Selling access to a web application?

[jasonh]

Hi all,


I'm a web developer, and one of my clients has an Actinic store. He's using Actinic Catalog version 8.5.1. I'm looking for some advice on the best way to integrate one of my existing applications with his Actinic store. I'll try and explain...

I have an ASP.NET application that allows a user to customise a PDF. They enter a few pieces of information via an HTML form. This data is used to "stamp" some fields in a PDF form, using abcPDF.NET, and the resulting PDF is streamed directly to the user.

What we'd like to do is to sell access to this application via the Actinic store. In other words, the purchaser would receive a unique URL containing some kind of code or token that identifies that unique sale, and they can then use this URL to go to the PDF application to customise and download their PDF. If they try to use the same URL again, it won't work; they only get one use per purchase.

I'm not really sure of the best way to go about this using Actinic. I have some rusty Perl skills, so I can customise scripts if required. Presumably I need to do something like this:

1) hack the digital download script to redirect to my application's URL (passing the order number as a unique reference?) instead of streaming a document from the DD folder.

2) get my application to look in the Actinic access database to check the order number, to make sure it's a valid order containing the appropriate product, before it proceeds to do its thing.

3) my application will store the order number in its own database and mark it as "used".



Has anyone done anything similar to this? I guess someone must have done...? Any advice / pointers / scorn / encouragement would be gratefully received :-)



Jason

[gabrielcrowe]

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i think this is the one you're barking up ^

How about you hand out a unique key, that your clients use to access the pdf service?

use a reference of the product as well as something like their postcode, to generate the key, and get them to type these details into your app.

remember, actinic can compile php, this might be of use when you try to find a solution.

you may end up not using actinic, in the end, since this seems quite complicated, at first glance.

[gabrielcrowe]

idea: forget downloadble content and use the 'order shipped' email, with your link in it.