Need Help with Configuration to Make Renewals Work Better.

We have 4 groups of plans: "Individual" "Family" "Instructor" and "Student" . Each group has a "Parent Plan" and 4 to 6 child plans.
Here is the current configuration:
Parent Plans are
Exclusive
Auto-renewing
Free
1 year.
Changes member's group to "registered"
Child plans are
Exclusive
1 year
If "single payment" is not auto renewing
If 4 pmt plan it is auto renewing for 4 occurrances.
Change member's group to "registered" and either "Gold" or "Basic"

We have 2 issues with this configuration. I'll list them, and then I'd like to list the changes we hope will solve these issues. It would be GREAT if you would review and let us know if you think these changes will solve these problems.
Here are the problems:

1 When a 4 pmt child plan is selected the Parent Plan renews for 1 year every time one of the 4 payments is initiated, so the Parent Plan does not expire when the Child Plan does. This has meant that a member stays "registered" and can still make reservations as if membership is still active.

2 When renewing, if a member wants to change from one Parent Plan group to another, for instance from Individual to Family, they can select "Family", but the "Individual" parent plan doesn't get "deselected", even if the membership is expired. So, what happens is, they select "Family" and then one of the child plans within the Family group and click "Submit" An error message pops up telling them their choice of plans is not allowed. They must choose a child plan for the "Individual" parent plan - because it didn't get deselected.

Possible Solutions:
1 For the first problem -
Change the configuration of the parent plan so that it looks like this:
Exclusive (same as above)
Auto-renewing for 4 occurrences (changed)
3 months (changed)
Free
Does not change member's group (Changed - so that even if it doesn't expire, member won't be "registered" and won't be able to make reservations until they renew.)
Will this keep both parent and child expiring at same time whether child is one payment or four? And will it mean that when child plan expires members loses their "registered" status?

2 For the 2nd problem:
Actually, - I have no idea how to do this. If I "unsubscribe" from the current "Parent Plan" (Individual Group of Plans), then the Individual Group Parent no longer even displays. What if the member changes their mind and wants to go back to the group of plans they just unsubscribed to? So even telling members they need to unsubscribe before resubscribing to a different "Parent Group" doesn't really fix the problem.

I'd love some guidance!

Thanks,
Lucy

1 When a 4 pmt child plan is selected the Parent Plan renews for 1 year every time one of the 4 payments is initiated, so the Parent Plan does not expire when the Child Plan does. This has meant that a member stays "registered" and can still make reservations as if membership is still active.

You set the parent plan to be free auto recurring so it'll continue to renew year after year. It won't actually expire unless they manually cancel it. Seams like you're trying to use the parent plans as categorization. If that's the case just make them free lifetime subscriptions and have the parent plan add nothing to the user. Place all the access controls, etc.. on the child plans.

2 When renewing, if a member wants to change from one Parent Plan group to another, for instance from Individual to Family, they can select "Family", but the "Individual" parent plan doesn't get "deselected", even if the membership is expired. So, what happens is, they select "Family" and then one of the child plans within the Family group and click "Submit" An error message pops up telling them their choice of plans is not allowed. They must choose a child plan for the "Individual" parent plan - because it didn't get deselected.

That shouldn't be possible if all your parent plans are marked as Exclusive. It would then be an upgrade from 1 plan to another with the previous being cancelled automatically on upgrade. You may have some access permission issues under the Workflows or Access tabs of your plans. Ensure they're set to allow upgrades so they can move from 1 plan to another.

Thank you! Our first problem is solved. You were right that we're using the parent plans to categorize our plans. I followed your suggestions, made them all lifetime subscriptions that do not change a user's "group". I've tested and all seems to be great. Thank you!

The second issue is not solved yet. There is still a problem when trying to change parent plans on renewal. There are actually two problems, one when the membership plan has expired and the user wants to change to a plan with a different parent, and one when trying to upgrade from an existing plan to a plan under a different parent..

When trying to renew an expired plan, if the member chooses a different a plan from a different parent, the initial parent plan is not deselected, and the error comes up saying the plan combination is not allowed - that the user must select a child of the first parent plan (because it doesn't "deselect".)

When trying to upgrade an existing plan to a plan from a different parent, the initial parent plan DOES get deslected, and the upgrade is allowed, but the problem is that the new plan is not prorated. The remaining value of the old plan is not carried over from the old parent's group of plans to the new group of plans.

All parent plans are exclusive. All child plans are are published, allow new subscriptions, renewals and upgrades.

Thanks for your help!
Lucy

You can't select or deselect an expired plan for renewal. It should just show up at the top of the Subscriptions tab or plans page with a button to renew. There should only be radio/checkbox fields for plans they don't already have. Please attach a screenshot of how things are displaying for you.

Hi Kyle: I'm sorry. I wasn't clear. The issue isn't with selecting or deselecting the expired plan. The problem is with the Parent Plan. The Parent Plan seems to remain active (does not get deselected) even if a new parent plan is selected instead, even though all parent plans are exclusive..

For instance, if a member has had one of the plans within the "Individual Group of Membership Plans" (the "parent plan), and wants to change to one of the "Family Group of Membership Plans" (a different parent plan), - there is a problem. Actually, there are 3 scenarios,- 1) if the members plan is expired, 2) the members plan still active but needs renewing, or 3) if the member's plan is midstream and the member wants a prorated upgrade.

1. If the member's plan is expired when they try to select a new plan from a different parent group of plans the "Upgrade/Renew" page makes it look as if they can do this (see attached), but when they try, they will get this error message:



To me it looks like the problem is that somehow the old parent plan has not been deselected, or inactivated, when the new parent plan is selected - even though all parent plans are exclusive.

2. If the member's plan is active, but needs renewal, they can do exactly the same thing - select a new parent plan ((Family Group of Member Plans), select the plan within that group of plans and submit. This works perfectly. They are taken to the invoice page and then PayPal.

3. If the member's plan is active, and still has significant time left on it, and the member wants to upgrade from the Individual Group of Plans to the Family Group of Plans - it works, but it does not prorate the new plan taking into consideration remaining value of the existing plan.

Thank you for any help you can give,
Lucy

Posted second time by mistake.