CivicPay Online Release Notes

12/17/2021

• The Payment step of the One Time Quick Payment process has been enhanced to include additional payment options. Citizens will now see new payment selection toggles for Total Account Balance, Previous Balance, Current Charges, and Other when those payment options are available for the account.

• Updated the Transaction Report export generated from My Agency> Reports in the new CPO views in order to include the column totals that were displayed in the legacy version of the report.

• Updated the system to detect when a user is accessing CPO via an unsupported browser. When an unsupported browser is detected, a message will display alerting users that CPO supports Edge, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.

• Added a CPO-specific favicon in order to prevent 404 errors that can occur when a browser does not find a favicon to display in the tab.

• Corrected an issue that could improperly set transactions received from the modern take payment page to use “Web” as the source rather than the expected “PointofSale”. This issue could also prevent the membershiptransaction value of the member that posted the payment from being recorded as expected. As a result of this issue, the source and membershiptransaction data should not be considered accurate for transactions posted between 12/06/2021 and 12/17/2021.

• Corrected an issue that could prevent the system from updating the login page as expected when a user who had previously checked the “Remember Me” toggle unchecks that toggle and logs in. The system will now properly reflect the status of that toggle on the login page.

• Updated the label on the button used to log in to the application to read “Log In” rather than “Login”. This fix also resolves a related issue with how the term is used in error and informational messages in the application.

12/13/2021

• Updated the My Bill page in the modern citizen-facing views to include the Print My Bill button. This button allows a citizen to print or save a PDF copy of the My Bill page. While this new option can be a valuable tool for citizens to generate a copy of their bill, this is not designed as a replacement for agency-generated billing statements.

12/06/2021

• The Take Payment process has been modernized and is now part of the standard CPO application. You will no longer be redirected to the legacy views when processing a walk-in or telephone payment. The Complete Payment step of the Take Payment process has also been enhanced to include an optional email address field. This allows agencies to send an email receipt to the citizen when the payment is submitted.

• The Transaction report has been modernized and is now available from My Agency> Reports> Transaction Report. This report now shares the modern look and features of the other modern CPO reports. Other enhancements to the Transaction report include:

  • Added the total amount values for UB and Fee below the total transaction value displayed at the top of the page. This allows users to quickly see how much of the total transaction value is a result of UB transactions and how much is a result of fees.

  • Updated user role permissions in order to ensure users assigned to the Payment View role can access the modern Transaction Report via the My Agency> Reports page. Previously, access to this report was limited to users assigned to the Edit Their Organization role.

• The Citizen Home page has been updated to improve clarity and usability. The Previous Balance Forward and Current Charges Due sections have been removed to prevent citizen confusion about what they need to pay. The page now displays only one value, the Total Account Balance, with a single Pay Now button next to that value. Citizens will also be presented with direct button links to View My Bill and View Account Activity.

• Corrected an issue that could result in an unnecessary OOPS! error when an agency that does not support ACH payments attempts to use the modern Take Payment page to process a complete payment.

11/08/2021

• Updated the CPO Login page to improve the visual layout. These improvements include:

  • The CivicPay logo will now be left-justified

  • Your agency name will appear next to the CPO logo – long agency names may be truncated when viewing CPO on a mobile device

  • Your agency phone number and email address will now appear in the top-right corner – these contact details will not display when viewing CPO on a mobile device

  • The custom message area will now automatically resize to the custom message contents in order to prevent unnecessary white space

• Added the SB Lookup value to Payment Detail receipt. This value previously displayed on the Payment Detail window but not on the generated receipt.

11/02/2021

• Updated the Municipal Payment Collection portal to only display Convenience Fee or Service Fee line items in the payment totals section if those fees are actually being collected.

• Updated the way CPO handles payment declined messages in order to provide more detailed information to the user when a payment (one-time or recurring) is declined by our Bluefin payment provider.

10/18/2021

• Corrected an issue that could improperly display a blank custom message block on the login screen if a blank space is entered in the Login Page Message field on the My Agency> Settings> Custom Message screen. The login page custom message block should only display when a valid custom message is entered.

• Corrected an issue that could prevent some customers from receiving e-bills due to a timeout error when CPO pulls recent billings from Springbrook. This issue has been resolved by increasing the timeout parameters associated with this data query.

09/20/2021

• Corrected a grammatical issue on the Payments Summary and Settlements Summary pages that could display single payment line items as plural “1 Payments” rather than the correct singular “1 Payment”.

09/13/2021

• Corrected an issue that could prevent some elements on the modern CPO pages from displaying as expected for Safari users.

09/07/2021

• Updated the CivicPay Agency Home page to display links to access Springbrook Success Community, support contact information, the CivicPay Help Center, current application status, and CivicPay release notes.

• Corrected a validation issue with the legacy CPO New User Registration page that could prevent agencies from registering citizen accounts that include special characters in their first or last names.

08/23/2021

• Implemented a significant performance enhancement for CPO to utilize parallel job processing for recurring and automated payments batches. This enhancement will improve queue times for Auto Pay batches when a number of agencies submit batches in the same timeframe. Those Auto Pay batches will now be processed in parallel. This enhancement does not apply to multiple batches submitted from a single agency, so those batches will still be processed serially.

08/18/2021

• Corrected an issue that could improperly display Auto Pay sign up information in the Dashboard message after an agency that does not support Auto Pay goes through the Gateway Transition process.

• Corrected an issue that could prevent the expected bounce notice from being sent to the agency when a Quick Payment is processed.

• Updated the colors used in the Usage Chart in the new citizen views in order to improve clarity and ensure usability for color blind citizens.

