Today we are beyond-excited to announce that Easy Digital Downloads version 3.0 is here!

A few weeks ago we started using EDD 3.0 on our own website. We are, after all, one of our own biggest customers. Meta. It’s running great!

What’s New?

The first thing you should know about EDD 3.0 is that behind-the-scenes it’s been completely rebuilt with a custom database structure. This custom structure is faster, more scalable, and more robust than anything happening in the WordPress community.

This new database structure begins a new era for your EDD shop. Our future together is brighter than ever. Grab your shades.

EDD 3.0 lays the groundwork for us to give you new –more powerful– features faster.

Use Improved Reporting to Make Business Decisions

The first place you’ll see our hard work shine is with reporting. First, head over the Downloads > Reports you’ll find a new dashboard full of actionable data. These reports load blazing fast!

The focus of our new Reporting area is to empower you as a business owner to know where you’re at and how to make improvements. 

• Monitor and learn with 40 new reports accessible with one click
• The entire reporting interface has been redesigned from the ground up to give you the data you need, when you need it.

Each report view is designed to give you valuable insights that you can put to use right away.

For example, click on Customers and immediately see the average revenue per customer or who your top 5 customers are.

Manage Orders and Refunds with Ease

Managing orders in 3.0 is more consistent and reliable. 

In EDD 2.0 customer purchases were under ‘Payment History’. From now on we’ll call them ‘Orders’.

The Orders listing has a refined look with prominent order Number and visual Status makers.

Refunds

Issuing a refund has been redesigned to give more accurate reporting. Just click Edit to view/edit an Order. Next, click the Initialize Refund button. Select the items to refund, or all of them, and click Submit Refund. That’s it! The refund will begin processing.

Add and Organize Downloads Faster

Your Downloads (products) screen has refinements too. Easily access Categories and Tags right from the same screen.

Create and edit Downloads with the Block Editor! With the Block Editor you’ll be able to make beautiful product pages with visual layout controls.

Reorganized for Simplicity

The Downloads sidebar has been reorganized. Items are grouped by task.

There is a new status bar at the top of your WordPress Dashboard. Easily access reports, settings, store status, and more right from there.

Migration from 2.x to 3.0

When you upgrade to EDD 3.0 a simple migration process will run to update your store to the new database structure.

• Please make a backup copy of your database before running the upgrade, it’s safe, but not reversible
• Consider running the upgrade on a staging copy of your website first
• If you’re using the Aelia Currency Switcher plugin be sure to install and activate Multi Currency before the migration. Learn more here.

Command Line

For larger sites and advanced users, you can also run the upgrade via WP-CLI with this command:

wp edd v30_migration

Add-on Compatibility

Over the last year we’ve been releasing updates to our official add-ons that include in support for Easy Digital Downloads 3.0, so assuming you’ve been keeping your extensions up to date, you should be ready to go from day one!

EDD 3.0 Helps Your Business Grow

EDD version 3.0 is faster and more scalable. We’re here to help you grow your business and have more time to focus on other tasks.

Selling in multiple countries? EDD can display and accept payments in multiple currencies. You can easily migrate from third-party tools like Currency Switcher by Aelia with any EDD Pass.

Upgrade today for free. Don’t have EDD? Grab an EDD Pass or SiteGround Managed EDD Hosting to get started selling!

• To upgrade your existing site, log in to your site, and go to Plugins. Find Easy Digital Downloads on the plugin list and click upgrade.

Want to help translate EDD to your language? We’ve made it easier! Click here to get started.

As always, we love to hear your feedback, just contact us via the support page.

Onward!

Chris Klosowski
President of Easy Digital Downloads

The post [New] EDD 3.0 is here! – Massive Reporting Improvements (+ More) first appeared on Easy Digital Downloads.

What is a staged rollout?

A Staged Rollout is a method of releasing updates to your software to only a defined percentage of users, as opposed to releasing the update to all of your users at the same time. Instead of an “everyone or no one” approach, you can gradually distribute your latest update to some of your users. For example, when first released you may choose to only show the update to 10% of users, and over the course of a few days.

Used by numerous software companies world wide, you may have been part of a staged rollout without even knowing it. Common real world examples are mobile phone app releases as well as sites like Netflix and Uber.

The benefits of using staged rollouts.

A staged rollout can serve many purposes depending on the type of software you build. By using a staged rollout, you can take the time to analyze the real world performance impacts of your update, identify any unforeseen bugs, and verify the releases stability prior to giving to all of your users.

As always, we know that you take every precaution to release stable and bug free software to your users, but we live in the real world, where there are some things we just cannot account for. Conflicts with other software, server configurations, and user behavior are all things that organically become apparent as you release an update.

With a Staged Rollout, you can slow down the exposure of your changes to users by only releasing to a specified percentage of them, in order to impact as few people as possible. A bug is much better controlled when only 10% of your users experience it than 100%. If you’ve created a new user interface, getting it in the hands of 25% of users before making it widely available, gives you the time to take feedback from real world users, and release follow up improvements based on this feedback.

