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Setting up Smartwcm subscription module for CatholicBrain

Recently, a lot of clients come to us with a wide range of custom requirements. We are always happy to help and support them by sharing our technical expertise with then in every phase of new product development. We always try to do what is best for our clients and that is the reason for our success. CatholicBrain team approached us with the idea to create an educational platform for kids. The idea was exciting in itself and we felt that it was a great opportunity to be part of this noble cause. We were happy to be part of such a venture and we were able to help them with Smartwcm and its robust and powerful features that we could customize for any such requirements.

CatholicBrain is a platform intended for faith formation and religious education for Catholic students for Pre K to 8th Grade with tools that enable schools and parishes to deliver an outstanding faith learning experience; engaging students and involving parents in faith formation, equipping catechists and religion teachers and empowering DREs and school administrators. CatholicBrain is built entirely using the powerful features of Smartwcm by Pagematics

Subscription requirements

CatholicBrain had a very very unique subscription model. They had parishes, schools, classrooms, and homeschools. The price for a subscription could be per parish, per school, per classroom or student in case of homeschool. They also had seasonal pricing which would be available only during a specified period with a specific price and plan. They wanted to use the subscription and invoice modules developed by Pagematics for Smartwcm to be integrated into CatholicBrain. But to handle such a complex subscription model, the Smartwcm development team at Pagematics decided to use their existing subscription logic with an adequate amount of customization to handle the scenarios related to the CatholicBrain subscription.

Smartwcm subscription and invoice module

The subscription model developed by Pagematics for Smartwcm comprised of plans that could have a monthly, or yearly price along with a custom trial period with the option to specify a trial price or create a free trial. Users signing up would be requested to enter the credit card details for collecting payment. Even the free trial would require the credit card details to be provided.

Smartwcm platform has Stripe and Paypal integrations and customers are given the option to choose from either of them for their subscription payment. An invoice will be created corresponding to each payment and when the payment is collected, the invoice will be marked as paid and the amount will be credited to the customer's bank account through Stripe or Paypal.

Smartwcm also has the features to collect the subscription payments based on the subscription term using an automatic renewal logic. New users would be set up for automatic renewal unless they cancel it manually and once their subscription is due to be renewed, an invoice is generated and their card gets charged through Stripe or PayPal to pay the invoice making sure that the user can enjoy uninterrupted service. Any failure in renewing the subscription will be notified to users through email. A successful renewal will also be notified through emails or SMS.

CatholicBrain Subscription

The subscription and invoice module of Smartwcm had to be customized for handling the CatholicBrain requirements. Plans had to be modified to accommodate all the requirements of CatholicBrain. Smartwcm development team at Pagematics was able to develop an exclusive subscription module for CatholicBrain, keeping its core to the original subscription module of Smartwcm but flexible enough to handle all the requirements of CatholicBrain. Now they were able to handle different plans and prices for a student or parish or classroom. They also have room for expansion in the future in case they need different plans based on the number of members in a parish or school or classroom.

Stripe was decided as the payment platform for CatholicBrain. Since Smartwcm and Pagematics already had Stripe integrations, it was very easy to configure it for CatholicBrain. Every time a new user signed up, they were required to provide their credit card information. This sensitive information is handled by Stripe and Pagematics does not handle or store any user’s credit card information to ensure the security of the credit card details submitted. The card details are stored in Stripe.

Smartwcm has the API’s to make calls to Stripe to create an account for a user, store the credit card information, charge a user’s credit card, update the credit card details, etc. When the user signup through CatholicBrain, an invoice will be generated based on the plan selected. Once the credit card information is provided, a new user is created in the Stripe account for CatholicBrain.

Smartwcm API’s create the user and then charges the credit card through Stripe. The user will then be sent an email notification informing the details of his subscription and payment.

Stripe will make the payout to the bank account associated with the Stripe account. Smartwcm development team at Pagematics have first-hand experience in Stripe configurations making it easy for the CatholicBrain team to get the subscription up and running with almost zero effort from their side. This experience of Smartwcm developers with Stripe configurations has also helped them set up their automatic subscription renewals and payment collection by charging the stored credit cards through Stripe.

In short, Smartwcm was able to customize a subscription and invoicing module for CatholicBrain to handle their subscription requirements. We helped them automate the entire process ensuring that the customers are charged at the right time so that they can enjoy the service that they have paid for, without any interruptions.

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