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Problems with older style "Transaction Post Hooks"

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Dan Kamins

04 Feb, 2019 10:50 PM

== BACKGROUND ==

For our application to stay updated with billing changes, we're using the older style "Transaction Post Hooks" that used to be defined here:
https://support.getcheddar.com/kb/api-8/transaction-post-hook
This is configured in:
https://www.getcheddar.com/admin/configuration/settings

It appears this is deprecated and we should transition to the newer Webhooks specified here:
https://support.getcheddar.com/kb/api-8/webhooks-service-hooks-and-...
Which are configured in:
https://www.getcheddar.com/admin/hooks/custom-url

We have this on our roadmap.

== ISSUE ==

The issue is that while the old style is "deprecated", it still works, but not well recently (last few months?), A few issues we're seeing:

1. All callbacks seem to be batched hourly now, around 10 minutes after the hour. I'm pretty sure they used to come immediately as events happened. This is a problem because if somebody pays, their account should reflect that, and not 45 minutes later. We even have onboarding and other manual action triggered on new accounts, and this is now significantly delayed and creates a poort customer experience.

2. Some callbacks simply never happen. We're seeing this more recently with accounts that are dunning and finally make a successful payment. Often our systems are never notified, and the account remains inactive, causing support calls and angry customers.

Can you please explain your plans with these older Transaction Post Hooks, and if there's any way to keep them working the way they used to work until they are decommissionned? Right now they seem broken and are causing us many problems.

Thank you,

dk

1. 1 Posted by Dan Kamins on 05 Feb, 2019 12:57 AM

   

   FYI, small update that might help troubleshoot this:

   On the page:
   https://www.getcheddar.com/admin/configuration/settings
   ... clicking on "URL: test this" results in the following message:

   Sent transaction post to https://myhost.com/txnposthook/ 255

   And yet nothing hits our server. I've reviewed the live access logs. There is no request from CG coming in.

   We ARE getting callbacks from this txn post hook, but only every few hours, always batches on the hour at X:10 or X:11. And now it seems the test function itself doesn't work properly.

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2. Support Staff 2 Posted by Meghan Turner on 05 Feb, 2019 03:41 PM

   

   Hi Dan,

   I'm looking into it this morning! I'll get back to you with my findings shortly.

   Meghan

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3. Support Staff 3 Posted by Meghan Turner on 07 Feb, 2019 05:23 PM

   

   Hi Dan,

   I took a look at this with the engineering team and a quick fix isn't presenting itself. If there was something simple we could do to resolve the issues you're having, we'd go ahead and do it, but unfortunately, that's not the case. At this point, we have so few customers still using this style of hook it doesn't make sense for us to invest time and resources in fixing a deprecated feature, so we'll most likely decommission it all together in the near future.

   I'd suggest moving over to the new webhooks as soon as you can. With features like auto-retries for failed hooks, reporting in the Hooked Activity dashboard, manual retries, and several additional hook events, the new system is a vast improvement in terms of both functionality and reliability from the original hook system.

   As you noted, you'll configure hook listeners using the new system in your Cheddar dashboard by visiting the Webhooks page under the Configuration drop-down menu.

   You should also take a look at our Webhooks Knowledge Base article. It has some really useful information about the data contained in all hook types, setting up secure hooks, testing your hooks, and responses Cheddar will expect from your hooks.

   If you have any questions as you're setting these up, please let us know! We're happy to do what we can to help.

   Meghan

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4. 4 Posted by Dan Kamins on 08 Feb, 2019 02:24 AM

   

   Thank you Meghan.

   Is there any guide / summary on migrating from old to new hooks? If not, we'll figure it out from the docs which look pretty thorough:
   https://support.getcheddar.com/kb/api-8/webhooks-service-hooks-and-...

   And hopefully the old style hooks don't degrade further before we complete migration!

   Thanks,

   dk

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5. Support Staff 5 Posted by Meghan Turner on 08 Feb, 2019 09:40 PM

   

   No, we don't have a guide that's specific to the new hooks, but the docs should have most of the info you need.

   If it helps, I confirmed with the engineering team that the payload for the new hooks contains all of the data that was included in the old hook payloads with a few additions. Something else to consider is that you may need to ensure your listener logic is tolerant of hook retries as auto-retries are a new feature (see this section of the docs for more info).

   If you run into anything that's unclear in the docs, though, let us know!

   Meghan

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