How to use staged rollouts with Software Licensing

The Software Licensing extension for Easy Digital Downloads allows you to quickly and easily configure a staged rollout for your releases. When editing your licensed product, you have the ability to do the following:

• Enable staged rollouts.
• Define the percentage of sites that get the update.
• Release the update to sites based on the current installed version.

Staged rollouts is available to all users of our Software Licensing extension who are on version 3.8 or greater. Thanks to the work by Thomas Maier and the team at WP AdvancedAds for inspiring this feature and writing the first proof of concept, which allowed us to quickly integrate this directly into Software Licensing for all users.

The post Take control of your release cycles with Staged Rollouts first appeared on Easy Digital Downloads.

Today we’re excited to offer all users the ability to use the new PayPal Commerce integration for Easy Digital Downloads.

How can I use PayPal Commerce with Easy Digital Downloads.

As of Easy Digital Downloads 2.11, PayPal Commerce is included in Easy Digital Downloads core for free. With this version of the PayPal Commerce integration, you will be able to accept payments via PayPal just as you have been with PayPal Standard. Upon enabling the gateway, you need to connect your Easy Digital Downloads store to PayPal and you are done! No API Keys to copy and paste, no IPN URLs to setup.

How is PayPal Commerce better than PayPal Standard?

Increased reliability

PayPal Standard has long been the go-to integration for quickly accepting payments via PayPal. However, over the years many improvements have been made to the payment gateway industry. PayPal Commerce communicates with your Easy Digital Downloads store via webhooks instead of the older IPN method of communication. According to PayPal, the new PayPal Commerce API is 5% more reliable when it comes to notifying your site of new sales, which results in fewer payments left ‘pending’.

Simplified configuration

PayPal Commerce offers a quick and easy way to connect your Easy Digital Downloads store with your PayPal account. Gone are the days of copying API Keys, usernames, PDT Tokens, and IPN URLs. We’ve built the new integration to be a single click, and upon completion, we’ll verify all the necessary permissions and webhooks are configured, giving you peace of mind that your store can accept payments.

Customers trust PayPal

With PayPal being a world leader in payments, it is no surprise that customers like ours and yours trust the PayPal brand. With the PayPal Commerce integration for Easy Digital Downloads, your customers will have no surprises at checkout, as they are seeing the PayPal brand while they complete their checkout with you.

How can you start using PayPal Commerce today?

After you’ve updated your Easy Digital Downloads plugin to version 2.11, you can head over to your gateway settings and connect your store to PayPal.

Once connected to the new PayPal Commerce gateway, head over to your General gateway settings and be sure to enable the “PayPal” gateway, and you should see the new PayPal button on your checkout.

What if I use the PayPal Pro or PayPal Express extension?

As the PayPal Pro and PayPal Express integrations are also being deprecated in the future, every user who has purchased a license key for the PayPal Pro/PayPal Express integration will be given access to the new PayPal Commerce Pro integration based on their previous purchase. Any Professional Pass, Extended Pass, or All Access Pass holders will have access to this new integration as well, via their purchased pass. Just visit the Account page to view your license key and download the latest version.

The new PayPal Commerce Pro extension provides the same on-site card payment field experience that the PayPal Pro integration previously did, but in a new and more secure integration thanks to PayPal’s new checkout experience.

What is the difference between PayPal Commerce and the PayPal Commerce Pro extension?

The PayPal Commerce integration included with Easy Digital Downloads core allows you to accept payments via PayPal (just like PayPal Standard) as well as Subscription payments (with the Recurring Payments extension). The PayPal Commerce Pro extension opens up access to on-site card payments, a number of European gateway payment methods, and Venmo.

Ready to get started?

We’ve outlined how to get your store connected to the new PayPal Commerce integration in our documentation, so you can start accepting payments more reliably today!

The post Introducing the new PayPal Commerce integrations for Easy Digital Downloads first appeared on Easy Digital Downloads.

Update: Stripe Gateway 2.7 and Recurring Payments 2.9 are officially released, offering SCA Support for Stripe payments.

I’m pleased to let you know that the following extensions have betas available that enable accepting payments that require SCA:

• Stripe Gateway 2.7 Beta 1
• Recurring Payments 2.9 Beta 1

So without further delay, here are the big changes coming in each of these releases

How to test beta releases

In order to help ensure the final release of these extensions go as smoothly as possible, we need your help testing this beta version.

Testing the beta is very simple. Simply log into your testing site that has Easy Digital Downloads with Stripe and/or Recurring Payments installed and activated and navigate to Downloads → Tools → Beta Versions and check the box for the extensions you want to allow beta testing for.

The beta update will now be available as a standard WordPress plugin update from your Plugins page, though it could take up to a few hours for the notification to appear. For further details you can view this documentation about enabling betas for extensions.

Note: we do not recommend you test the beta on a live site, please do all testing on a staging site. While we do our very best to not cause issues during updates, sometimes issues do slip through unnoticed, so having a staging / testing site is very important.

