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Civi recurring donations display question
Open, Needs TriagePublic4 Estimated Story Points

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MBeat33
May 2 2025, 11:25 PM
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F69824234: screenshot old.png
Nov 3 2025, 8:35 PM
F69824232: recur contribution.png
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F63637124: screenshot 4.png
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F63637032: screenshot 3.png
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Description

As part of the testing that yielded T393226: Gravy & the PayPal recurring cancellation process @AMJohnson raised a good point about how Civi displays recurring donations. When DR agents handle recurring update tickets, a key step is checking Civi to see whether we can modify (cards and other methods) or only cancel (PayPal).

The current display is not optimized now that we are doing recurrings through Gr4vy, because the Payment Processor column in the Recurring Contributions tab just says Gravy, with no indication of the specific method. You have to dig deeper (on a different tab!) to see which payment method at Gr4vy was used. This extra step slows us down and may increase the possibility that we accidentally make updates to recurring donations (amount, processing date, etc) that we are not supposed to be changing.

What we'd love would be more visibility into the specific donation method in the Recurring Contributions tab. This would also be helpful in cases where donors may have multiple recurring donations via different methods.

In the Contributions Detail view there's the field called Payment Method. Might either adding this to the Recurring Contributions tab, or replacing the Payment Processor column with it, enable this visibility?

Event Timeline

@Eileenmcnaughton is the view of recurring donations editable via Administer - Customize Data & Screens? I'm looking in Navigation Menu - Contributions but don't see anything that looks like it would enable adding Payment Method to the Recurring Contributions tab.

It doesn't look like the tab has been converted to Search Kit (which would make it editable) - it would be possible to add an additional SearchKit 'top level' tab that does have the desired fields though - I can also check in on progress converting it to Search kit

Thank you @Eileenmcnaughton and @Cstone this would be great to have in order to ease the DR team's use of Civi to help recurring donors

At the civi sprint I learned we can make a custom searchkit and have it reflect the current contact's data. I have a WIP added to the bottom of the menu bar on a contact's view called WIP: Recurring Contributions. Once we decide we like the data displayed there we can take it out of work in progress and add it to the menu bar underneath the Contributions tab.

We're testing the WIP view.

Thank you @AMJohnson for noticing that the payment method for CID 13927465’s active recurring does not display. It is ApplePay Mastercard, so at first I thought maybe that specific method wasn’t showing up, but then I saw cid=29742601 which is the same method but does display. Can Fr-Tech take a look to make sure all methods are populating in the WIP?

I thinks that Civi treats the payment method as more of an override than a required field - ie when it recurs it normally picks up the method from the last recurring payment, unless that is populated - this is not necessarily a problem - unless it is impacting you

SELECT count(*) FROM civicrm_contribution_recur WHERE payment_instrument_id IS NULL \G

  • 1. row *******

count(*): 1846930

Apologies in advance for the long note. :)

Regarding the payment method being displayed

I think we were hoping that ideally the WIP: Recurring Contributions section would always display the payment method. The reason being is that as we perform recurring updates for donors and our ability to determine if we can make or not make a change on behalf of a donor depends on the payment method type. As we move everything to Gr4vy if all recurring contributions just indicate that they are processed via Gr4vy, but we’re not easily able to determine at a glance what payment method was actually used we may accidentally change a donation amount or billing date for payment types where we are not able to make those changes such as PayPal.

We’ve noticed that some recurring donations do say the payment method, but some do not. Not sure if maybe it’s just certain payment method types or older recurring donations?

For example:

CID 33961432 the WIP Recurring Contribution section notes that it’s Apple Pay Visa.

screenshot 1.png (345×2 px, 85 KB)

However, CID 13927465 who has an older recurring donation nothing is listed for payment method.

screenshot 2.png (310×2 px, 82 KB)

If the payment method will not always be displayed if you could just let us know if it’s just older ones, or maybe those before X date, or certain payment method types where we won't see the payment method displayed that would be helpful for us to know.


Below are two other items that we wanted to ask about.

