Running the Duplicate Subscription Utility in Aptify 5.5

Aptify 5.5 includes several enhancements to the Aptify subscription logic including the ability to better track company-based subscriptions when the contact person for a company changes. In previous versions of Aptify, if you change the recipient on a renewal order, a new subscription is created instead of adding a purchase to the existing subscription. Starting with 5.5, Aptify adds a new field to a Subscriptions record to make sure that when the contact person for a company changes, there is still only one company-based subscription. (See Issue 6702: Subscription Management – Company Subscriptions/Memberships: Add Recipient Company to OrderLines in the Aptify 5.5 Release Notes for more details.)

With the changes in the company-based subscription logic in 5.5, having multiple company subscriptions can be problematic from a renewal perspective. Therefore Aptify recommends, prior to installing the Aptify 5.5 Service Pack, that an organization reviews their existing company-based subscriptions to determine if multiple active subscriptions exists for the same company and how to handle such cases. For example, possible solutions may be to update one surviving subscription with the correct number of copies and expire the others, or convert duplicate company subscriptions into a set of individual subscriptions tied to a recipient.

To help in this review process, Aptify 5.5 Service Pack also includes a utility that an administrator can use to determine if multiple company-based subscriptions exist. If duplicates are detected, an administrator can also change the subscription to an individual subscription, if that is appropriate from an organization's subscription practices.

Follow the steps below to run the Duplicate Subscription Utility:

1. Navigate to the Utilities > Duplicate Subscription Check folder in the Aptify 5.5 distribution package.
2. Copy the contents of the folder to the Aptify client folder (typically C:/Program Files/Aptify 5.0).
   • Make sure a version of the SubscriptionEntity.dll is in your client folder.
3. This utility requires that the SubscriptionEntity.dll for your version of Aptify is downloaded to the client folder. If it is not, log into Aptify and open a new or existing Subscription record to automatically download the required file to your local folder.
4. Double-click DuplicateSubscriptionsControl.exe to launch the utility.
5. Enter login information for your database server. Specify an account with privileges to read and edit Subscriptions records.
6. Review the subscriptions that appear in the Duplicate Subscription Check grid.
   • The utility checks for multiple active company subscriptions for the same company and the same product. The results are displayed in the grid in alphabetical order by recipient company.
     
      
     
     
7. If you want to change one or more company subscriptions to individual subscriptions tied to a recipient (as identified by the Recipients column), check the Change to Individual Subscription box for the appropriate row.
   • All subscriptions are checked by default. If you want to unselect all subscription, click the Unselect All button. To re-select all subscription, select the Select All button.
   • You can check/uncheck the box multiple subscriptions at once. Click CTRL or SHIFT Key to select the appropriate rows and then check or uncheck the box. All selected rows are checked or unchecked accordingly.
8. Once you have selected the subscriptions you want to change to individual click Update. If you do not want to change any subscription to individual click Cancel to close the utility without saving any changes.
   • When Update is selected for systems running 5.0 SP3 or earlier, the utility removes the SubscriberCompanyID link to make the selected rows individual subscriptions tied to the specified recipient.
9. Log into your Aptify database.
   • If you chose to change company subscriptions to individual subscriptions, review the changes for accuracy.
   • Review the Subscriptions records for any remaining duplicates for which it was not appropriate to convert to Individual Subscriptions (these are the subscriptions that would still appear in the Duplicate Subscriptions grid after you converted the appropriate subscriptions to the Individual). For these true duplicates, you should identify and update a surviving Subscription that will store the correct subscription information for a company for a particular product moving forward. Then, cancel the unused duplicates to remove them from future consideration by the renewal process. Contact Aptify Technical Support if you have questions concerning this process.