Stripe 2.7 Beta 1

SCA and PaymentIntents support

We’ve refactored our Stripe integration from the ground up to support this new platform that not only supports the Payment Intents API, but also complies with the SCA regulations. When required by their bank, the customer will be prompted with the SCA/3DS challenge prior to completing their purchase:

Inline card errors with Stripe

You’ve been asking for it, and finally, with the help of the Stripe Elements platform, customers who pay via credit card with Stripe will see inline card error messages that do not require a page refresh.

Important: If you’ve customized your checkout page to make changes to the Stripe card fields, please read the following paragraphs.

You may have noticed that the credit card fields have been changed quite a bit. Instead of three form fields for the card number, expiration date, and CVV, we have what looks like one form field. This is part of Stripe Elements, and is necessary for Stripe to work now.

If you have customized your checkout page, and unhooked our card fields with something like the following, you will need to remove this customization for the checkout and card management system to continue working.

remove_action( 'edd_stripe_new_card_form', 'edd_stripe_new_card_form' );

Stripe Checkout modal deprecation

As we covered in our initial post about SCA, Stripe has removed the ability to use the Stripe Checkout modal in this version of their API. While they do have a replacement Checkout system, it is no longer a modal and requires the customer to be redirected off your store in order to complete their purchase. Because this is such a large change in behavior, we chose not to simply move to the new Checkout, and instead redirect to the Easy Digital Downloads checkout page instead. In the future we are looking into a solution to reintroduce a ‘checkout-like’ feature that will give you the ability to use a modal once again.

PHP version requirements

Due to all the amazing new functionality that we’ve been provided via the Stripe v3 library, PaymentIntents, and the Elements checkout fields, it was necessary that we bump our PHP version requirement to PHP 5.6 or greater.

Other notable changes

• Users now have the ability to remove all cards from their account as well as add a new card, when they have no cards associated with their account.
• Store owners can now choose to only load the Stripe Javascript library when it is needed.
• A much improved experience with the billing address form.
• Updated to version 2019-08-14 of the Stripe API

Recurring Payments 2.9 Beta 1

As with Stripe, we needed to make some significant changes to our Recurring Payments extension to support SCA and the new Stripe API versions.

Mixed cart support for Stripe

Due to some changes in the way that Stripe payments are created for subscription purchases, it is now possible for customers who choose to checkout using Stripe to purchase a subscription and non-subscription product at the same time. For the mean-time, this feature is limited to when using Stripe at checkout.

Other notable changes

Most of the changes for this release are ‘behind-the-scenes’ changes. There are some other highlights that will likely be of interest for you though.

• Ability to change the text for the link to cancel a subscription.
• Admins can now configure and receive an email when a customer cancels a subscription.
• Fixed a bug that caused PayPal Pro/Express to sometimes handle each other’s IPN calls.
• Added a checkbox to allow cancelling a subscription when refunding a payment.
• Admins can now change the price ID a subscription is associated with, when the product has variable prices.

So what about other gateways?

PayPal Pro

We’ve recently started building out support for PayPal Pro, but at this time we do not have a working integration with Cardinal Commerce, the vendor we’ve chosen to work with. We eagerly await their continued support in helping us become SCA compliant with PayPal Pro.

Braintree

We have added Braintree to our list of gateways to support in the near future. At this time we are researching what it will take to get Braintree SCA support into Easy Digital Downloads, and will communicate when if and when it is ready.

The post Easy Digital Downloads SCA update first appeared on Easy Digital Downloads.

Update: Be sure to check out our latest updates on SCA.

What is SCA?

Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) is a European regulation that requires merchants use two methods of verification to authenticate customers’ identities. This is likely the beginning of many international regulations that endeavour to protect merchants and customers alike.

When SCA takes effect, a form of two-factor authentication will be required for most online card payments in Europe. From the 14th of September, European banks will decline payments that require SCA and do not have this additional authentication.

SCA applies to “customer-initiated” online payments within Europe. This means that almost all card payments and all bank transfers will require SCA.

SCA requires customers use at least two of the following three methods of verification:

• Something the customer knows (such as a password or PIN)
• Something the customer has (such as a phone or hardware token)
• Something the customer is (such as a fingerprint or face recognition)

Why is SCA important?

This new requirement is aimed at reducing fraud and making online payments more secure. This protects the merchant (that’s you), as well as the customer.

You can find the official SCA requirements in the Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS).

How SCA affects your EDD-powered store

For online purchases with a debit or credit card, SCA will apply to transactions where both the business and the cardholder’s bank are located in the European Economic Area (EEA).

Selling subscriptions? SCA will apply to the first payment, however recurring or ongoing direct debits or subscriptions are considered “merchant-initiated” and will generally not require additional customer authentication unless there is a change in the cost of the recurring payment.

Exemptions from SCA

Low-value transactions below € 30 will generally be exempt from SCA. However, if the customer makes five purchases or their total amount spent goes above € 100, SCA will be required.

