PayPal test and OCS registration report

[sasutton]

I am working with OCS 2.3.3.1. I am testing the PayPal plugin using the PayPal sandbox. Everything seems to be working as it should--i.e. registration using a PayPal sandbox buyer and sandbox seller working with the buyer showing up in the registration list with the payment received date etc. However, when I download the OCS registration report, the "paid" field of the test user is empty. May I safely assume that this is because I am playing with PayPal monopoly money? That's my assumption, but if that is not accurate, then shouldn't "paid" contain the amount paid?

Stuart

[kstranac]

Hi Stuart,

Yes, once you go live with Paypal, the "Paid" field will be filled with the payment date. The "Total" field will include the amount that was paid.

Kevin

[sasutton]

Thanks, Kevin for the timely rely! You set my mind at ease.

Stuart

[sasutton]

Unfortunately, I think I may still have a problem here. As I said, the PayPal sandbox interactions were all successful so I switched over to the the live system. To do a quick check, I created a temporary registration category with a value of 0.50 euro and used my credit card. As with the sandbox testing, the 0.50 PayPal interaction using my credit card appears to have been successful--IPN messages indicating a successful transaction were received by the "seller" and by me. BUT, the registration report (attached) still shows nothing paid and I received an OCS system email (attached) indicating some necessary action. Unfortunately, I haven't a clue what the OCS email is suggesting.

Stuart

[claywhipkey]

I see that the last post in this thread went unanswered. I have the same problem.

I set up the live paypal business account settings. In my test registration everything appeared to work correctly. I was forwarded to Paypal to complete the payment with my credit card. After the payment was finished Paypal redirected me back to the conference site but I noticed the following message on the screen:

##schedConf.registration.landingUnpaid##

When I found this token in the code it looks like it is set to show up if the payment date cannot be retrieved. There is also no place in the body of OCS code where that token would be translated into a real message.

I can see my name listed under Registrations, including a date for "Registered", but no date for "Paid". I did receive a confirmation email from Paypal as a receipt for payment. I can also log in to Paypal and see that the payment was received. Everything about the transaction seems to be OK except for when it returns the user to the conference site and fails to record the payment properly.

[michael]

Hi claywhipkey,

Which version of OCS are you running?

Thanks,
Michael

[claywhipkey]

I wanted to come back and share my solution.

I found out that there was a debug email sent to the email address of the "registration manager" when the registration failed. This is just a suggestion, but I would expect this kind of email to go to the technical contact for the site. The email contained a lot of technical debug info. My org has a small staff and yet the conference contact is a different person and she had to forward the email to me.

Apparently, the root problem was that although the payment method configuration page explicitly says to use *either* the merchant ID or the email address on the PayPal account, it really needs the email address. I had entered the merchant ID, which enabled it to send the payment info *to* PayPal and do the whole transaction OK, but upon returning to the OCS site the OCS code is doing an integrity check comparing the PayPal account returning to the one it sent out. Well, even though OCS sent it out to the merchant ID, PayPal sends it back with the email address as the identifier. The only way I was able to tell this was the problem was by looking at the code and then looking at the debug email. The email itself did not tell me what the problem was.

Bottom line: when configuring the PayPal account in your payment methods settings in OCS, use the email address for the PayPal account.

BTW, that token in the locale file is actually misspelled/typo'd. You'll notice "schedConf.registration.landingPaid" is there twice. The second one just needs to be renamed to "schedConf.registration.landingUnpaid".

[michael]

Hi claywhipkey,

Thank you for the detailed follow-up.

I've filed your suggestion for default technical support contact for payment debug info as an enhancement for future inclusion in OCS and OJS.

Which version of OCS are you running? Can you please point me to the OCS page where you came across the reference to the merchant ID?

Cheers,
Michael

[ramon]

Hello all,

Could anyone give step-by-step instructions as to how we must configure Paypal in order for it to work with OxS?
What kind of account and features must we enable?
We are assisting an event but haven't got a clue as to how a merchant account works in Paypal.
Furthermore, we believe that Paypal has changed something and we can't figure out where to find the IPN.

[michael]

Hi Ramon,

Any luck with this?

You can find detailed instructions for Paypal setup on our wiki page.

Cheers,
Michael

[ramon]

Hello all,
Since I'm not directly involved I can't be sure, but I've passed on the Wiki page to the people responsible.
There may be some PayPal account configuration necessary, but I don't have the data to access.
As soon as I get feedback I'll get back to you.

Thanks!!

[Kavius]

I just got bit by this as well. Thank-you for the detailed description/solution.

The payment form does explicitly state "username" and "typically and email", however I do believe that Paypals documentation suggests using the MerchantID in cases where you may want to hide the email address. Normally I see this where "jane@big.org" (Jane at some big organization) has set up the account, but after Jane leaves they want to change to something a little more professional (payment@big.org). Paypal does not allow for changing of email addresses (at least no easy way) so I usually just have people use the MerchantID, make "payment@big.org" and "jane@big.org" synonymous, and move on with life.

I put this out there for the PayPal Module Developers consideration... Merchant IDs have a place and people will think they can use them. Does it matter? Not sure... It seems invisible for the most part anyway. Maybe a note on the config page? DO NOT USE YOUR MERCHANT ID

[ramon]

Hello Michael,

We've stumbled into a question we are not sure how to answer:
Do we need to setup a specific "account" in Paypal for each registration type?
I was under the impression that the plugin would just send the value and Paypal would take care of the rest.
Is that how it's supposed to work?

I'm creating my own account at Paypal so we can test....
I already have a Paypal account.
How do I know I have the correct one?

[michael]

Hi Ramon,

Within Paypal you'll need to create a test merchant account and you can then use the merchant account details for the OJS Paypal settings. You should be able to use a single merchant account for your entire OCS installation, regardless of number of registration types.

Cheers,
Michael