08/16/2021

• Released the new CPO modern citizen-facing views. For more information on these new citizen-facing views, please see the New Citizen Experience Overview help topic.

• Updated the modern citizen-facing views to allow access and display an error message when the connection to Springbrook has been interrupted.

• Corrected a minor security issue that could improperly expose software version information in the page HTTP headers.

• Updated the Bluefin Payment Result handler to check for a successful transaction after a Bluefin timeout occurs. This will prevent Bluefin transactions that timeout and are declined from posting as successful in CPO and Cash Receipts.

• Updated the way the system handles settlement error logging in order to prevent unsanitized agency URL data from appearing in the error logs.

• Corrected a punctuation error on the Make Payment validation message.

08/03/2021

• Corrected an issue that could prevent in-app communication banners from displaying as expected in mobile view if the agency name is long enough to extend to two lines.

• Corrected an issue that could prevent the Municipal Quick Payment functionality from working as expected when Municipal Payments is enabled for an organization but the MPC Bluefin account key was subsequently removed.

• Corrected an issue that could improperly display the login and autopay custom messages when those messages are added and then removed.

• Corrected an issue that could prevent users from successfully adding a Type Code with $0.00 tax and amount value to the Municipal Payments Collection portal.

• Corrected an issue that could prevent the application from displaying as expected when using the Safari browser.

• Corrected an issue on the legacy Make Payment, Quick Payment, and Add New Payment screens that could prevent the credit card brands from displaying in the expected default order.

07/19/2021

• Enhanced the gateway transition messaging options in order to provide more relevant language for those organizations that do not offer Autopay.

• Corrected an issue that could improperly allow a user to enable a Type Code with a $0.00 value in the Total Amount column on the My Agency> Settings> Municipal Payments page without also checking the Allow Amount Edit toggle on that type code. These $0.00 Type Codes can be used in Municipal Payments, but only when that $0.00 amount can be edited.

07/06/2021

• Enhanced the way the system handles recurring and automated payments batches in order to prevent performance issue when batches with a large amount of data are being processed.

• Corrected a customer accounts issue that could prevent the system from generating a statement for a Springbrook account when a customer removes that Springbrook account from their CivicPay Online account and there is not another customer set up on that Springbrook account to receive the statement. The system will now automatically generate a paper statement for that account.

• Corrected a My Agency> Settings issue that could prevent admin users from successfully editing agency bill types in the modern CPO view.

• Corrected an issue that could prevent the agency name from displaying in the CPO header as expected.

06/28/2021

• Updated the Municipal Payments Collection to use CR Type Codes rather than CR Category Codes. Also updated the MPC process to calculate taxes when a taxable type code amount is edited when making a payment.

06/14/2021

• Corrected a batch cutoff timing issue that could occur when a transaction begins processing in CPO seconds before the batch cutoff time and ends processing in Bluefin seconds after. This could cause a discrepancy between CPO and Bluefin when the transaction is assigned to a batch.

05/24/2021

• Corrected an issue that could cause an error when a customer attempts to access the View/Change Custom Messages page in the legacy CPO views.

05/17/2021

• Corrected an issue that could prevent the banner that displays at the top of the Citizen MPC pages from automatically displaying the agency name.

05/03/2021

• Enhanced the Recurring Payments process in order to improve the way the system handles transactions that experience timeout errors. In some cases, a transaction that initially failed as a result of a timeout error could later be successfully processed. This issue has been resolved via a new re-query process.

• Updated the New User Registration process to provide a standardized error message when a user attempts to register with an invalid or already registered email address.

04/26/2021

• Updated the Merchant Account options available to users when filtering and reporting on payment transactions by Batch Cutoff Time. The Merchant Account field on the Payment Summary and Payment List pages will now offer Utility, Municipal, and Both filtering options when the Cutoff Time field is set to Batch.

04/12/2021

• Updated the custom message labels on the My Agency> Settings> Custom Messages page in order to improve clarity and match future citizen-facing page nomenclature. “Home Page Message” has been updated to “Login Page Message” and “Dashboard Message” has been updated to “Citizen Home Page Message”.

• Updated the Municipal Payments Purchase page to include any payment validation errors at the top of the page. This change ensures users are quickly informed of payment validation errors when using smaller screens or mobile devices.

03/29/2021

• Introduced the Municipal Payments Collection portal. This new portal allows for the collection of many types of citizen payments with the same enterprise grade security and integrated convenience local agencies have come to expect from Springbrook. The portal enables the safe collection of payments commonly made in person, such as records request fees or development application fees, eliminating unnecessary visits to government offices, thereby reducing the burden on existing staff.

• The Recurring Payments Payment Report for Springbrook will now provide options to export ACH and Card payments in the previously available combined file or as two separate export files. The option to create separate files allows for ACH and Card transactions to be imported into Springbrook Cash Receipts with different Pay Method selections.

• Updated the field label of the UB Amount field to read Bill Amount on the Payment Details and Settlement Details pages. This label update is meant to more accurately reflect the contents of the field and to make it applicable when processing Municipal Payments. This change will also update the related Payment List Export and Settlement List Export reports.

• Updated the Gateway Transition message that appears on the CPO Dashboard in order to improve clarity and provide additional details.

03/08/2021

• Updated the description of the Quick Payment link on the CivicPay Online login page in order to be more clear. The description now reads “Pay a utility bill without registering.”

02/16/2021

• The Payment Settings tab of the My Agency> Settings window has been updated to include new Payment Date Options for Automated Payments. This option allows organizations to offer citizens additional flexibility when using Automated Payments. Once this option is enabled, citizens will be able to schedule their payments on the Bill Due Date or to schedule their payments up to an organization-specified number of days before the Bill Due Date. Organizations can specify between 1 and 15 days when setting up this Automated Payments option.