Ultimately, the cardholder’s bank will deem whether or not a transaction will be exempt. Read more about possible exemptions.

What is EDD doing about SCA?

SCA readiness in Easy Digital Downloads is our top priority. The new update will include support for the new Stripe Payment Intents API.

Stripe Payment Intents API & SCA support

The Stripe gateway has been completely refactored to use the Stripe Payment Intents API instead of the old Charges API. The Payment Intents API complies with the Strong Customer Authentication regulation in Europe by adding support for 3D Secure when it’s required to complete the payment.

We’re finalizing how it integrates with our system, and are working to have SCA-related features implemented in EDD before September 14th (the original planned date) so you have time for configuration and testing.

*We are also monitoring a possible delay of the SCA enforcement. At this time we will be continuing to work towards the original date of September 14th. You can learn more about the delay on Stripe’s website.

Removing the Stripe Checkout modal

Unfortunately, Stripe is no longer recommending the use of this modal and they will not be updating it to support the Strong Customer Authentication requirements. As a result, we have decided to remove the current Stripe Checkout option from Easy Digital Downloads to ensure SCA compliance.

If you’re using the current Stripe Checkout then you will automatically be swapped over to our normal Stripe gateway when you update.

Will this affect my existing subscriptions?

As this is a design change only, it does not affect payment processing or renewals. Customers who have active recurring subscriptions that were created via Stripe Checkout will still have their renewal payments processed by Stripe and picked up by Easy Digital Downloads.

Updates to gateways

The following gateways will be updated for SCA. The exact release date is not confirmed just yet, but updates will be released as soon as they are ready:

• Stripe
• PayPal Pro

The following gateways will not receive updates for SCA support at this time. If you require SCA support, and use any of the below gateways that will not support SCA, you’ll need to switch to a gateway that has support for SCA:

• 2Checkout Onsite
• PayPal Payments Advanced
• Braintree
• Authorize.net

If you’re using the following gateways, no action needs to be taken. These gateways process payments offsite:

• PayPal Standard
• PayPal Express
• 2Checkout (not 2Checkout Onsite)

What do I need to do?

As Stripe adds SCA-related tools to their dashboard, you may need to configure a few items and/or update the version of the Stripe API leading up to September 14th. We’ll release more details as they become available, and if you have any questions, please let us know.

To get ready for SCA, you or your host will also need to ensure that your website is running on a server with PHP version 5.6 or greater. Additionally, when the Easy Digital Downloads update is released, you’ll need to update to the latest plugin version.

Where can I learn more about SCA?

For more information about SCA, Stripe is an excellent resource:

• Stripe – Strong Customer Authentication
• Stripe Blog – SCA Readiness
• Stripe Docs – Strong Customer Authentication

And if you have any questions, please feel free to drop it in the comments below.

Please note: We’re not lawyers here at EDD, so for further questions about international laws and regulations, and peace of mind, we recommend seeking advice from a legal professional.

The post Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) is coming first appeared on Easy Digital Downloads.

Since this is such a major change, we wanted to phase in this release in order to work out as many issues as we could before making it generally available, and today is that day. Here are the big changes you can expect to see in Software Licensing 3.6.5.

Custom database tables

As we’ve been doing with our other extensions, store owners will be presented with a migration utility that allows them to move the data from the old custom post types, to the new data format. With this version we’ve introduced a more user friendly experience that has more user-facing feedback as to how things are migrating.

If your site was already part of the previous “roll out” process, you would have seen the following migration notice in versions 3.6 – 3.6.4. You do not need to run another migration process if you have previously migrated to the custom tables already.

Initially, store owners will be presented with an expandable admin notice informing them of this upgrade, and what it encompasses.

Instead of immediately starting the upgrade, as we have previously done, the store owner needs to click to start this process. There are a possible 3 steps that need to be completed on the initial view:

• Migrate Licenses
• Update bundle licenses
• Update license logs

Since it may be possible that your store does not need all of these options, only the relevant steps will be shown:

Starting the upgrade will ‘batch’ this process by only migrating a handful of licenses at a time, to help reduce any risks of causing errors due to server resources. When step 1 is completed a check is run to see if the number of legacy license keys matches the number of new license keys.

If these numbers match, any remaining steps will be automatically started. If the numbers are different, however, the remaining steps will not be started automatically, allowing store owners to go see if there was a reason for this, and verify any necessary data was migrated prior to starting the remaining steps.

When all steps are completed, store owners will be notified they can navigate away from the upgrades page to verify data. At this point their store is 100% using the new license tables. The old data still exists, until the final ‘Remove Legacy Data’ step is performed.

If you are running a large store, with more than a thousand licenses, we recommend running this migration over WP-CLI with the provided command. This will ensure the fastest and most reliable method of upgrading a large data set.

If you are a developer and would like to know the new database table structures, you can see our blog post announcing the beta to see this.

