Bulk update subscriptions with the Import tool
Subscription properties, such as price, product title, subscription frequency, etc., can be easily updated using the merchant portal’s bulk management tools.
This guide provides instructions for performing the different subscription management bulk update types with the Import tool.
Before you start
- Store owners have account permissions to use bulk management tools by default. Store owners can grant permissions to other staff members from the accounts page.
-
To understand all available bulk update opportunities, refer to our course Updating subscriptions at scale.
- When swapping a product manually or in bulk, consider the following for stores using Bundles:
- Swaps will only work for the parent bundle product. To swap bundle contents, use the bundles swap tool.
- Swapping to customizable bundles does not automatically carry over bundle contents. The contents will be empty until either the customer logs in and makes selections or you manually make selections within the merchant portal. It’s recommended to set fallback contents so these orders won’t be empty if selections aren’t made.
- This guide provides instructions only for bulk updating subscription properties. For guidance on bulk updating charge dates, see Bulk managing charges. See the following articles to Bulk update discounts and addresses, Bulk update one-time products or Revert, delete, or cancel the bulk update.
Update subscriptions using the Import tool
The Import tool utilizes CSV files to perform multiple update types independent of search criteria or filters. The CSV file used by the Import tool can be customized to include many different subscription property updates in one bulk update request.
Watch the following video for a walkthrough of the Import tool:
Bulk update types
When using the Import tool, action these bulk update types:
Update type |
Description |
| Update subscriptions |
Edit the properties of your subscriptions. Refer to Updating subscriptions in bulk to understand the specific properties you can update. |
| Delete subscriptions |
Warning: Deleting a subscription cannot be reversed. Permanently delete subscriptions from your store. Refer to Pause, cancel, or delete a subscription for more information. |
| Update one-time products |
Edit the properties of your one-time products. Refer to Bulk managing one-time products for more information. |
| Reschedule charges |
Edit the scheduled date of your charges. This update requires the charge_id column as all subscriptions associated with the charge_id will be moved to the specified date. Refer to Bulk managing charges for more details on updating charges in bulk. |
| Apply discounts | Apply discounts to existing addresses. Refer to the Bulk managing discounts and addresses for more information on bulk updating discounts. |
| Remove discounts | Remove discounts from existing addresses. Refer to the Bulk managing discounts and addresses for more information on bulk updating discounts. |
| Create discounts | Create discounts in bulk. Refer to the Bulk managing discounts and addresses for more information on bulk updating discounts. |
| Delete discounts | Delete existing discounts in bulk. Refer to the Bulk managing discounts and addresses for more information on bulk updating discounts. |
| Update addresses |
Edit the properties of your addresses. Refer to the Bulk managing discounts and addresses table for a full list of available properties to update. |
Step 1 - Prepare CSV file
To use the Import tool, you must prepare a CSV file:
- In the merchant portal, click Tools & apps and select Exports.
- Create an export using the Subscriptions option from the dropdown list.
- After processing the export, download and open the export.
- Depending on the update type you are performing, you will need to add specific properties to your CSV file. The following table is split into the different bulk update types and lists the columns required for the update. Add columns to the CSV file using the applicable properties for your bulk update type:
Note: Ensure you delete the columns you do not need on your CSV file. Failure to delete unnecessary columns may cause the update to fail or update properties you do not wish to update.
COLUMN TITLE |
SUMMARY |
ALL BULK UPDATES |
|
|---|---|
|
address_id |
The numerical Address ID associated with a customer’s subscription. If you need to find Address IDs in Recharge:
This column is optional for all bulk update types except discount and address updates. |
|
subscription_id |
The numerical Subscription ID associated with a customer’s subscription. If you need to find Subscription IDs in Recharge:
This column is required for all bulk update types. |
CHARGE FREQUENCY AND INTERVAL UPDATES |
|
|
subscription_id |
The numerical Subscription ID associated with a customer’s subscription. If you need to find Subscription IDs in Recharge:
This column is required for all bulk update types. |
|
charge_interval_frequency |
The numerical value of how often the product is charged depending on what is configured in the ruleset. For example, if a product were configured to charge every three months, the value here would be three. Required when passing order_interval_unit. |
|
order_interval_frequency |
The numerical value of how often the product is shipped depending on what is configured in the ruleset. For example, if a product were configured to ship every month, the value here would be one. Required when passing order_interval_unit.
Warning: This update will remove skips and manually updated charges.
|
|
order_interval_unit |
The period in which the product is shipped as configured in the ruleset. For example, if a product were configured to ship every month, the value would be "month."
Warning: This update will remove skips and manually updated charges.
|
BULK CANCELLATIONS |
|
|
status |
The status of the charge. Depending on which export you pull, the status will be different. Values are ACTIVE or CANCELLED. This column is required for bulk cancellations. |
|
cancellation_reason |
The reason the product has been cancelled from the customer's subscription. This can be selected by the store owner, customer, or automatically by Recharge (e.g., max retries reached). This column is optional for bulk cancellations. |
|
send_email |
Determines whether to send an update email to the customer. Values are True or False. This column is only available for bulk cancellations. |
PRODUCT TITLE OR VARIANT TITLE UPDATES |
|
|
subscription_id |
The numerical Subscription ID associated with a customer’s subscription. If you need to find Subscription IDs in Recharge:
This column is required for all bulk update types. |
|
product_title |
The title of the subscription product. This column is required for product title updates. |
|
variant_title |
The title of the specific variant that the subscriber is subscribed to. This column is optional if you do not use variants. |
RECURRING PRICE UPDATES |
|
|
subscription_id |
The numerical Subscription ID associated with a customer’s subscription. If you need to find Subscription IDs in Recharge:
This column is required for all bulk update types. |
|
recurring_price |
The recurring cost for the subscription product. This column is required for recurring price updates. |
NEXT CHARGE DATE UPDATES |
|
|
subscription_id |
The numerical Subscription ID associated with a customer’s subscription. If you need to find Subscription IDs in Recharge:
This column is required for all bulk update types. |
|
next_charge_scheduled_at |
When will the customer be billed for this subscription in YYYY-MM-DD format.