• The Payment Settings tab of the My Agency> Settings window has been updated to include new Payment Amount options for Automated Payments. The two new payment amount options displayed are Pay Current Charges and Pay Total Amount Due.

  • NOTE: The two enhancements listed above are now being made available to organizations using Springbrook ERP Premise versions 7.17.0.0 and 7.18.0.0. A new Service Pack for Springbrook ERP must be installed. These are read-only and clients must contact Springbrook Support for configuration assistance.

• Corrected an issue that could prevent the daily Settlement Summary emails from being sent to agency members as expected when an agency is in maintenance mode at the time the emails were to be generated.

02/08/2021

• CivicPay Online has been enhanced in order to begin supporting Springbrook’s Municipal Payments Collection functionality. This new functionality will allow organizations to accept a wide range of municipal fees via CPO. For this release, the Municipal option has been added to the available Payment Processor options in the Merchant Account drop-down when filtering payments on the Payments List, Payments Summary, Settlement List, and Settlement Summary pages. Selecting this option will not return any payment results until the full Municipal Payments Collection functionality has been released.

01/19/2021

• Added the Audit Trail Report to the new CivicPay Online experience. The Audit Trail Report, accessed by authorized users via My Agency > Reports, will now open within the new CPO experience rather than navigating clients back to the legacy CivicPay Online application.

• Corrected an issue that could prevent the system from properly linking a new CPO citizen account and the related UB account if the UB account has not yet been included in a billing batch. This issue could lead to an error when the citizen attempts to log in to CPO.

01/11/2021

• Added the export to CSV option the Export menu across the application. This enhancement allows clients to choose between the existing Excel option and the new comma separated value option when exporting data grids and reports.

• Added the Profile Report to the new CivicPay Online experience. The Profile Report, accessed via My Agency > Reports, will now open within the new CPO experience rather than navigating clients back to the legacy CivicPay Online application.

• Corrected an issue that could prevent credit card payments from being successfully processed via IVR if the lot associated with the payment does not have a specified City on the Lot tab.

12/16/2020

• Corrected an issue that could cause the system to prioritize batch processing by alphabetical order, resulting in unnecessary processing delays for some users. The system will now process batches in the order received.

12/03/2020

• Updated the Payment List page to allow clients to select multiple payment sources when filtering displayed payments. Previously, the Source field in the Filters window was a drop-down selection box that limited clients to a single source selection. This drop-down field has been replaced with a set of check boxes, allows clients to select multiple sources when filtering payments.

• Corrected an issue that could automatically expand the left navigation menu after a client collapses that menu and navigates to a new page. The left navigation menu will now remain collapsed until the client expands it again.

12/02/2020

• The CivicPay Online Terms of Use page can now be accessed by clicking the Terms of Use link under the Account drop-down.

• Updated CivicPay Online for those clients who use CivicPay Pads (CPP) for in-person payments but do not use CPO for online payments. Those CPP-only clients can now view their payments and settlements in CPO rather than accessing CivicPay Center.

• Updated the default landing page for CivicPay Online clients who use Bluefin payment provider or who are CPP-only clients. Those clients will now be directed to the new CPO views by default. Clients who were previously directed to the legacy CPO views can still access those views via the “Navigate to the Legacy CivicPay Online experience” link on the CPO Home page.

11/23/2020

• Users can now easily navigate between the new CivicPay Online experience and the legacy CivicPay Online experience. On the new CPO Home tab, users can now follow a link back to the legacy CPO Home tab. This link provides an easy way to work in both the new and the legacy CPO views while we continue to transition full CPO functionality to the new CPO experience.

11/16/2020

• The Settlement Summary page has been enhanced in order to help users track and report on PayPad transactions. These enhancements include:

  • Payments displayed on the Settlements Summary window will now be grouped by Merchant Account, when applicable. Users will be able to quickly see the total number of Utility or PayPad payments for each day in the specified date range.

  • Export file generated from the Settlement Summary window has been enhanced to include the Merchant Account column.

  • Daily Settlement Summary email will now include Merchant Account data in order to differentiate between Utility and PayPad transactions.

11/09/2020

• The Payment Summary page has been enhanced in order to help users track and report on PayPad transactions. These enhancements include:

  • The filtering functionality on the Payment Summary page has been enhanced in order to include PayPad payment data. The payment filters at the top of the page have been updated to include the Merchant Account drop-down, which includes a PayPad filter option. Users can now choose Any to display all payments, Utility to display only CPO payments, or PayPad to display only PayPad payments for the specified date range.

  • Payments displayed on the Payments Summary window will now be grouped by Merchant Account, when applicable. Users will be able to quickly see the total number of Utility or PayPad payments for each day in the specified date range.

  • Export file generated from the Payment Summary window has been enhanced to include the Merchant Account column.

• The Settlement List page has been enhanced in order to help users track and report on PayPad transactions. These enhancements include:

  • The Settlement List page has been updated to include the Merchant Account column, allowing users to see if settlements originated from Utility or PayPad transactions. Clients with separate accounts for Utility and PayPad transactions will also see the total number of transactions across accounts aggregated on this page.

  • The filtering functionality on the Settlement List page has been enhanced in order to include PayPad payment data. The Filters window has been updated to include the Merchant Account drop-down, which includes a PayPad filter option. Users can now choose to display Any, Utility, or PayPad payments for the specified date range.

  • Export file generated from the Settlement List window has been enhanced to include the Merchant Account column.

• Updated the Confirm Payment Reversal window in order to include payment Merchant Account information – such as Utility or PayPad – when users are asked to confirm payment reversals.