New license capabilities

In the past, Software Licensing has always used some of the Easy Digital Downloads roles and capabilities to restrict who can view and modify licenses. In version 3.6, we’ve added 3 capabilities, which allow a granular customization as to what roles can view, edit, and delete licenses from a store. By default, the mappings for license capabilities are tied to EDD Core roles, but can be customized to your preference with a role management plugin or custom integration.

• view_licenses: Allows viewing the list table and details page of individual license keys. The capability has been added to these roles:
  • Shop Manager
  • Shop Worker
  • Administrator
• manage_licenses: Allows modifying license data. The capability has been added to these roles:
  • Shop Manager
  • Shop Worker
  • Administrator
• delete_licenses: Allows deleting license records. The capability has been added to these roles:
  • Shop Manager
  • Administrator

Download betas from the front-end

In version 3.5, we added support for adding beta versions of licensed products. In version 3.6, customers are able to download beta versions from within their accounts, just like they do with stable versions. These beta files will appear anywhere that EDD outputs download files by default.

Swap variable price assignment

If a license is attached to a product that has variable pricing enabled, users with the ‘modify_licenses’ capability can now change the variable price assignment of a license.

Other improvements

• More information has been added to the Licenses list table.
• Improved performance for front end license management views.
• Added the ability to regenerate a license key for an existing license.
• Item ID has been added to the API responses.
• License search has been improved to allow partial license search.
• Front-end tables have the .edd-table class added to allow better theme support.
• Changelog output can now be filtered.
• Refunding a renewal payment rolls back the license expiration.
• Better tool-tips for license management.
• Removed final keyword from the EDD_SL_License class.
• License export tool now uses batch processing API to avoid timeouts.
• Upgrade and Renewal dates are now stored in License meta.
• Added the customer name and email address to the licenses export.
• Added support for plugin Icons to appear in the Updates page (requires WordPress 4.9+)
• Allow product level renewal discount settings.
• Updated the readme and markdown parser libraries.
• Added a test to the list of local subdomains.

Notable bug fixes

• Fixed a fatal error when EDD was not active.
• Improved overall performance of license count checks.
• Changelog widget configuration could fail on stores with a large number of products.
• Lifetime child license expiration is now tied to their parent licenses.
• activate_license API call logged the activation twice in the license logs.
• Upgrading from lifetime to a bundle caused some issues with the expiration dates.
• Deleting a payment record now properly affects license meta for renewals and upgrades.
• Beta file URLs are no longer forced to http.
• Sample plugin now uses time() instead of current_time( 'timestamp' ).
• Using the empty_cart function now removes any renewal session data.
• Using Emoji in changelogs could cause issues on sites where the database schema is set to UTF-8.
• Added a health check to the EDD_SL_Plugin_Updater to prevent issues when stores are not responding.
• Managing a license now requires a user to be logged in.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did the status counts change after the migration?

You may notice, after running the migration, that some of the status counts in the license list table have changed. This is because during the migration, some checks were run against the licenses to correct any incorrect statuses. While you may see some differences in the counts for individual statuses, the overall license count should remain the same.

Can my store still receive new payments and generate licenses while this migration is running?

Yes! While this migration is running, your store will still be able to process payments and generate new licenses, while the old data is being migrated.

Installing this update.

This is a significant update for Software Licensing and we have tested it as extensively as possible. As we always do, we suggest first applying these changes and running the migration routines on a staging site prior to doing this on your production store, to avoid any unforeseen issues unique to your store.

As we have been slowly rolling out this update, we feel like we have caught many of the common issues already, but if you do find one, please do not hesitate to reach out to our support team at https://easydigitaldownloads.com/support.

The post Software Licensing 3.6.5 is now available for all license holders first appeared on Easy Digital Downloads.

Refactored/Redesigned modal

In 2.2.0, we’ve completely refactored the modal presented to users from the ground up and removed the dependency on 3rd party JavaScript libraries. Don’t worry though, it should look nearly (if not exactly) the same as it previously did. We maintained as much backwards compatibility as possible. In doing this, we’ve reduced the overall complexity of Free Downloads, which makes it more reliable and easier for us to maintain, which will result in less unexpected behavior.

Email verification

Possibly one of the most requested features, was the ability to ‘verify’ email addresses, to help prevent using fake email addresses when requesting a free download. Now, Free Downloads includes a feature that requires customers to ‘confirm’ their email prior to being provided with access to your digital goods. When users enter their email address, they are informed they will get an email to confirm their download. Once received, the user just needs to click the provided link, and Free Downloads will handle the rest, either delivering the product immediately, or redirecting the user to the desired page. When combined with an email marketing extension, this feature can help improve the quality of your subscribers as it requires the user have a functioning email address to complete the process.

Improved ‘On Complete Handler’ features

One option included with Free Downloads is the ability to redirect a user to a specific page after completing their ‘purchase’. Free Downloads now appends the ‘purchase key’ (used to look up the customer and purchase data) to the query string of the redirect URL, allowing you to build a custom template and include personalized data about the customer or requested files on that redirect page.