Note: Time will be reset to 00:00:00
This column is required for next charge date updates. |
|
charge_id |
A unique string of numbers given to each charge. The charge ID is used to reference a specific charge. This column is required when completing the Reschedule charges bulk update. |
CHARGE DAY OF THE MONTH OR WEEK UPDATES |
|
|
subscription_id |
The numerical Subscription ID associated with a customer’s subscription. If you need to find Subscription IDs in Recharge:
This column is required for all bulk update types. |
|
order_day_of_month |
The specific day of the month the product is submitted to your eCommerce platform on a recurring basis.
Note: Only valid if order_interval_unit is month.
|
|
order_day_of_week |
The specific day of the week the product is submitted to your eCommerce platform on a recurring basis.
Note: Only valid if order_interval_unit is week
|
EXPIRE AFTER [x] AMOUNT OF CHARGES UPDATES |
|
|
subscription_id |
The numerical Subscription ID associated with a customer’s subscription. If you need to find Subscription IDs in Recharge:
This column is required for all bulk update types. |
|
expire_after_specific_number_of_charges |
The number of charges before the subscription expires. |
PRODUCT SWAP UPDATES |
|
|
subscription_id |
The numerical Subscription ID associated with a customer’s subscription. If you need to find Subscription IDs in Recharge:
This column is required for all bulk update types. |
|
product_title |
The title of the subscription product. This column is optional for product swap updates. |
|
variant_title |
The title of the specific variant that the subscriber is subscribed to. This column is required for product swap updates. |
|
external_variant_id |
A unique string of numbers is used to identify the specific variant on the subscription. Even if a product has no variants created in your eCommerce platform, it will still have one variant ID assigned. Recharge uses the variant ID to create each charge. This column is required for BigCommerce stores. To locate variant IDs for this column, see Finding and exporting BigCommerce product and variant IDs. This column is optional for Shopify stores if you do not use variant IDs. |
LINE ITEM PROPERTIES UPDATES |
|
|
subscription_id |
The numerical Subscription ID associated with a customer’s subscription. If you need to find Subscription IDs in Recharge:
This column is required for all bulk update types. |
|
properties |
Line item properties are custom forms on a product used to collect additional customization information. Must be styled in JSON format. For example: |
SKU UPDATES |
|
|
subscription_id |
The numerical Subscription ID associated with a customer’s subscription. If you need to find Subscription IDs in Recharge:
This column is required for all bulk update types. |
|
sku |
This column reflects if any SKU overrides exist and will be populated if `sku_override` is set. |
|
sku_override |
If a SKU override exists, this column will show the actual SKU used to create the charge. Retrieved from `general_arttributes[sku_override]` Values are True or False. If set to True, we will override the SKU set on Shopify. |
OTHER UPDATES |
|
|
subscription_id |
The numerical Subscription ID associated with a customer’s subscription. If you need to find Subscription IDs in Recharge:
This column is required for all bulk update types. |
|
created_at |
The date the product was added. |
|
quantity |
This is the number of products ordered. |
STORES WITH MULTI-CURRENCY |
|
|
subscription_id |
The numerical Subscription ID associated with a customer’s subscription. If you need to find Subscription IDs in Recharge:
This column is required for all bulk update types. |
|
presentment_currency |
The currency that the customer uses when they pay for their orders at checkout. This can differ from your store's default currency. The value used in this column is the abbreviated version of the currency, ie. GBP, AUD, CAD, or USD.
This column is required for multi-currency price updates. |
|
recurring_price |
The recurring cost for the subscription product. This column is required for recurring price updates. |
Step 2 - Import the CSV file
Note: Ensure you delete the columns you do not need on your CSV file, or the import may fail and return errors.
After preparing the CSV file, you must import the file into the bulk management tool.
- From the merchant portal click Tools & apps and select Bulk Updates, then click Import updates.
- Select your update type from the dropdown menu and click Next. Refer to the Bulk update types section for more information.
- Upload the prepared CSV file and click Next.
- Confirm the details of your update and select Validate your file. Depending on the file size, the validation process may take some time to complete. Once the process is completed, you will receive a confirmation email.
Step 3 - Perform the bulk update
Once your file is validated, you can perform the bulk update.
- In the merchant portal, click Tools & apps and select Bulk updates to view your validated files.
- Click Process update to begin the bulk update.
- On the pop-up modal, click Update subscriptions to confirm the bulk update.
- Once the update is done, the Processing status will be marked Complete, and the Results will display the number of subscriptions updated.
- From the merchant portal, click Subscriptions to confirm the updated charge dates are correct.
Revert, delete, or cancel the bulk update
If records cannot be processed or you encounter issues with the update, you can revert the bulk update using a backup file. See Revert, delete, or cancel a bulk update.
