Migrating to Release 4

Release 4 is a bigger step than a normal update, so it doesn’t arrive as the usual “Update available” notice on your Plugins page — you install it using the download link and licence key from your Release 4 email. This guide walks through everything that needs doing, in order. None of it needs any coding.

If a web developer looks after your site day-to-day, this guide is worth forwarding to them.

1. Install the update

Download the new version using the link in your recent Release 4 email, then install it the way you’d install any plugin update — deactivate the old version, upload the new zip, and reactivate. Your settings, customers, and payment history all stay exactly as they are.

2. Set up your webhook

GoCardless needs to know where to send events (payments confirmed, mandates activated, and so on). Navigate to WPdirectdebit → Settings where you’ll find your webhook URL ready to copy. Add it in your GoCardless account’s webhook settings, then copy the webhook secret GoCardless gives you back into the matching field on the Settings page. The installation guide video covers this ( https://youtu.be/VZPjcTaZdu8?si=IFKLTAgVq94ifs10 ).

3. Enter your licence key

Paste the licence key from your Release 4 email into the Licence Key field in Settings. If you’ve never needed one before, that’s normal — earlier versions didn’t check for one. Remember to save your settings.

4. Review any existing forms

If you already have a live form collecting payments through GoCardless, open its feed once (Form → Settings → GoCardless) and take a careful look at the form feed settings. What’s actually changed for V4:

• The old “Feed type” choice (Payment / Mandate / etc.) is now a “Payment type” dropdown. Same idea, new name — your existing choice carries across automatically, already selected when you open the feed.
• Amount, billing schedule, payment description and payment day all carry across automatically too. You shouldn’t need to re-enter any of that, but just glance over it to make sure the migration is all good.
• Currency. If your form set the currency from a form field rather than a fixed setting, that specific setup doesn’t carry across — Release 4 sets currency per feed, so confirm it’s showing the right one before you save.
• If your form used Instant Bank Pay or PayTo, that’s now a “Collection method” option under the payment settings rather than its own feed type — check it’s still set to the instant option if that’s what you want.
• If you were using the customer management, mandate management, subscription management or payment management feed types introduced in Version 3, those are gone — the new Dashboard covers all of these functions directly, so there’s nothing to migrate. Those feeds can simply be left inactive or deleted.

After opening each form, click Save. Do this for each form you have live — it’s what carries your existing setup across to Release 4’s format.

5. Review your notifications and confirmations

If you’ve customised any Gravity Forms notifications or confirmation messages around GoCardless events, they’re worth a check:

• Release 4 includes a much more specific set of events to choose from when editing a notification’s Event dropdown: Mandate ready, Mandate active, Mandate cancelled, Payment confirmed, Payment paid out, Payment failed, Recurring payment created, Recurring payment create failed. These changes mean you can now respond to changes by sending more appropriate notifications. The “GoCardless Exception” notification event has been removed.

Any questions

Fire off an email to us via the post sales support form – we’re also happy to assist you with any of the migration steps, just let us know.