Paypal Membership Question

Please someone can help regarding this or point me the forum which has already solved this issue.

Member tries to buy membership, all fine, goes to PayPal, comes back, the cart is not clear, also i wish to at least inform them that there membership has been upgraded to .....

Guidance would be appreciated.

Bump!

And again. Has anyone setup membership using Dolphin? How did you setup the payment portion and does it all work smoothly in terms of upgrades etc?

http://www.boonex.com/forums/?action=goto&my_threads=1#topic/Questions-about-using-Payment-Module-amp-Paypal.htm

might help

Thanks, but nothing in those links helps at all. In fact they see to me just as lost as I am. I cannot believe no one has figured this out one way or the other.

I was finally able to get this resolved.

Good to hear. What part did you get resolved?

If you've resolved the issues, I believe many would benefit from your experience.

 I think I can help that is the reason to post my result so others can ask if they have any issues.

Well there were several issues here. Mainly I had not set PayPal correctly. I am still continuing to test the various functions, but I am now able to buy membership, pay for it, it returns back to my site and my membership is updated. All this was not happening prior.

I also noticed that  the paypal settings on my site were incorrect.

Thanks for the reply. I'm reviewing the Payment module as well.

Some initial questions.

re:"but I am now able to buy membership, pay for it, it returns back to my site and my membership is updated."
I'm able to do that too, but the post sale process in my opinion was less than elegant. When it comes back to your site, do you get a "success page" or a message that says the transaction was approved. In my testing, I was getting an error.

As for the membership being updated. Are you updating it via the Payment module or is the membership automatically being updated.

And finally, what version of Dolphin are you running?

The key issues I've had with this Payment module were:
1. On return to the site, an error message would appear. There was not success page.
2. No alert or notification was sent to either the site owner or member about the recent purchase.
3. Memberships had to be updated manually via the Payment module. It was not automatic.

I've written some additional code that takes care of all the issues except for the automatic membership as I poke around the code a bit more. If it's just a setting, then that would be good to know.

OK I tested it again.

I registered a new member

He had a Standard Membership (never expires)

I purchased a paid membership.

It took me to Cart screen

I clicked on Checkout

I completed transaction via paypal

I returned back to my site - to the cart page - the cart was cleared (which is good)

I checked my membership it had upgraded automatically

I checked the Payment mod in Admin it showed the member upgrade as processed in the Processed Section.

All looks good. The only thing I go to figure out is how to Show a message to Member that all is well upon returning from Paypal.

Hope this makes sense and helps.

Thanks for that info. It was very helpful.

Glad you got it sorted dude.. i know it was giving you a real hard time ; )

 Thanks and Yep, it was becoming a pain. So I am still not sure what the paid mod does that this one doesn't ? I requested the developer to show me a demo. Perhaps AntonLV can shed some light on the last portion of the transaction.

Thanks though you have always been very supportive.

Post notation: On a fresh install of Dolphin 7.0.9, membership in fact will upgrade automatically. On my nerd site it didn't work. At this time, i am guessing it might be related to the fact that I had upgraded using the patches from 7.0.1.

What I ended up doing was replacing two modules. Namely, membership and payment. After doing the straight replacement it worked.

 He, what happens if the member lets his membership lapse? Does he loose all his content?Does he have to re-register and start over again?

Here is what I experienced with the membership setup.

Setup several membership levels.

I joined as member - the level set by the system was Standard for my membership (default level for everyone that joins)

I upgraded to a higher level (silver).

I added content to the site which were member dependent (ie only a paid member could add these items)

I let my membership expire.

The system downgraded my membership from Silver to the original Standard Level.

All my content I entered as a higher member was still intact and viewable.

I have an opportunity to upgrade or remain where I am, I can still log in and do everything my standard membership allows me to.

Well I hope this helps someone along the line.

I've posted a video tutorial that shows how to set up the Payment module using PayPal. So far I've got a few of people saying it works and another one where it's just not working for them. One key distinction is that I think it's important to use Dolphin 7.0.9. I originally was using an older version of Dolphin and it didn't work.

One thing to keep in mind is that make sure you have promotional membership turned off. If you want the membership to automatically upgrade you need to make sure the member is Standard. As well, the IPN set up very important. For automatic membership to work, you must be using an SSL connection vs. an HTML connection. I have more developer notes I will be adding.

There are a number of other details that I outline in the video.

If the video is something people find helpful, I am will do more. It's just as helpful to me as to others as it helps me to personally remember how to do something months later.

I have it setup as HTML and it seems to work, can you tell us what the difference is please, so that I can correct mine.

I've never gotten it to work consistently with HTML.

I know that SSL is a more secure connection. The information is encrypted. I also know that IPN makes back-end calls to your target IPN URL. At this time, I'm using SSL as that is what is working. If you've gotten HTML to work then maybe that's some kind of code voodoo that is part of the Payment modules. I am on Dolphin 7.0.9.

What I hope to accomplish with my dev notes is to collect a definitive set of docs for the Payment module. For example, you mention,

"Perhaps AntonLV can shed some light on the last portion of the transaction."

I am hoping either you or AntonLV will chime in about what the "light" would be as I am sure it will help someone here who is also struggling with the Payment module. As for me, the issues related to the membership and payment modules themselves. I had upgraded from an older version and maybe it may have had some deprecated mod applied to it.

*Post notation: As I find them, I will post what I find. For the last bit, if you or AntonLV figure it out then that would be good.

I too will try SSL option and see if it works just as well. Of course it is always preferable with SSL connections.

Ok, just tried it and seems to have worked just fine. BTW I too am on 7.0.9.

Is this SSL setting for outgoing connections to paypal, or is it to tell paypal to connect back via SSL to the backlink?

hi all
hi jtadeo

this drives me nuts for 3 days now. I tried everything said in the video and also all other tips but its not working. paypal transfers the money but when it comes back to my site its not doing anything with the order in process.  i tried ssl, html and also the direct and pdt setting. the best thing i got was "NO DATA GIVEN" in PDT mode. I really wonder why.

Can somebody write an exact step by step guide on what do set up in the sellers ebay account and in dolphin? If a user orders, when i can see some code in the open payments? After he paid or before? I can see never anything there, just the item, and the price and the name of the member.

EDIT: This is the link paypal sends back, so why i get "NO DATA GIVEN" and why it is not being recognized as completed in the Payment Module? Anybody can see whats wrong with this link?

http://www.mysite911.com/m/payment/act_finalize_checkout/paypal/0?tx=8SP084794E872542F&st=Completed&amt=14.95&cc=USD&cm=d72d187df41e10ea7d9fcdc7f5909205&item_number=7

I am using PDT, HTML with TOKEN because the other ones not even doing anything when coming back. BTW the shopping cart of the member never gets empty, i only have a processing order in admin payment without any license or order id. maybe it cannot be tested in "Test" mode?

Solved it, it works like described by jtadeo.

My problem was i am behind a firewall untili go live. I didn't know paypal initiates a new session from outside to my webserver. I thought this is handled locally or back over the paypal session when paying. Just gave paypal access and it works perfect, but only with ssl on.

What exactly is the difference between the 3 modes? Is direct or pdt not able to upgrade automatically? Is there some more info somewhere i can read about these transaction types and what they really do?

Thanks