Other fixes and improvements

While the above items are new features added, there were a slew of issues that were fixed alongside them.

Bug Fixes

• Possible file download errors when using Dropbox Filestore
• Registration fields now respect the ‘Disable Guest Purchase’ setting in Easy Digital Downloads
• Better reliability when adding multiple purchase links for free products on pages
• File download logs are now created for each download request
• The caching system around auto-downloading multiple files has been improved
• The form for the Free Downloads modal no longer loads on every page
• Improvements to the ‘Bypass if Logged In’ setting
• Fixed a bug with non-English sites and custom Download Now button text

Other improvements

• Add more actions into the purchase form, to allow customization without creating a custom template
• Minified JavaScript and CSS for improved performance
• Improved usability of modal by auto-focusing on the first input field
• Allow disabling of both purchase confirmation and admin sales notifications individually
• Better error messages for troubleshooting

Free Downloads 2.2.0 is currently available to all valid license key holders.

View the full change log and product information for Free Downloads.

The post Free Downloads 2.2.0 improved with better performance and email verification feature first appeared on Easy Digital Downloads.

Version 3.4 brings many enhancements, including the migration to custom database tables, which will improve the performance of your commissions-enabled Easy Digital Downloads store.

In Commissions 3.4, all site owners will be presented with a dialog instructing them to run an upgrade routine after updating. This migration will move all existing commissions records to our new database table that is built specifically to house this data in a more performance-minded way.

Clicking on the “learn more” link will explain what is occurring with this upgrade routine:

There are two ways to run the migration routine:

1. Through the wp-admin area by clicking on the “here” link inside of the upgrade notice
2. Via WP CLI by using the wp edd-commissions migrate_commissions command

For large sites, we strongly recommend using the WP CLI command as it will be significantly faster and less prone to server timeouts or browser problems.

In a real-world example, we were able to speed up commissions reporting on our production sites by ~3x, and removed nearly 230,000 rows from our existing tables, significantly shrinking the total amount of space taken up in the database. During the upgrade routine, all existing data will be moved from wp_posts and wp_postmeta into the new tables. Once the migration is complete, an option to delete all legacy data will be shown.

Note: the migration is written such that new commission records can be created while the routine is running, meaning your store can be left live while the commissions database is upgraded.

Please make a backup of your site prior to running the upgrade routine. We have been testing it extensively on our own sites (including our main production sites) and we are confident in its reliability, but it’s still always in your best interest to be extra safe and create backups before making large data changes.

Backwards compatibility

The data generated by EDD Commissions has been stored as a post type with postmeta for several years now, which means it’s likely that stores with custom development may have additional data stored within these tables we aren’t aware of. In an effort to maintain complete backwards compatibility, we have included a compatibility layer that helps to translate queries to the legacy data structure and reroute it to the new tables.

If you’re a developer and have made custom integrations for Commissions, please see our Development blog post outlining the details of this backwards compatibility.

Improved commission emails

One of the more popular requests was the ability to customize the delivery of commission notifications to recipients. With version 3.4 we’ve added the ability to use some custom tags in the emails that go out to commission recipients. They include:

• {commission_id} –  The ID of the commission record
• {item_price} – The amount paid for the item sold
• {item_tax} – The amount of tax collected for the item sold

Along with these enhancements, commission recipients can now choose whether they want to receive email notifications within the WordPress profile editor.

Other improvements and fixes

Along with the above there are a number of other improvements in version 3.4:

• Commissions now properly account for negative fees when calculating commission amounts
• The export tool now allows commissions of specific statuses to be exported
• The Commission add/edit screen now includes better data validation
• A new hook called eddc_before_commissions_overview has been added to the Commissions Overview screen
• A new hook called eddc_commissions_overview_table_head has been added to the Commissions Overview screen
• A new hook called eddc_commissions_overview_table_row has been added to the Commissions Overview screen
• A new hook called eddc_after_commissions_overview has been added to the Commissions Overview screen
• Improved responsiveness in the Admin area
• Product name was incorrectly shown for commissions created without a download ID specified

This update is available today to active license key owners, and can be updated from within your WordPress Updates section or downloaded from your account.

As always, if you run into any issues please don’t hesitate to reach out to our support team.

The post Significant performance improvements in Commissions 3.4 first appeared on Easy Digital Downloads.

Improved variable pricing

If you run an EDD store using extensions that add fields and options to the variable pricing, you’ve likely seen something like this when editing a download:

In version 2.8, the variable pricing rows have been completely rewritten to be more flexible and scale with most screen sizes. And the best part, it’s backwards compatible. This means that extensions using the existing hooks and filters will work seamlessly with the 2.8 release.

Developers: See this doc on how you can integrate with the new variable pricing rows.

