WARNING - Potential impact on service WP

[Jenny]

I expect many of you are getting this email re world pay and the WARNING - Potential impact on service
Will this impact actinic?

"Every successful transaction that a merchant processes through WorldPay
generates a unique identification number, known as a 'transId'. Currently,
a transId is 8-digits long, however these are about to roll-over and so
will increase to 9-digits. This increase will have no impact on WorldPay's
service to merchants, as our systems are designed to handle up to 16
digits (as documented in our integration guides).

This increase will probably have no impact on a merchant's website
services. However, for peace of mind, I would suggest that if a merchant
uses a Shopping cart or WorldPay's callback feature, then they should
confirm whether this increase will affect their service."
Jenny

[Tim Weaver]

Good question and one that I was also going to ask. It would be good to have the answer as to whether Actinic is affected BEFORE WorldPay contact all of our clients!

[cdicken]

Hi there

The field which the 'transId' goes into in Actinic can support up to 50 characters so the increase to 9 should not have any affect on the running of your online store.

[Jenny]

thanks chris
Jenny

[webyourbusiness]

Hi there

The field which the 'transId' goes into in Actinic can support up to 50 characters so the increase to 9 should not have any affect on the running of your online store.

Wasn't WorldPay at least partially owned by Nat West?

I was on contract at NW for a while - couldn't WAIT to get out of my contract - their IT services people were absolute jerks - hiring me and a ton of other contractors and then not listening to our recommendations... always thought they knew better... something like the length of a field is exactly the kind of thing they would have 5 meetings in, the last of which you would not be invited to, and they would go with whatever you had recommended AGAINST on almost every occasion.... if the other banks were run the same way, it's a wonder they aren't out of business by now...

[Tim Weaver]

Thanks Chris.

By the way, WorldPay are now part of Royal Bank of Scotland, but before that they operated as an independant company and the design of the interface owes nothing to NatWest, although I believe that they may have been one of WP's original backers.

[webyourbusiness]

Thanks Chris.

By the way, WorldPay are now part of Royal Bank of Scotland, but before that they operated as an independant company and the design of the interface owes nothing to NatWest, although I believe that they may have been one of WP's original backers.

I knew they had their finger in the pie, but didn't know to what extent.

I have to say though - an 8 digit transaction id is silly at best - unless you are using hexadecimal encoding - in decimal 8 digits is only one hundred million transactions - for an industry where the numbers of non-cash transactions world-wide is already well into the billions a year (possibly per month), it seems a little "short-sighted" to limit your transaction reference code to such a small identifier.

http://www.epaynews.com/index.cgi?su...2215212&block=

I don't think it shortsighted of Actinic to allow for 50 characters as a transaction identifier - overkill - maybe - but not short-sighted. Allowing for the largest payment gateway response - almost certainly.

My point was that my "internal" experience of IT in banking was less than favourable - honestly, they bordered on the inept - and having spoken with contractors who worked in similar organisations, it didn't seem to be that out of the ordinary for the banking business - so it doesn't surprise me that WorldPay get a little jittery about rolling over a digit in their internal systems - I'd be willing to bet their development team never gave it much thought when building the systems.

regards

Greg Hewitt-Long

[pinbrook]

Nat West is now owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland.

[webyourbusiness]

Nat West is now owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Maybe they got better then...? I doubt it...

I was reminded earlier about NatWest - when I was head hunted, they insisted that we use THEIR contract, rather than the form of contract I had been using with my contract agency for 5+ years - ok - I signed up and began work.

After a while, the environment had ground me down to the point I wanted out - I didn't want another job - I was going to take off for a year - do nothing and just recharge my batteries... so I asked if I could be released from the remaining 2 months of my 6 month contract - I was told that I would not be released until the 6 months were up.

This was insane to me - I wasn't going to another contract, to a competitor, or even to ANY other position - I wanted OUT!

So... their brilliant legal department had drafted this contract - and it was clear on so many things... the start date... the end date... the number of hours to be worked.... the amount of breaks I could take... the privacy clauses... etc, etc....

I spotted something that was a gaping hole big enough to drive a double decker bus through... they had specified I would work 7 hours a day... nowhere was it mentioned WHAT SEVEN HOURS!!!

After 2 weeks of coming in at 1PM and finishing at 9:30 (half an hour for lunch - taken at about 4:30 when the restaurants in Goodmans Field began serving dinner) and several meetings with my manager where they attempted to persuade me that I was being unreasonable for coming in after the morning staff meeting - it was decided that perhaps they could let me go early....

I vowed NEVER to work for another BANK after that... and I kept to my word - I then went to work for more re-insurance companies, Lloyds of London syndicates, a venture capital (3i) and a software company servicing the insurance / re-insurance industry - but never once for another bank!

anyway... to all community members - have a nice Chrimbo and I'm back in blighty for the New Year!

regards

Greg Hewitt-Long

ps - I hear that they had everyone sign new contracts after I left - the hours are now stated in their contracts!

[Tim Weaver]

I think that I should make this clear...

The WorlPay systems are already designed to handle up to 16 digits for the transId field. They will not be changing their systems at all.

Their concern and the reason for issuing the warning, is that some merchants' software may not have followed the integration guides specifying 16 digits for the interface, and that if implemented sloppily by third party integrators or shopping cart suppliers, they may get caught out when the digits actually in use within this field increase from 8 to 9.

So I think that it is being a bit unfair to criticise WorlPay who appear to have done everything correctly in this regard.

[webyourbusiness]

The remarks about transid length hold true for any software developer - thanks for clarifying the spec on the worldpay gateway though Tim.

[irishactinic]

changes

Will it be necassary to make any changes to buisness settings to accomodate this?

Andy

[webyourbusiness]

Will it be necassary to make any changes to buisness settings to accomodate this?

Andy

not for actinic users - the software developers have already coded to far higher tolerances than the worldpay gateway can push.

regards

Greg

[ajfish]

The latest Sage Link apparently transfers the Transaction ID into Sage from Actinic. I assume at the Sage end that this isn't a problem?
Andrew

[cdicken]

Yep - there's no character limit on that field in Sage Link.

Generally in Actinic when we write third-party interfaces, we try to leave as much space as we can for the third-party to alter things (which they invariably will).