Critical issue? Protx Authenticate and Authorise

[mccanm]

I have been in continuous communication with protx regarding the new authenticate and authorise tranaction type, however as ever trying to get clarity on how an actinic user should implement it has been like trying to nail jelly to the wall.

I was told that the transaction type AUTHENTICATE would be available on the test server from 7th July.

So today July 10th I duly switched Actinic into test mode and made the following changes before uploading to see if it worked.

I changed the following code in OCCPROTXScriptTemplate.pl from

$sHiddenValues .= "<INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME=\"TxType\" VALUE=\"PAYMENT\">\n";


to

$sHiddenValues .= "<INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME=\"TxType\" VALUE=\"AUTHENTICATE\">\n";


Needless to say it on handing over to protx I got an error message saying this was an invalid transaction type.

To understand if this is a critical problem with only 20 days to go before the switch over and we all either sort it out or hit a great big brick wall that stops us taking orders, does anybody have any information to answer the following questions. Plus if Chris Dicken is around it would be helpful to get an actinic view

1. Is the above code change the correct one to move to authenticate and authorise for an actinic user that uses protx VSP form i.e. a simple word change in OCCPROTXScriptTemplate.pl

2. If it is more than that has actinic written a script patch for OCCPROTXScriptTemplate.pl so that we can all carry on using protx.

3. If it is as easy as inserting the word AUTHENTICATE does this mean protx have failed to deliver on time the testing server. There are no clues on their website either way that I can see.

Any information to sort this out would be hugely appreciated.

Regards

Mark

[Darren B]

I could be completely wrong here, but i have not known that you need to change any of these, just add your secret key and increment the what ever file by one.

There is aguide here somewere and it is easy to set up? as i said if this is a completely new system then i have got it wrong

D

[wjcampbe]

Protx will send out an advisory when everything is ready for testing, until then chill....

It really is not something to stress over. Protx are more eager than any customer to get this right, and they will - before they insist people switch over.

[mccanm]

relaxed attitude

Bill

Past experiences with protx and current communications means I find it very difficult to accept your relaxed attitude and we cannot afford to take a purely reactive stance.

Protx have already missed the deadline once and with every day that goes by the window tightens for actinic users to figure it out.

To give you an example we have customised templates with protx, if you read their site carefully you will see that they will switch anyone with custom templates onto generic protx pages. Initially the window for redesigning templates with their new system was fine but protx technical support are now saying that whilst the design tool is scheduled for release in mid July custom templates will not be a priority service issue and responses to these issues will take 7-14 days to allow them to deal with other "Live" support queries.

The reality is that on 1st August our site will be forced onto generic protx payment pages with the consequent cart abandonment. A demonstration that the definition of "getting it right" in Protx's world is different to that of "getting it right" in an Actinic users world.

If anybody has any answers to my original post it would be really helpful.

the questions I asked were:

1. Is the word change in OCCPROTXScriptTemplate.pl the correct one to move to authenticate and authorise for an actinic user that uses protx VSP form.

The new authenticate and authorise documentation is here and this is what leads me to think it is just a word change.

http://www.protx.com/downloads/docs/...thenticate.doc

2. If it is more than that has actinic written a script patch for OCCPROTXScriptTemplate.pl so that we can all carry on using protx.

3. If it is as easy as inserting the word AUTHENTICATE does this mean protx have failed to deliver on time the testing server. There are no clues on their website either way that I can see.

regards

Mark

[Legends]

1. Is the word change in OCCPROTXScriptTemplate.pl the correct one to move to authenticate and authorise for an actinic user that uses protx VSP form.

The new authenticate and authorise documentation is here and this is what leads me to think it is just a word change.

This might be so but when we have changed payment types in the past (we changed to preauth) we had to e-mail protx and ask them to set up this payment type for our account - it is not there automatically for all accounts.

Cheers

[Darren B]

Mark sorry i was obviously having a bad day and did not realise you were working on the new pre-auth system

Darren

[siwalker]

The new authenticate and authorise documentation is here and this is what leads me to think it is just a word change.

Mark,
I have started belatedly looking at this today. Have you got any further?
The lack of detail about this on Protx's site is appalling.