Performance improvements

With every release, we strive to improve the speed and stability of Easy Digital Downloads. There are a few of items resolved in Easy Digital Downloads 2.8 that should bring better performance to your store:

• Moved registered JavaScript files to the footer
• Moved to document.body where possible for jQuery selectors
• Added EDD_Customer_Query to make getting customers easier and more efficient
• Prevented a duplicate call to get customer notes when instantiating EDD_Customer

Purchase button quantity improvements

When selling products that support quantities, the purchase button will now update the price to match that of the quantity entered by the customer:

We’ve written this feature in such a way that it is flexible enough to work on most themes without any changes needed by theme and plugin developers.

This feature had to be reverted and was removed in version 2.8.1. We’ll be re-adding it after we can make some changes to improve backwards compatibility with customizations that were unforeseen.

Filter payments by gateway

From time to time, it’s useful to view payments made through a specific gateway. In Easy Digital Downloads 2.8, you now have the ability to choose a gateway and filter the Payments list table by the chosen gateway.

These improvements, along with more than 20 other minor improvements and 18 bug fixes, help to make Easy Digital Downloads better than ever before. The complete changelog for 2.8 can be viewed here.

The update for version 2.8 is available today and can be installed directly from your WordPress admin’s Plugins page.

The post Easy Digital Downloads 2.8 released first appeared on Easy Digital Downloads.

Eighteen months ago, the team here at Easy Digital Downloads started the process of migrating our support system from an open forum to using Help Scout to manage our interactions with users and customers. So far it’s been a tremendous improvement that has helped us to provide top-notch support at scale. The goal of migrating from an open forum to this email-based support channel was to be able to manage support threads easier, get better reporting to where we needed improvement, and offer a more personal experience.

Over the past year and a half, we have left the support forums available for viewing, but have restricted the addition of new topics and replies. In this time, much of the content that’s in these forum topics has become stale, incorrect, or irrelevant. Topics like these pose a few problems, including confusion on the current state of Easy Digital Downloads, its features, and offerings. It’s for this reason we’ve spent the last year focusing on updating, improving, and writing new documentation that is easier to maintain and update to be accurate with the most recent changes to Easy Digital Downloads. As we’ve been doing this, we have added automatic redirects for forum threads that have had documentation written or other resources created to meet the needs of the original issue. This ensures that readers who find the old forum threads are sent to an up-to-date documentation or product page with the relevant information.

In the last few months we have found over 100 forum topics that were either outdated, had been turned into features, or ended up becoming extensions. Each of these topics has had a redirect put in place to ensure customers still find the answers they’re looking for. These topics were not just selected by hand. We used our data to identify which forum topics were being viewed the most via organic search results and analytics, and focused on those first. With each of these topics, we read over the thread and either found a relevant documentation article, blog post, or product page that met the needs of the resolution, and setup redirects. You see, over time, we’ve been focusing on streamlining the customer experience of on-boarding, self-help, and support, but we noticed a trend. People would use search engines like Google, and end up on our support threads. Some of these threads either alluded to functionality that we’d already built or provided suggestions that were no longer relevant. This typically ended up in support tickets being opened by confused users. As with any documentation platform, the goal is to allow users to provide self-help for most tasks, and our forums are simply not cutting it.

Allowing the forums to remain visible is hurting both customers and our team. It is leaving a source of outdated information that results in lost time on both our end as well as the user’s end.

With that said, in the next two weeks, we will be taking any remaining forum topics and redirecting them to our documentation homepage at http://docs.easydigitaldownloads.com. Once the final redirects are put in place, the forums will be removed completely and will no longer be accessible.

When we first made the announcement that we were transitioning away from the forums, we said “No. The forums will never be deleted.”. Obviously we have reversed this decision and are doing it because we genuinely believe it is the best for everyone.

We have had many discussions about these forum topics and their value to the community as a team, and we fully understand some people will see this as a ‘removal’ of historical information related to our support. This is something we don’t take lightly and, while something we can sympathize with, we feel is outweighed by the need to provide the most accurate and up-to-date information possible to our users. Keeping the forum threads simply is not an option so long as they continue to reference out-dated and/or incorrect information.

As noted above, we will be leaving the forums available for viewing for a two week period, in order to allow anyone who has bookmarked a specific forum thread to go and save the information they find valuable to their own location.

We appreciate and welcome any feedback or concerns you have, and we’ll be sure to address them in the comments.

The post Retiring the old support forums first appeared on Easy Digital Downloads.

Custom Campaigns

The idea behind custom campaigns is that whenever you publish a link on an external website (ads, guest blog posts, promotional page, etc), the URL should be uniquely identifiable, so that you can track how effective it is.

If you aren’t familiar with how Google Analytics uses custom campaigns to help you track incoming traffic, you can use these two official Google Documents to familiarize yourself with what Custom Campaign links are, and how to create them:

• What are Custom Campaign links
• How to create Custom Campaign links

This information becomes useful when you want to change the wording or design of an advertisement or campaign. By using the same campaign, but altering the ‘term’ tag, you can effectively see how a campaign performs through time, when changes are made.

