I spent long enough trying to puzzle out whether I should use Recurring Gifts vs. Recurring Gift Schedules in the eTapestry API that I figured it was worth a short post. The goal was to handle recurring donations. Every month, Suzy wants to donate $10 to Cool NPO. It’s not a pledge, in that she’s not dedicating herself to $120 for one year. Just $10/month. (Forever! Bwua-ha-ha!)

A word to anyone doing an eTapestry API integration for a client who uses Blackbaud Merchant Services: you may have an eTapestry sandbox, but you don’t (and can’t) get a BMS sandbox account. So how do developers test their API interactions? According to the BMS account rep I spoke to, they do it on the live system. With live credit cards. From the get-go.