FDMSECommerce Class

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The FDMSECommerce component is an advanced tool used to authorize credit cards in both Mail Order (Direct Marketing) and eCommerce environments, where the customer is ordering products or services via the telephone or Internet. This component makes authorizing these types of transactions very easy.

Syntax

inpaydirect.fdmsecommerce()

Remarks

This class connects to the First Data Merchant Services (FDMS) processor, by way of the Datawire VXN transaction transport network. Transactions originating with these classs go through Datawire, to the FDMS processor where the transaction is authorized. The result is then returned back through Datawire and received by the class. This class can be integrated into web pages or stand-alone Point Of Sale applications. Because all SSL communications are handled inside the class, any application or web page can be deployed without the need for expensive dedicated SSL servers.

The FDMSECommerce class makes authorizing Card-Not-Present Mail Order and E-Commerce transactions very easy by adding an additional layer of abstraction between the programmer and the protocol. There is no need to deal with raw sockets, TLS/SSL handshakes, or data packet formatting. The steps to setting up the class and authorizing a transaction are outlined below:

First, you must register and activate your account with Datawire. Datawire will provide you with a MerchantNumber and MerchantTerminalNumber, but you'll need to use the FDMSRegister class to activate the merchant and receive a DatawireId. Once you acquire the DatawireId and receive your transaction URLs through Service Discovery, you may begin to authorize transactions.

To authorize a credit card, set the MerchantNumber and MerchantTerminalNumber with the values supplied by FDMS and Datawire, and the DatawireId with the value retrieved by the FDMSRegister class after activating your merchant account. Set the URL property with one of the URLs you retrieved during Service Discovery.

  FDMSECommerce.MerchantNumber = "000000999990"     'Supplied by FDMS/Datawire
  FDMSECommerce.MerchantTerminalNumber = "555555"   'Supplied by FDMS/Datawire
  FDMSECommerce.DatawireId = "0000B47FFFFFFFFFFFFF" 'Retrieved with the FDMSRegister class.

Then, set the customer's address and zip code (The address and zip code will be checked by the FDMS processor to make sure it matches the customer's billing address).

  FDMSECommerce.CustomerAddress = "123 Nowhere Ln."
  FDMSECommerce.CustomerZip = "90210"

Next, set properties that contain details about the transaction. The TransactionNumber should be incremented for every transaction you authorize. The TransactionAmount must be set, and it should contain the amount to be charged, with an implied decimal point (ie: $1.00 is "100"). The TransactionType is dependent on whether the transaction is taking place over the phone, the Internet, or whether it's a Recurring or Installment payment.

  FDMSECommerce.TransactionNumber = 1
  FDMSECommerce.TransactionAmount = "100"
  FDMSECommerce.TransactionType = ttECommerce

Finally, submit the transaction by calling the Authorize method. When the class receives a response, the result of the authorization will be available in several Response properties. The ResponseDatawireStatus and ResponseDatawireReturnCode indicate whether any errors occurred while passing the transaction through the Datawire VXN system. These two properties alone do not indicate a successful transaction, they only tell whether or not there were any problems transporting the authorization request and response through the Datawire system. If the transaction was successfully authorized by FDMS, then the ResponseCaptureFlag will be True, and the ResponseApprovalCode will contain an approval code that beings with "AP". (or "AL" for classs that support partially-approved/split-tender transactions).

  FDMSECommerce.Authorize("4444333322221111", 9, 2020, "999");

In addition, the ResponseAVSResult property will indicate whether the customer's billing address on file with his credit card company matches the information presented in the CustomerAddress and CustomerZip properties. The remaining properties provide additional information about the transaction.

Once an authorization request is approved, the money in the customer's account is blocked and tagged for the merchant. This transaction must go through the Batch Settlement process in order for the blocked money to be transferred to the merchant account. This is done by passing the XML aggregate returned from the GetDetailAggregate method to the FDMSSettle class. Usually, a Batch Settlement of all authorized transactions is done at the end of each business day.