New tab vs Pop-up

Right now if you’re looking at a recurring donation on the WIP:Recurring Contributions tab when you select "View" it opens in a new tab instead of opening up in a pop-up like the “Recurring Contributions” tab currently does. Is it possible this “view” option could also open into a pop-up instead?

screenshot 5.png (328×2 px, 84 KB)

Placement of WIP:Recurring Contributions

One other question we did have is we see @Cstone noted above that “Once we decide we like the data displayed there we can take it out of work in progress and add it to the menu bar underneath the Contributions tab.”

If we're understanding correctly it sounds like we’re considering moving recurring contributions from nested within contributions as shown in the screenshot below:

screenshot 3.png (301×1 px, 62 KB)

To its own section on the menu bar between contributions and pledges?

screenshot 4.png (395×334 px, 30 KB)

I chatted with @krobinson about this who agreed that if possible we’d prefer this new WIP: Recurring Contributions section to replace the existing Recurring Contributions tab instead of being a new item on the menu bar to the left. We really like our current ability to click between the two "Contributions" and "Recurring Contributions" tabs. If there is a technical limitation and that’s not possible we totally understand! :)

@AMJohnson I took a look and the last recurring to be created with no payment method was on 2024-08-22 05:21:57 - it looks like all the ones created since then do have payment method filled in

Thanks for confirming that, @Eileenmcnaughton .

Can I confirm what will happen when we import over all recurrings to Gravy - will the view of recurrings that were created prior to that date show the payment method? As we will really need to be able to differentiate PayPal from Adyen donations then.

The question came up in today's meeting whether this Task is still a blocker for Gravy switchover. Though there are still open questions, as we can now see the specific payment method for recurring donations I think it shouldn't be a blocker.

@Ejegg confirmed that when we import over all recurrings to Gravy they will all use the same flow.

AKanji-WMF subscribed.

@Lars good to keep in mind in relation to your exploration around optimizing the supporter record main page for diff teams

Damilare set the point value for this task to 4.Sep 10 2025, 11:09 AM

Hey @Cstone and all! @MBeat33 shared that some more work had been done on the WIP:Recurring Contributions and to add any feedback we may have on the updates here. :)

It's looking great! I really like how we can see the payment methods right there which will be so helpful for us!

I just had a few very minor thoughts on the revised version of the WIP:Recurring Contributions tab:

  1. In the current 'Recurring Contributions' tab the inactive recurring contributions are greyed out. Would it be possible to "grey out" the inactive recurring donations on this new version of the tab as well? Visually it really helps us to quickly differ between active/inactive donations.
  1. Similar to noted above but it looks like right now if you’re looking at an active recurring donation on the WIP:Recurring Contributions tab when you select "View" it opens in a new tab instead of opening up in a pop-up like the “Recurring Contributions” tab currently does. Is it possible this “view” option could also open into a pop-up instead?
  1. This last suggestion is from me only as everyone else I asked on the team felt neutral about it (lol!) so if it's too much trouble don't feel like this one is absolutely necessary. I was going to also suggest that where it's frequency unit is noted as "month" or "year" if would be possible to slightly reword those to "Monthly" and "Yearly". I'm really not sure why "month/year" stood out to me, but possibly because our current tab says "every 1 month" or "every 1 year" so I might just be used to something different there. 😅 Again, if this last suggestion is a heavy lift no worries and leave it as is. 🙂

Thank you for all the work on this!

@AMJohnson thanks for all the feedback!

  1. Yep they have been greyed out, I added in the missing options that the original page had too
  1. I switched this back to a pop up
  1. This can be really customizable, I put it back to Every 1 month / Every 1 year to match what you are used to, but if we want yearly and monthly it can be changed to that

Awesome, thank you @Cstone! All looks great and every 1 month/year works perfectly. Thank you! :0)

Hey y'all!

We noticed a few days ago that the "WIP: Recurring Contributions" tab is missing and we now have a "Recurring Contributions" tab on the left menu bar instead as shown in the screenshot below.

recur contribution.png (284×1 px, 45 KB)

I'm not certain if this change is related to the work being done on this phab.

If possible we’d prefer this new Recurring Contributions section that provides us with the payment method to replace the existing Recurring Contributions tab (screenshot below) that is grouped within the Contribution section instead of Recurring Contributions being a new and separate item on the menu bar to the left. We really like our current ability to easily click between the "Contributions" and "Recurring Contributions" tabs.

screenshot old.png (301×1 px, 62 KB)

Hopefully this explanation makes sense but please let me know if not! 🙂