My take so far, is that you need to:
1. Request Authenticate and Authorise mode be enabled on your account.
On your test site:
2. Make the simple text change as you've discovered.
3. Enable Protx test mode, as per the Actinic Protx Implementation Guide (check that this looks like this in act_occprotxtemplate.html
NETQUOTEDEL:TESTMODE
<INPUT TYPE=SUBMIT NAME="\&quot;SUBMIT\&quot;" VALUE="Next&gt;">
NETQUOTEDEL:TESTMODE

4. Upload and test, and presumably test transactions will be in the test area of the Protx VSP Admin.

I can't confirm this is all that's required as I'm presently awaiting confirmation of the A&A mode being activated on our account.

Perhaps people could add any observations, results, information to this thread. Like you I don't share Bill's relaxed attitude to this. My business is at stake and Protx as a company do not inspire confidence.

They have not indicated for example how transactions spanning the 1st August switchover will be handled, eg. the need to Repeat a payment on 5th August for a Pre-Auth accepted on July 30th). To me the scant three-week test window is ample indication that Protx are not in adequate control of the situation.

Actinic Support simply managed one of their usual time-wasting answers to an enquiry about this. In response to the question 'what if anything do I need from Actinic to implement the Protx change from Pre-Auth to Authenticate and Authorise?' I was told to change the Protx payment method to 'Charge transactions immediately'. Thanks Actinic!

Cheers,
simon

[wjcampbe]

Well, my laid back attitude may not have been appreciated, but surprise, surprise - Protx have extended PREAUTH until 1st September, and the test server has been live since 16th July - now what was all the fuss about.

[siwalker]

now what was all the fuss about.

Those of us who lack your powers of clairvoyance were understandably anxious that a company with Protx's underwhelming track record were highly likely to make a complete pig's ear of this. Which they have. The fact that they were seriously planning a mere three-week test window and that until the last couple of days hadn't published any detailed information about either the new mechanisms or pre-auth handling during and after the transition period, simply demonstrates how far out of control the upgrade was. It's no surprise that they've had to delay the pre-auth deadline, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't have taken their original upgrade plans seriously and been very concerned about the lack of information coming from Protx.

Just to add to the excitement Protx are also planning to move office on 20th July.

simon

[wjcampbe]

Sorry Simon, I still don't see any reason for panic.

Surely every business has more than one payment option available to their customers? If not, the focus of the moment would be providing those options, would it not?

The people at Protx are paid to worry about their implementation of the new rules, and part of their worry must be that they could lose business if they do not get it right. Their priority at the begining of the month was surely to get their new interface communicating securely with Streamline et al, before extending that to their clients (i.e us).

Clairvoyant - no , just pragmatic.

[siwalker]

No, we're not panicking - we're annoyed and concerned about the way this is being managed by Protx.
Yes, we have several alternative methods of payment, including manual card processing, but Protx is the method by which most of our customers easily and confidently pay, and by which we can process a large number of orders relatively efficiently. Are you're saying you have full payment provider fallback in place? If so who do you use? Keeping two payment provider accounts open would not be easy if one of them is normally unused.

Your faith in Protx is touching, but I cannot empathise with your somewhat fatalistic version of 'pragmatism' when there is so much at stake.

Simon

[mccanm]

Inching forward

Simon

I haven't been monitoring this thread closely over the last week. I've been too busy trying to figure out how to get A&A working.

I share your concerns about Protx and the need to manage this situation with massive levels of proactivity, especially when reputations are at stake and a single day without orders would cost us several thousands of pounds of revenue.

What I have discovered so far is:
1. Get protx to switch on A&A for your test account
2. Replace Preauth with authenticate in the OCC script
3. Switch to test mode
4. Make sure you have 3D secure turned on on the test account so you can see what happens
5. My testing shows the new generic protx pages for the payment screens when I do a transaction but I see my old custom pages for the fail and success pages (took a couple of emails to get this working so you have to ask them to set up your custom success and fail htmls on the new service).
6. I am now left with the question of how I can reapply customisations to the generic protx payment pages we are all about to be lumbered with. My initial impression was that we would have some sort of WYSIWYG tool in the admin screens of our acount to tweak colours and upload images etc. It now seems that there will be some sort of templates to download and configure that require a knowledge of XSLT these were due out w/c 16th but here we are on the evening of Sunday 22nd and true to form no templates have materialised. If they arrive tomorrow then it's a crash course in XSLT (any help greatly appreciated because I have not got a clue what this is) and join the queue in the hope that we can get them loaded before the big switch over in 8 days time.
7. One thing that is not clear is what happens to Virtual terminal on 1st of August they seem to have seen the light in parallel running preauth in August but no mention of whether terminal payments will be switched off on the 1st if you do not have a moto account. To be on the safe side I have set up a new standalone moto account with protx last week just in case terminal disappears from my ecommerce account on the 1st and if it does all go pear shaped at least I can emphasise an order line number and get customers to ring in if we can't take web orders.