• Corrected an issue that could prevent some settlement times from properly reflecting the user’s local time zone. This issue could result in some settlements being recorded early in the next day rather than late in the actual settlement day for customers in the Mountain and Pacific time zones.

11/02/2020

• The filtering functionality on the Payments List page has been enhanced in order to include PayPad payment data and to improve usability. These updates include:

  • Removed the date filters from the Filters window as the date range can already be set on the Payments List page itself. This change will reduce the confusion that could result when users are presented with two places to specify a date range.

  • Added a Batch Cutoff note to clarify how filtering by Batch Cutoff time limits the reported payment data to Utility account payments.

  • Added the PayPad option to the Merchant Account drop-down in order to allow users to report on PayPad payment transactions.

• Added the Leave Administration option to the User drop-down menu in the top-right corner of the new CPO views. Clicking this option will direct the user from the new CPO admin pages to the legacy CPO customer pages.

  • This option will only be available to CPO admin users who also have a CPO customer user account associated with their admin email address, such as CPO admin users who are also responsible for submitting utility bill payments for their organization’s offices.

• The Payment Detail window has been updated to improve clarity. The UB Amount and Fee Amount fields will now be hidden when the selected payment was generated via PayPad as these fields do not apply to PayPad transactions. This update will also set the value of these fields to 0.00 when including PayPay transactions in a payments export file.

• Updated the Audit Trail Entries page of the legacy CPO site to add the ability to export audit trail data to .csv or Excel.

10/19/2020

• The Merchant Account column has been added to Payments List window in the new CPO views. This column will display the merchant account type, such as Utility or PayPad, associated with the payment line item.

• The Merchant Account field has been added to the Payment Detail and Settlement Detail windows. This field will display the merchant account type, such as Utility or PayPad, associated with the selected payment.

10/05/2020

• Enhanced the Settlement List page in order to allow users with the adequate permissions to reverse a payment from the payment details. Previously, users could only reverse payments when accessing the payment details from the Payments List window.
• Corrected an issue that could cause an error when attempting to edit and save a custom Out of Service Message when the custom message includes uncommon characters or punctuation. This issue has been resolved in both the New CPO views and the Legacy CPO views.
• Corrected an issue that could prevent the vertical scroll bar on the New CPO views from displaying properly. In some cases, this could lead to the bottom of the scroll bar being hidden behind the page footer.

09/28/2020

• The Custom Messages page has been added to the new CPO views. This page allows organizations to create and edit their Home Page, Dashboard, Auto Pay, Payment Screen, Parcel ID, and Out of Service messages from within the new CPO views. The new, more modern WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) message editors offer a more familiar and efficient interface for creating and editing these messages. Any messages previously set up on the legacy CPO Custom Messages page will automatically populate in the new CPO Custom Messages page.
• The legacy CPO Custom Messages page has also been updated with these new, more modern WYSIWYG message editors. All existing messages will maintain the formatting specified when they were originally created in the legacy CPO message editor.

• Enhanced the CPO Maintenance Window functionality to include a new notification banner on all new CPO view pages. This new banner will provide upcoming maintenance window details to all agency members when working in the new CPO views.

09/23/2020

• The Upcoming Payments window has been enhanced to include column sorting capability. Users can now use the sorting arrows next to each column header to sort the data in the data grid by that column in either ascending or descending order.
• Updated the way the system displays the Usage Graph on the Citizen Usage History page in order to address an issue that could prevent the graph from displaying when the page is first loaded. This change also results in a graph with a more modern appearance.
• Corrected a responsive display issue that could prevent some CPO pages from displaying as expected when a user resizes the browser window.

09/16/2020

• Updated the Payment List page to include the Settlement Date column in the payment data grid. Clients will now see any settlement date data associated with a displayed payment. Clients can also sort the displayed data by settlement date.
• The Daily Settlement Summary Email has been updated to improve clarity and usability. New email formatting provides a clearer view of all the same settlement summary information on a single printable page. Clients can opt in to the daily summary email on the Settlement Summary page.

09/08/2020

• Updated the Scheduled Payments process to include the ability for a citizen member to modify their next payment amount. Citizen members can now follow the Modify or Cancel this Payment link on the CPO dashboard in order to access the Adjust My Autopay Amount feature. From there citizens will see their next scheduled autopay date and current scheduled autopay amount. Citizens can use the Updated Scheduled Amount field to reduce the amount of their next autopayment. Citizens can not adjust their autopay amount above the current scheduled amount.
• Corrected a time-zone-related issue that could prevent the transaction date associated with CPO automated payments from being populated correctly in Springbrook Cash Receipts and Utility Billing.

09/02/2020

• The Payment Settings tab of the My Agency> Settings window has been updated to include new Payment Date Options for Automated Payments. This option allows organizations to offer citizens additional flexibility when using Automated Payments. Once this option is enabled, citizens will be able to schedule their payments on the Bill Due Date or to schedule their payments up to an organization-specified number of days before the Bill Due Date. Organizations can specify between 1 and 15 days when setting up this Automated Payments option. Currently, the only clients that will see these options are those organizations using Springbrook Cloud.

08/24/2020

• The Payment Settings tab of the My Agency> Settings window has been updated to include information about new CPO Automated Payment Options. Currently, the only clients that will see these options are those organizations using Springbrook Cloud. The two new payment amount options displayed are Pay Current Charges and Pay Total Amount Due. These are read-only and clients must contact Springbrook Support for configuration assistance.
• Enhanced the application to include an autopay enrollment confirmation message to citizens for those organizations using Automated Payments as their Auto Pay solution. This confirmation message provides an overview of the autopay changes just made and will display after the citizen makes their autopay selections and completes their enrollment.
• Updated the way new payment profile errors are displayed in order to provide specific error details and help users correct those issue when creating a new payment profile.