Relating Campaigns to Earnings

Up until recently, in order to see the performance of a Custom Campaign, you were required to leave your WordPress admin, and use to Google Analytics dashboards to view information about a campaign. There are a few challenges with Google Analytics that users typically ran into:

• The Google Analytics user interface can be overwhelming
• It can differ from your sales data at times due to external influences like disabled Javascript, payment gateways, etc
• Data is slightly delayed in Google Analytics while they parse it

The Campaign Tracker extension for Easy Digital Downloads solves all 3 of these issues, and without leaving your own site.

By giving you access to sales and earnings data directly from within the existing reporting section of EDD. You can filter by dates and campaigns to get the specific report you are looking for.

Campaign Tracker doesn’t rely on any Google Analytics resources to log the sale within EDD. It identifies visitors arriving at your site with the Custom Campaign parameters described above, pulls out the relevant information, and saves directly in the Easy Digital Downloads purchase data. Because of this, Easy Digital Downloads (and WordPress) have access to seeing campaign information without needing to wait for Google Analytics to parse the data.

It also works in real-time. No waiting for Google Analytics to parse through your campaigns, as sales come in, any campaign data is readily available from the moment they hit ‘Purchase’.

Using this data

At Easy Digital Downloads we use Custom Campaigns to help us understand the effectiveness of some key parts of our business. Links from social media, email campaigns, plugin directories, and other sources, all contain these campaign parameters. Combining campaigns with changes helps us know if we’ve improved or damaged the effectiveness of a link back to our site. Using the Campaign Tracker extension, we can get a quicker view into how a campaign is performing, and if we want more detailed information about campaigns, we can supplement it with the data provided in Google Analytics.

The post Using Campaign Tracker to monitor Google Analytics campaigns first appeared on Easy Digital Downloads.

Viewing Recommendation Sales

As a site admin, you’ll be able to view the recommendation sale logs via the Easy Digital Downloads Reports. Just visit:

Downloads → Reports → Logs and choose ‘Recommendations’ from the drop down, click ‘Apply’, and you’ll be presented with a view like the following:

On this view you’ll see 6 items listed:

• ID – The unique Log ID for this recommendation sale
• Source – The page that the person was on when they clicked to add the recommended item to the cart
• Purchased – The Item that was added via the recommendation
• Payment – The ID of and link to the payment the recommendation was purchased on
• Amount – The amount the item was purchased for
• Date – The date of the purchase

Clicking on the “Source” or “Purchased” items will filter the list to only items matching that selection.

Filtering the Logs

You can also filter the logs to any combination of recorded source and download via the dropdown menus shown:

As a note, since prior to this update, information regarding the purchase of recommendations was not being stored, these reports will only show items purchased after the 1.2.6 update.

Recommended Products 1.2.6 is available now via automatic updates to all current license holders.

The post Recommended Products 1.2.6 Released first appeared on Easy Digital Downloads.

Blog post published…now what?

At Easy Digital Downloads we’re constantly releasing new versions, new extensions, and new content. We employ a mixture of social media engagement and email marketing to make sure people are aware of our changes, releases, and tips on running a successful eCommerce site.

Maximizing Social Media

Social media plays a huge role in how we announce new products and releases. The problem is, with Twitter specifically, depending on what time you share your post, you could be missing a large number of your followers due to the time of day in their local timezone. There are plenty of services out there to schedule Tweets, but at Easy Digital Downloads we use Post Promoter Pro to handle this within our publishing process. (Full disclosure, the author of this post is the creator and developer of Post Promoter Pro).

The premise behind Post Promoter Pro is we can schedule our Tweets for the next few days and weeks to make sure we reach the largest number of our demographics. The best part, is it’s right in your WordPress admin, as you write your post. No need for external tools or services. Everything is right there at your fingertips and part of your publishing flow.

This plugin has helped us gain a large amount of traffic and conversion, without the need for remembering to share our content at a later date. It also includes custom Google Analytics Campaigns, so if you’ve configured your site to record transactions into your Analytics, you can see how the social media impact is having on sales.

You can read more at PostPromoterPro.com.

Email Marketing

Some of you may be reading this article via an email we sent you. This is one of our other means of reaching out to customer’s when we announce new products, versions, or helpful content. Email marketing is more than just junk mail. While social media is a broadcast means of reaching your customers, email marketing is targeting your higher conversion customers. These are people who have actively requested to receive your updates. The Easy Digital Downloads mailing list is powered by Mail Chimp, and uses some of the more advanced features to keep you all updated on what’s happening in the Easy Digital Downloads ecosystem.

You can read more in our article about using Mail Chimp to super power our product promotion.

We use a combination of sign up forms and the Easy Digital Downloads Mail Chimp extension to subscribe both potential and current customers into the correct lists so we can be sure to get the most relevant information in front of them.

When it’s all configured and setup, we’re able to see specific details about individual customers to help measure conversion. Here’s just a sample of some of the type of information we can get in MailChimp:

These are just some of the tools we use to help get new products, versions and guides in front of our customers, and with them, we’ve noticed an significant upturn in our traffic and conversion alike.

The post Tools for promoting your product releases first appeared on Easy Digital Downloads.