Regards

Mark

[kevster]

I have been setting up a new site using Protx and have been getting increasingly frustrated with Protx. Their response times are not acceptable and their website is a mess. I get no joy on the phone and standard canned email replies telling me stuff I already know.

Yes Mark - no templates as promised last week yet they rip out any customised old style ones. Bill you must have shares in Protx! - people WILL lose money over this unless Protx get their act together fast. I am lucky in that this is not a live site.

I have not changed anything in Actinic but my test pages work fine at the moment, just standard Protx pages though.

I will be on to them again today...

[siwalker]

I share your concerns about Protx and the need to manage this situation with massive levels of proactivity, especially when reputations are at stake and a single day without orders would cost us several thousands of pounds of revenue.

Indeed.
Yes, initial testing shows things working largely as expected. I'm not sure the new card selection screen is an improvement. The difference between the Visa and Visa Debit logos is barely discernible and will cause confusion among some customers.

I'm awaiting 3D enable on my test account (why this wasn't switched on at the same time as the live account I don't know), which is presumably why there's no Maestro card option on the front screen at present.

I notice that the card address box on the Protx payment screen lacks any carriage returns, so I'm wondering whether there's been a subtle change in the API. I don't know whether this will affect authorisation or if it's just a display issue. Does Actinic Support have any information on this?

I've raised these issues plus some other minor ones with Protx support but as they're too busy moving office to bother manning support I suspect it'll be a while before I have any answers.

We don't have any customisation with Protx so this isn't an issue here. We only have our logo on the Protx page, which thanks to a change to a gradient background on the page now looks rather clunky.

We have a manual Streamline terminal here so don't use Protx's Virtual Terminal. This is our fallback system but is much slower and lacks many of the security features we pay Protx for.

The move to run A&A in parallel with Pre-Auth is welcome, but the last minute nature of that decision simply illustrates the make-it-up-as-you-go-along approach Protx have to this upgrade.

Could I ask that anyone with an interest in this upgrade post any useful nuggets of information in this thread? As Mark and I have discovered, hard facts are difficult to come by at present.

Cheers,
simon

[mccanm]

I notice that the card address box on the Protx payment screen lacks any carriage returns, so I'm wondering whether there's been a subtle change in the API. I don't know whether this will affect authorisation or if it's just a display issue. Does Actinic Support have any information on this?

I raised this with protx in this email.

"1. Why do the customers address detail now wrap on the standard protx payment pages whereas in the current live system they do not and come acrss neatly with line breaks?
2. Can this be fixed?
3. I have looked at a work around which involves switching to NO ADDRESS in the account parameters section of my administrator account so that the address section is not visible to customers. However when I then do transactions I receive my error message screen telling me an error has occurred at Protx. Why does this occur?"

and got this response:

"1. This is a known issue on our TEST Server in regards to the new Payment pages.

2. Yes, this will be rectified by next week and this will not occur on the LIVE Servers either.

3. This is also a known issue caused by no Custom templates enabled yet on our TEST Servers, this too will be rectified by next week."

------------------------------------------------------------

Does anybody have any information on the XLST templates for VSP form users have they been issued?

I am assuming that if we are to have our own custom templates we will have to go down this route as protx has now slipped the deadline for the WYSIWYG functionality in the VSP Admin screens to August.

The move to run A&A in parallel with Pre-Auth is welcome, but the last minute nature of that decision simply illustrates the make-it-up-as-you-go-along approach Protx have to this upgrade.

I think this make it up approach is a reaction to those proactive customers that have been relentlessly communicating on the need for protx to change their approach to roll out. Perhaps they should look at their Project Management resources, their levels of qualification and understanding of risk mitigation strategies. The problem we face here is that protx is the best value psp in the market but if you pay peanuts you get monkeys, so system changes are a perennial nightmare - it's the hidden cost of using the lowest cost provider.

Mark