08/17/2020

• Corrected an issue that could prevent agency admin users with ORGEDIT role permissions from editing their organization settings on the legacy My Organization page as expected.
• Corrected an issue that could prevent date and time data included in files exported from the new CPO views from displaying as expected when opened in MS Office 2013.

• Enhanced the citizen-facing messaging associated with enrolling in Automated Payments - Auto Pay. In order to more explicitly explain how the citizen’s auto pay amount will be calculated, citizens will see the following message:

  • "Your autopay amount will only pay current charges. Current charges include only charges from your latest bill. Any adjustments, fees, or prior balances carried forward will not be paid."

07/27/2020

• Enhanced the new CPO screens with improved error notifications. When a user encounters an error related to missing or invalid data in a data field, additional information will be provided in an attempt to help the user correct the error and successfully save the changes.
• Added a new Download button to the Bill Attachments tab of the My Agency Settings page of the new CPO screens. This button allows users to download the selected bill attachment PDF.
• Removed the Security Question and Security Answer fields from the My/Edit Organization page of the legacy CPO system. These fields have been deprecated and are no longer used by CPO.
• Corrected an issue that could prevent the left main menu on the new CPO screens from scrolling as expected. This could prevent users from having access to all the main menu items when viewing the new CPO screens in small browser windows.

07/20/2020

• The Upcoming Payments page has been added to CivciPay Online for organizations set up to use Automated Payments. This page is accessible under the Payments menu for users with PaymentViewer role permissions. The page provides the ability to view a list of scheduled payment details for members signed up for Auto Pay. The displayed payments can be filtered by account number, member login, payment date, and created date.

07/13/2020

• For organizations using Bluefin as a gateway provider two new roles have been added to Edit Member.
  • The View Payments role grants the member access to the Payments and Settlements menus in the new CivicPay Online experience.
  • When paired with View Payments the Administer Payments role grants the member access to reverse payments.
• For members who have the View Payments role the option to view and manage the members enrollment in daily settlement summary emails from CivivPay online is now also available in Edit Member.
  • Members can also manage this setting for themselves on the Settlement Summary page in the new CivicPay Online experience.

• Corrected an issue that could cause the web application firewall to unnecessarily prevent users from accessing the Custom Messages page.

• The Home, Take Payments, and Recurring Payments menu items have been added to the main navigation menu in the new CPO views.

  • The Home page acts as your CPO landing page. Once fully implemented, this page will allow users to create custom shortcuts to the pages of the application they use most.
  • The Take Payments menu item links directly to the existing Take Payments page in the original CPO system, allowing users to quickly navigate from the new views when processing a walk-in or call-in payment.
  • The Recurring Payments menu item links directly to the existing Recurring Payments page in the original CPO system, allowing users to quickly navigate from the new views when working with recurring payments.

06/29/2020

• The Help Center menu item has been added to the main CPO menu for Pilot Program participants. While this menu item is now enabled, the underlying functionality has not yet been released. Once fully implemented, this menu item will launch the CPO Help Center where user will have access to:
  • A general tour of the new CPO interface.
  • Walkthroughs and guides to help users get up and running fast.
  • Links to additional resources and help topics.
  • Announcements about CPO updates and new features.
• This full Help Center functionality will be released in an upcoming CPO Pilot Program service pack.

05/11/2020

• The Payment Settings page has been added to the My Agency Settings section for Pilot Program participants. This page is used to set up CPO payment details and combines a number of functions previously available on the My/Edit Organization pages of the legacy CPO site. On this page users can specify min/max payments, set up billing delivery and display options, enable auto pay functionality, and set up returned check fees.
• The Audit Trail functionality has been updated to include the ability to record changes made to the Return Check Reference section of the new Payment Settings page. This allows admin users to track changes made to fee selections for returned checks. This audit trail functionality only applies to changes made to these fee selection in the new CPO views.
• The Service Fees section on the My Agency Settings page will now display regardless of state regulations. Previously, this section would not be displayed for users in states where utility billing service fees are prohibited. Before setting up a service fee for your organization, please confirm your state regulations allow you to assess these fees.

05/04/2020

• The Agency Maintenance pages have been added to the My Agency section for Pilot Program participants. These pages are used to set up, schedule, maintain, and track CPO maintenance windows.

04/28/2020

• The CPO Privacy Policy page has been updated to include a link to the CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) page on the Springbrook corporate website. This CCPA form can be used by California residents to manage how their electronic data is handled.

• The CPO Payment and Settlement pages have been enhanced to display additional information. The Payment Settlement Date value is now displayed in a dedicated field. Previously, the Payment Settlement Date would display unless an ACH payment was in Late Returned status, in which case the late return date would be displayed. Now both dates will be displayed. These changes are intended to improve ACH reconciliation.
• The CPO payment provider API connection has been improved with this release. Due to more efficient API calls, data queries should return your CPO settlement data faster.
• The API Key page has been added to the CPO My Agency > Settings section for Pilot Program participants who have upgraded to the V3 connection. This page is used to view, edit, and test the API key that connects CPO to Springbrook.

04/13/2020

• Corrected an issue that could improperly allow built-in web browser auto population functionality to auto populate the Email Address and Password fields on the My Organization and View Member pages. Web browsers were recognizing these fields as login fields rather than add member fields. This issue has been resolved with this release.

