right campaign name to put on the receipt. I think the only place the SKU shows in the object is on the C&P Data xml field, but since Transactions can have multiple C&P data records, I don't think we can pull the SKU onto the C&P transaction (without using a flow or something).

[CnP.LiveSupport.AB]

This is fundamentally not an option.

SKU is a property of the line item on the transaction, the different "items/products" that are listed on the receipt- and as we move towards adding cart functionality, that distinction will only become more important.

The CONNECT forms were designed for donations, so the initial approach worked under the assumption that there was one line item on the transaction. As demands for separating aspects of a transaction increased, C&P added ways to incorporate more than a single item in a CONNECT form transaction:

• Multiple payment in Payment Options lets you allow donors to separate their donation into specific funds, and this creates separate line items - each with their own SKU
• The Additional Payment feature creates a separate line item that can have its own SKU.

Just from a fundamental data design approach - there has to be data that is specific to a transaction, and there has to be data that is specific to the line item. Allowing a line item property, like SKU, to be specified at the transaction level would only create additional confusion. Too many customers are already utilizing different SKUs to break up components in a single transaction.

I understand that the change you're suggesting seems like it would reduce the confusion with setting the Salesforce campaign. It would work well for everyone that only ever needed a single item on their CONNECT donation form transaction. But we've already learned from experience that this is not a good approach, it frustrates accounting users that need to code different items on a transaction separately, it frustrates users that need their multiple Opportunities in a single transaction to be in different Salesforce campaigns.

[kwclick5]

Yes, you’re right. It’s easy to think of a seemingly simple solution that would work great for a particular use case, but not realize the complicating implications it has for other use cases. It’s pretty amazing that Click & Pledge works so well for such a diverse set of use cases.

I guess to do something like this you’d in essence have to add another box to be Transaction SKU (so you'd have a Line Item SKU and a Transaction SKU) for the payment amounts/custom questions in Connect. But, that would probably confuse more people than it would help.

What if we created a process builder that triggered a flow to pull in the first (authorized) C&P data record and the first SKU from that XML (for our implementation - since we’re not using C&P events - I think we could be pretty sure that would have the right data) and in that flow pulled some fields from the campaign onto custom fields in the C&P transaction that we could then use in the email template? I think we could get that to work successfully, but I wonder if it has a high likelihood of interfering with C&P’s own triggers/code on the creation of a C&P transaction.

I know I've been asking a lot of questions recently, so thanks for all your willingness and patience in responding!

[esowers]

kwclick5 We have done something similar to what you're asking and just built the Transaction field updates with Salesforce Flows. The way we do print receipts we print them from the Transaction level and list out all the opportunities associated with that transaction (using Conga Composer). If the transaction included a payment toward a pledge (which is associated with one or multiple opportunities for that transaction) then we needed to use a different receipt template to indicate the pledge payment. Therefore our flow loops through all opportunities and counts those that have a pledge payment and if that value is greater than 0 sets a checkbox on the transaction as "includes pledge payment."

C&P support - One thing you may want to consider would be to take the same model you use for setting fields on Opportunities/Contacts/Accounts and apply that to the transaction record. In C&P Settings > Opportunity you can set an Opportunity Name, Record Type, Field, etc. If you built the same type of section for Transaction fields then you could use the argument of "if contains" for all of those and if a transaction contains a certain sku set the transaction field to be a certain value. This model would probably be limited to only that one argument rather than allowing the (starts with, ends with, is, etc) other options. However, I think that would probably help get a little closer.

Alternatively (and a little sloppier of a solution) would be to roll up all the opportunity SKU's for that transaction to the transaction record (into one field), then have a process builder set to look at the transaction level and update any other transaction fields if there is an exact match found..

Just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents if it helps.

[kwclick5]

esowers Thanks for weighing in on what process you have. It's helpful to learn that you're doing a flow on the C&P transaction and that it seems to be working fine for you (not causing any errors, etc.).

I second the idea of maybe having an extra tab for C&P Transaction in C&P Settings. It could maybe be phrased as "if any of the line-item (opportunity) SKUs contain this SKU" then update this field, etc.

Since we only need this for this one particular form at this point, I think we're going to try a slightly different route. On our donate webpage, we're thinking of having the program select picklist in html and then using javascript to hide and display the various overlay form buttons for each program depending on the picklist selection. We already have standalone forms for all the programs, so it's not too difficult for us to achieve this. Then, since it's using the standalone form the campaign on the C&P transaction updates correctly. Just wanted to put that out there as another option for anyone else looking to do something similar.

We'll see how the javascript approach works and at some point as we use the system more, we may revisit it to try it fully with the flow.