How to Import Existing Subscriptions from Other E-Commerce Providers
If you have existing subscriptions with an e-commerce provider that is not FastSpring, you can easily import these subscriptions into SpringBoard and FastSpring will take over the billing process.Importing Small Quantities of Subscriptions
If you need to import a small number of subscriptions, the simplest method is to create a new order with Order Creator for each existing subscription, where you would enter in customer contact information, the order details (including the specific subscription product, the quantity, the unit price, and any discount unit price), and send the customer the Payment Instructions Email or manually send the Payment URL, where they can re-enter their payment method details. Note: With this method, the re-bill date for the subscription will change based on when the customer enters in their payment method details.
Importing Large Quantities of Subscriptions
If you need to import a large number of subscriptions, or wish to keep the re-bill date the same as the current subscriptions, this method is more complicated, but overall can take less time. The imported subscription will fall into our dunning process when the next payment is due, and customers will be sent an email to update their payment method details. If they do not update their payment method after receiving this first email, follow-up reminder emails can be sent. These email notifications should be edited to have different wording that is better for this situation. These imported orders would be considered re-bills and would not trigger any fulfillment actions (download links, license codes) that are set on your subscription product to be sent.
From you, we will need data in a form like the CSV file attached at the end of this article. Download this file, open it in a text editor, such as Notepad++ (freeware text editor for Windows): Encoding menu > Encode in UTF-8) and TextWrangler(freeware for Mac): File menu » Reopen Using Encoding » Unicode (UTF-8) and fill in the information for each subscription. Caution: Do not open the file in Excel.
Descriptions of Field Names in CSV file with Examples
| Field Name in CSV File | Description of Field Name | Examples of Field Name |
| productPath | When you go to SpringBoard's Store Home » Products and Pages and select the corresponding subscription product, this what is after /product in the Store Page URL. | For http://sites.fastspring.com/test/product/subscriptionproduct the productPath is /subscriptionproduct |
| quantity | The product quantity |
1 |
| currency | The currency for the order. |
USD, EUR, AUD, GBP. See all currencies that FastSpring supports. |
| nextPeriodDate | The next date of billing for the subscription. | 2013-08-30, 2014-01-17 |
| couponCode | Any coupon code set up in SpringBoard that should be applied to the subscription. | 10OFF |
| referrer | More information about the referrer field. This field is not required. | |
| tags | See Variable Pricing Setup for Subscriptions. This field is not required. | |
| customerFirstName | This field must be in quotes. | "Marianne" |
| customerLastName | This field must be in quotes. | "Chan" |
| customerCompany | This field must be in quotes, but is not required. | "Company Name" |
| customerEmail | This field must be in quotes. | "juliee@fastspring.com" |
| customerPhoneNumber | The customer's phone number without spaces, hyphens, or parenthesis. This field must be in quotes. | "6175551212" |
| customerAddressLine1 | This field must be in quotes. | "304 West 40th Street" |
| customerAddressLine2 | This field must be in quotes, but is not required. | "Apartment 6F" |
| customerCity | This field must be in quotes. | "Bronxville", "Zürich" |
| customerPostalCode | This field must be in quotes. | "16611", "8000" |
| customerRegion | If the address is in the United States, this is the 2-letter state abbreviation. This is not required for non-US subscriptions. |
NY, MA, CA. |
| customerCountry | The two letter country ISO 3166-1 code. |
US, CH |
| taxExemptionData | The VAT ID from customers to exempt them from paying VAT. This field is not required. | 12345678, HU12345678, ESX9999999X |
Each field must be separated by a comma ,. If a field is left blank, it still needs quotes "", when appropriate, and a comma , after it. You also need a comma , and a line break to begin the next subscription.
Make sure to delete the information for the two fake example subscriptions. Save the file as a .csv with UTF-8 encoding. Open a support ticket to request the subscription import, and attach the .csv file to the ticket. We will take care of the rest.
We're Here to Help
If you need assistance importing existing subscriptions from other e-commerce providers, please open a support ticket.
CSV File to Download
Download this file, open it in a text editor, such as Notepad (for PC) or TextEdit (for Mac). Do not open it in Excel.
- subscription_import_example.csv (593 Bytes)