• The new My Agency views have been added to CPO for Pilot Program participants. These new pages include:
  • General Information – This page is used to specify your general organization information and set up how the site will be branded.
  • Settings – This page is used to set up how your citizens will interact with the CPO site.
  • Users – This page is still being developed, so the link in the left menu will open the existing CPO View Members page.
  • Maintenance – This page is still being developed and will be used to set up and track CPO maintenance windows.
  • Reports – This page is used to launch the standard CPO reports that are also accessed from the Reports section on the existing Edit Organization page.
• These pages can be accessed from the My Agency link on the Edit Organization page.

• Corrected an issue that could improperly allow built-in web browser auto population functionality to auto populate the Email Address and Password fields on the My Organization and View Member pages. Web browsers were recognizing these fields as login fields rather than add member fields. This issue has been resolved with this release.

04/02/2020

• The Add Membership option has been added to the View Members page. This option for adding new members is the same as the Add Members option on the main My Organization page, and offers users an alternative workflow for adding new members. This new workflow will support adding new members to your organization from the newly redesigned My Agency pages.

03/25/2020

• Corrected an error handling issue that could prevent users from successfully downloading payment and settlement data to an Excel file. The system would appear to create the expected Excel file, but because of a background data export error, the user would be unable to open the file. The system will now alert users to any background data export errors before the Excel file is generated.

03/10/2020

• Corrected a transaction time data issue that could result in an approximately two minute discrepancy between the CPO Payment Summary page, CPO Transaction Report, and Cash Receipts module. This issue could prevent data from properly reconciling across those sources and has been resolved by improving the accuracy of the date/time stamp on both recurring/automated and one-time transactions.

02/27/2020

• Updated the way the system generates the transaction date/time stamp. This update improves the date/time stamp accuracy on both recurring/automated and one-time Bluefin gateway transactions.

• The Receive summary email daily toggle has been added to the Settlement Summary page. When activated, this toggle will generate an automatic daily email update with the day's settlement summary information.

01/28/2020

• The Settlement Summary and Settlement List pages have been added to CPO for Pilot Program participants. These pages provide summary and detailed views into your daily settlement data. Users can access the Settlement Summary page via the new Settlement Summary link in the Reports section on the My Organization tab. The Settlement List page is accessible from the left menu on the Settlement Summary page.

01/23/2020

• Updated the Help link displayed on the CivicPay Online Administration pages. This link will now direct users to the new CivicPay Help Center at help.sprbrk.com/CivicPay/Content/Help.htm. The CivicPay Help Center provides a growing selection of help articles and additional information for CPO administrators.

• Updated the pagination options to help users navigate CivicPay records. The pagination drop-down allows users to jump to the first or last page and set the number of results displayed on each page.

12/20/2019

• Updated the Privacy Policy page to include a link to a California-specific privacy policy page. This new California-specific privacy policy is required to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). This new privacy policy page will be accessible to all agency users and citizens. This change also updates the privacy policy email address to [email protected].

12/16/2019

• Corrected an issue affecting Bluefin ACH settlement and return dates. When viewing transaction reports, ACH settlement and return dates are updated with the batch date rather than the expected settlement or return action date. This correction ensures the transaction reports will be updated with the settlement or return action date going forward.

11/12/2019

• Corrected an issue that could prevent the system from providing the expected decline message when a payment transaction is declined. This change also improves the clarity of that decline message, preventing any confusion the user may have about the status of a declined payment transaction.

11/04/2019

• Improved the Recurring Payments Edit Batch Details process with the following updates:
  • Corrected an issue that could prevent users from editing the Amount To Pay value on the Recurring Payments Edit Batch Details screen.
  • Updated the export format of the Billing Batch Detail Amount To Pay column to display as a currency value in the export file.
  • Re-enabled the ENTER (submits the current value) and ESCAPE (cancels the current value) hotkeys.
  • Updated the visual design of the Edit Batch Details screen to improve clarity.
  • Various back-end API improvements to make the editing process safer and more efficient.

10/28/2019

• Corrected an issue that could prevent Admin users from easily editing organization messages. As a result of an org ID encoding issue, Admin users could be improperly redirected back to the Messages page after successfully completing a Captcha when attempting to edit an individual message.

9/23/2019

• Corrected an issue that could cause some users to experience an error when editing saved credit card profiles. This error only affected those organizations that met two specific criteria:
  • MerchantTransact Gateway was set up as the payment provider
  • The organization’s database did not include the expected matching values in the membershipcustomeridentityid and membershipid database fields
• This correction ensures those organizations affected by this error will now be able to successfully edit saved credit card profiles.

• Improved the payment validation process in order to more effectively prevent duplicate payments. The system will prevent citizens from making a payment if that payment meets the following criteria:
  • Same Membership
  • Same Account Number
  • Same Payment Amount
  • Successful payment has been made in the last 15 minutes

9/3/2019

• Improved error handling when a payment attempt is made and the customer name is not present:
  • Old Message: Oops! We had a problem processing your payment request. Please check your activity by clicking the activity tab. If your payment is not listed, you may try again or contact customer service for assistance.
  • New Message: ACH - You must enter all your checking information correctly. Credit - You must enter all your billing address information correctly.

8/16/2019

• Corrected an issue that could improperly update UB account balance totals in CivicPay Online when a refund or a deposit is processed on that UB account in Springbrook.
  • To receive this correction a Springbrook 7.15.0.0, 7.16.0.0, 7.17.0.0, or 7.18.0.0.0 service pack must be installed. This service pack has been installed already for Springbrook cloud customers.

