Kickstart: Paypal subscription integration?

hpl123

Hi all,
I am working on handling payments in my application and I am thinking about possible getting a quote from Awaresoft on developing Paypal subscription integration directly from Aware IM applications so a user can sign up for a Paypal subscription directly in a Aware IM application. Are there others interested in having this functionality in Aware IM and if so would you contribute to the campaign? I thought i´d check possible interest before actually looking into this in more detail.

Thanks, regards Henrik

rocketman

There should be absolutely no need to do this. I haven't done this in AwareIM because I have no need to - but in theory, it should be just a question of creating a different PayPal BO with a different set of attributes - those required by the subscription button. I created subscription buttons a few years ago in asp and if I get time over the next few weeks I'll have a play and see if I can get something working - but if anyone else wants to have a go ....

Details here at http://www.paypalobjects.com/IntegrationCenter/ic_std-variable-ref-subscribe.html

hpl123

Ok, do you think it´s possible with the current solution? That would be ideal. Thanks for the input + also thanks in advance if you look into this some more.

hpl123

hpl123 wrote
Ok, do you think it´s possible with the current solution? That would be ideal. Thanks for the input + also thanks in advance if you look into this some more.

Forgot to say, I will look into this myself some more 🙂.

rocketman

Note to Support. Do you think it would be possible for us to have some control over the Cancel_return variable. I believe this is handled internally by AwareIM.

It would be good if we could designate a process to handle Cancel_return in the same way we can designate a process to handle forgotten passwords.

rocketman

OK - I have Subscriptions working. It's not an onerous task but does require an amount of reading of some PayPal developer stuff. Many of you I know will want to do it yourselves - if you haven't already done it.

For those that want to save themselves a couple of days. I'll put a small demo live tomorrow with a built in option to purchase and download the BSV and supporting documentation,

Won't be expensive - 49 UK pounds. If I get time I'll do "Donations" and "Installment plans". If not, I'll issue a free upgrade to purchasers later in the week.

After that I'll wait for 5.8 which has support for REST. It should be possible to do a full shopping carte implementation as soon as I can get a mechanism for receiving the PayPal verification callbacks

hpl123

rocketman wrote
OK - I have Subscriptions working. It's not an onerous task but does require an amount of reading of some PayPal developer stuff. Many of you I know will want to do it yourselves - if you haven't already done it.

For those that want to save themselves a couple of days. I'll put a small demo live tomorrow with a built in option to purchase and download the BSV and supporting documentation,

Won't be expensive - 49 UK pounds. If I get time I'll do "Donations" and "Installment plans". If not, I'll issue a free upgrade to purchasers later in the week.

After that I'll wait for 5.8 which has support for REST. It should be possible to do a full shopping carte implementation as soon as I can get a mechanism for receiving the PayPal verification callbacks

Thats fantastic Rocketman and i´ll pay the bucks and save the time 🙂.

PS: Can you explain a bit more on how it works? or write up an explanation on the demo site?

Another thing, I will post a link in the Codestore when you have the BSV up.

Regards Henrik

rocketman

One of the drawbacks of the AwareIM implementation of PayPal is it relies on the user returning to the awareIM app in order to complete the transaction. If the user just closes the browser (and as we all well know - many of them do) there is no way for the awareim app to know that the transaction has been completed

Yes - you can have PayPal deliver the notification emails directly into AwareIM and then either manually complete the transaction or Parse the email using SET.

The better mechanism (as recommended by PayPal) is to use a blind "listener" server which will receive PayPal POSTS that denote the transaction as VERIFIED, PENDING, CANCELLED, REJECTED. Once these POSTS are received, an AwareIM process can then be triggered to complete the transaction regardless of whether the user has returned to the site or not.

If I can't do it using REST, then we might have to get AIM involved to implement this in the core. I would hope they would see this as a valuable and necessary addition to the functionality. If not, we may have to pay 🙁

rocketman

OK people. The Subscription Demo BSV is available online for playing with and purchase if you want to.

http://www.masterpieces.org.uk:8080/AwareIM/logonGuest.aw?domain=Subs

Some caveats. It's my PayPal account, so heed all the warnings otherwise you might get charged. I don't have time to reverse things.

It's in English - I don't have any translation facilities

Although I have implemented Address Passthrough so the customer doesn't have to enter his/her details twice, apparently it might not work in some countries. Incidentally, if it does work in your country, the same variables and techniques work equally well with standard Buy Now processes - its not just a subscription thing.

I don't have a Website Payment Pro account only a standard. Apparently PayPal have changed things recently, so the option to pay a subscription with a credit card without setting up a PayPal account probably won't work in this demo

If you do decide to buy, you can download the bsv and support documentation as soon as the transaction is complete and you have been returned to my site. Just click on "My Purchases" then click View and download.

Next Up - Gift Vouchers. Watch this space

ENJOY

hpl123

Good job Rocketman!

Have played some with it and looks perfect. Will play some more in the coming days and also buy the BSV (if everything works 🙂). I will also add your link to the DevNet codestore page.

PS: Haven´t you got a Paypal sandbox account you could use in the demo so we could test the full functionality?

Thanks

hpl123

Rocketman, regarding the sub fixed setting. If this setting is set, the subscription is set to a fixed number of months (and then cancel automatically) but is it possible to set it to ongoing i.e. the subscription continues until the user cancel it? I have played with the current settings and can´t get that scenario to work.

Thanks

rocketman

Leave fixed as No and the cycles as undefined and it should work - although the paypal wording is very bad. I'll know tomorrow because I'm due to pay myself £1 using these settings.

According to the blurb leaving these items unset should mean the subscription recurs until the user cancels

rocketman

Got it !!!

Have removed Sub Fixed - it should always be set to 1. For a perpetual recurring subscription leave Sub Fixed Recurring blank. What you should see on the PayPal screen is

"Free for the first day
Then £1.00 GBP for each day"

Try it now

hpl123

Perfect, works as it should. Will buy the BSV later today or tomorrow. Again great job and thanks for taking the time etc to throw this together.