8/5/2019

• The message presented for credit card number validation has been updated to provide better information about the validation response:
  • Prior message: Oops! We had a problem processing your payment request. Please check your activity by clicking the activity tab. If your payment is not listed, you may try again or contact customer service for assistance.
  • New message: Valid credit card number is required

7/30/2019

• Simplified the headers on the Profile Report
  • Original Header → New Header
  • Springbrook Paper Bill → Paper Bill
  • Boomerang Electronic Bill → Electronic Bill
  • Auto pay activated → Auto Pay
• Corrected an issue that could cause a payment that has been processed at the gateway to not show in CivicPay Online.

7/9/2019

• Improved the stability of recurring payments processing.
• Corrected a payment queue issue that could impact communication between CPO and Springbrook, thereby preventing CPO from recording payments that were submitted successfully. This update also improves the notification process in order to ensure CPO users are alerted should this issue occur again. This new notification will provide all the information required to locate the payment in question.

7/2/2019

• Enhanced the Gateway Transition citizen facing emails:
  • The initial notification to members signed up for auto pay, sent directly following gateway transition, is now optional. Agencies will be given an opportunity to select whether or not they would like us to send this notification prior to the scheduled transition event. We recommend either sending our initial notification, or crafting your own notification to send directly following transition. While these notification have resulted in an increase in member questions or concerns they were found to be very effective in getting a large number of members to rapidly make the required change to create a new Payment Method.
  • The initial notification email has also been significantly simplified and now directs members to log into the site for important information about their utility account. This change is designed to reduce security concerns that were raised by the prior message in which it was indicated that changes were required to payment information. Citizens logging into the site will continue to see detailed messaging about action to take.

  

• Improved the security of all AutoPay and Receipt emails by masking the last 3 digits of the Utility Billing account number.
• Corrected an issue where ebill's produced using the Springbrook web service (v3 connector) did not have the "Auto payment is setup for this customer account, do not pay" message printed at the bottom for UB accounts billed via Clearing House Direct Debit.
• Adjusted our current CivicPay Online customers using the Bluefin/TTech gateway to next-day ACH funding.
  • ​​​Please Note: The ACH settlement batch cut off time remains at 4:30PM EST/3:30PM CST/2:30PM MST/1:30PM PST. Any ACH payments submitted after that time will still go into the following day’s batch, and will be reflected in your bank account in that corresponding day’s bank deposit. This change does not affect how ACHs submitted over weekend days behave and you will continue to see ACH activity conducted over a weekend hit your bank account on the next business day.
  • To ensure that you are able to receive funds without delay, please take this opportunity to confirm that your settlement bank has enabled the following ACH sender IDs from TTech. You must have both sender ID’s enabled for timely funding. If you experience any difficulty over the course of this change, please do not hesitate to reach out to your support team.
    • TTECH SETTLE - T562207579
    • TTECH SETTLE - 2208912641

6/17/2019

• Corrected an issue where a payment made during the minute of the Batch Cut Off time would be added to the next day's Cash Receipts batch.

5/23/2019

• Corrected an issue with automated adjustments for ACH payment returns. Instead of adjustments being created with the original payment date they will now be created with the date of the ACH payments return.
• New in-app links to official CivicPay Online how-to videos. In order to help citizens never miss a payment, we created two new CivicPay Online how-to videos.
  • The first video covers how to register in CivicPay Online. This video is linked via a tooltip that appears next to the First time user? Register now! link on the login page.
  • The second video shows citizens how to sign up for Auto Pay. This video is linked via a guide window above the Sign up for Auto Pay link on the dashboard. This guide window will only display for organizations that offer Auto Pay, and are using the Bluefin gateway, and will no longer display once a citizen signs up.

5/6/2019

• CivicPay Online security protocols have been enhanced for this release. These enhancements include:​​​​Account validation that ensures users have provided the required Last Name, Business Name, or House Building Number credentials before accessing the Quick Payments page. Time-out controls that ensure users are required to re-enter their account validation after remaining idle for 10 minutes

5/2/2019

• Corrected an issue where Auto Pay enrollment was not being reset in the Springbrook application when a member was removed from Auto Pay due to their grace period being expired for processing recurring payments against profiles stored with the Merchant Partners gateway.

4/23/2019

• We are excited to announce the release of a new fully automated payment functionality for CivicPay Online - Automated Payments! Automated Payments is new feature that streamlines auto pay functionality, eliminates the agency workflow associated with offering auto pay, and enhances the citizen payment experience. Please check out our CivicPay Automated Payments Playbook for more information on this feature. We are looking for early adopters now! Please contact Drea Terracina at [email protected] if you are interested.
• The verbiage for signing up for auto pay has been changed for clarity.
  • On the Make Payment page:
    • Original Verbiage: After this transaction, use this payment information to automatically debit my account.​
    • New verbiage: After this transaction, use this payment method to enroll in Auto Pay.​
  • On the My Profile: Add a new payment method:
    • Original Verbiage: Use this payment information to automatically debit my account.​
    • New verbiage: Use this payment method to enroll in Auto Pay.​

4/8/2019

• The intuitive messaging on your merchanttransact.com site, that notifies your citizen members that they need to re-enter their payment information after the gateway transition, has been updated to more explicitly explain the steps that members need to take to complete this action. When relevant, the message will display on the Dashboard, Make Payment, and My Profile pages.​ Below is the new message:
  • We've recently upgraded our system to use a new payment processor. As part of this upgrade, you will need to delete any saved payment method(s) you may have and add a new one. Your payment information remains safe and secure through this upgrade.​
  • ​To re-enter your saved payment method(s):​
    • From the My Profile tab, first delete your existing payment methods by clicking "Remove" next to the payment method. If this action prompts any pop-ups, click “OK” to proceed to the next step.​
    • While still on the My Profile tab, click "Add a new payment method" and enter the details for the payment method you would like to use and select any options you require, then click “Add payment method to this customer” to save your new payment method.​
    • To confirm that you have added a new payment method correctly, your newly added payment method will appear on the Make Payment or Add Credit tab listed under Existing Payment Options​.
    • If you do not see your newly added payment method, repeat the steps above.​

3/25/2019

• On the Edit Member page Roles section added a tool tip to highlight that the available roles you can select are intended to grant access that should only be provided to agency employees. Also added tool tips that explain what permissions each of the available roles grants to a user.
• On the Edit Organization page in the Reports section added a tool tip to the link to the Online Merchant Center (report.merchanttransact.com) that assists those who have completed the gateway transition with getting to the new CivicPay Center.

3/5/2019

• Update to reduce the number of temporary authorizations that occur for submitted payments. Members should now see only one temporary authorization for the following activities: Save new payment profile, make quick payment, make one time payment, recurring payment.
  • This change was reverted on 3/6 due to an issue identified with ACH processing. The issue has been corrected and this change is being re-released 3/10.

1/28/2019

• Corrected issue where some citizens attempting to make a ACH payment received the following error on hitting submit "the following error occurred when processing your transaction: city must not be null or whitespace".

1/16/2019

• The following change will be re-released. Added Organization Name to subject line for emails sent to citizens signed up for auto pay during gateway transition.

1/7/2019

• Added Organization Name to subject line for emails sent to citizens signed up for auto pay during gateway transition.
  • On 1/8/2019, due to an identified issue, this feature was rolled back. Once issue correction is complete it will be re-released.
• Corrected an issue where an Agency administrative user could previously set auto pay on a membership for a member who was not the owner of the account. Now they will be directed to make that member the owner before they can set auto pay.

11/19/2018

• Corrected an issue where agency users may have encountered an 'Unexpected Error when processing the request' message when attempting to add a new payment method on behalf of a citizen.

11/12/2018

• Corrected a grammatical issue in application messaging notifying citizens to update their payment profile following the gateway transition - 'you'll need you to' is now 'you will need to'.

10/29/2018

• Improved error handling on the usage page.
• Removed references to Boomerang and Merchant Transact throughout the site.

10/15/2018

• Dashboard
  • Corrected an issue where citizen users may have encountered an 'Unexpected Error when processing the request' message when attempting to add a new payment method from the dashboards "Manage Your Auto Pay" option.

9/24/2018

• Privacy Policy
  • Updated the Online-bills privacy policy.
• Forgot Password
  • Enhanced the Online-bills Forgot Password page: Updated the Forgot Password page to read “forgot password” rather than "password reminder". The email notification associated with password reset requests has also been updated to reflect this change. Updated the message that displays following submission of a request to reset password to more accurately reflect the time it will take. The message now reads "If the email address you supplied is correct, you will receive an email within a few minutes with a link to reset your password". Improved the workflow for expired password reset requests so that the user is now notified immediately that the link was expired. Previously they were only notified after they attempted to reset the password.
• Auto Pay
  • Enhanced the Online-Bills Automatic Payments workflow in order to reduce confusion and improve efficiency. Users that have already enrolled in Auto Pay will now see a Manage Your Auto Pay link rather than the Sign Up for Auto Pay link. Users that have not yet enrolled will still see the Sign Up for Auto Pay link. That Sign Up for Auto Pay link has also been updated to direct users to the edit page where they can quickly enroll in Auto Pay in one step. Previously, that link directed users to the general profile management page where it was not obvious what the next steps were to sign an account up for auto pay and where it would take 2 additional steps to get to where they could sign up. Where the option to sign up for auto pay exists it has also been brought to the top of the page.
• Citizen Dashboard
  • Improved the Online-Bills Dashboard page by increasing the clarity of navigation links and removing additional verbiage.
• Home Page
  • Improved the clarity of the Online-Bills Home page by updating the way the page is organized and removing unnecessary elements. The navigation tabs at the top of the window will now only display after logging in to your account. Those navigation links are all still accessible in the Password Reminder, Registration Options, Quick Payment, and Need Help sections of the Home page. The verbiage used in the Login, Registration Options, and Need Help sections has also been updated to improve clarity.

8/20/2018

• Corrected an issue where a recurring batch with more than 2100 records could become stuck in processing and require intervention by Springbrook staff to complete.

8/13/2018

• Corrected an issue some users may have experienced where recurring payments batches did not move to a completed state.

• Performance improvement for the processing of payments.

7/31/2018

• Promotional Materials
  • A new Promotional Materials section has been added to the My Organization tab. In this section you will find a new "Share a Link" option which will help you add a "Pay My Utility Bill" button to your website. This button will give your citizens quick and easy access to your Online-bills site.

6/28/2018

• Performance improvement for the processing of recurring payments.

6/25/2018

• Security Enhancements: The number of failed login attempts that will result in a user being locked out has been reduced from seven (7) to six (6) in order to comply with the latest PCI standards.

4/9/2018

• Security Enhancements: Enhanced security for custom messages in Online-bills. Images sourced from http will no longer display.

3/15/2018 Winter 2018 Release

• Online-bills Integration with CivicPay
  • Integration to Accela’s CivicPay payment system. Removes need to use Merchant Partners “Online Merchant Center” (OMC) payment gateway
  • Access to Accela Merchant Center
  • Simplified external vendor network reducing the overall number vendors and thus the number of problem/pain points
  • Improved stability and efficiency for recurring payment processing, reducing payment batches stuck in “processing” state
  • *Note that current Online-bills customer will have to go through a transition project prior to being about to utilize the new CivicPay integration.