CreateProfile Method

This method creates a new recurring payments profile.

Syntax

recurringpayments.createProfile([callback])

Callback

The 'callback' parameter specifies a function which will be called when the operation completes (or an error is encountered). If the 'callback' parameter is not specified, then the method will block and will not return until the operation completes (or an error is encountered).

The callback for this method is defined as:

function(err){ }

'err' is the error that occurred. If there was no error, then 'err' is 'null'.

'err' has 2 properties which hold detailed information:

err.code
err.message

Remarks

This method should be called to create a new recurring payments profile. It must be called for each profile that should be created.

Set the options for the profile before calling CreateProfile. The profile must contain values for BillingFrequency, BillingPeriod, BillingAmount, and BillingStartDate.

There are two payment options for creating a new profile.

DirectPayment Option

The profile may be created with a credit card specified by the Card property.

ExpressCheckout Option

This option requires that a billing agreement has already been setup using the ExpressCheckout class. There must be a billing agreement for each profile that is created. The Description must be the same as the description specified in the BillingAgreements property. The Token also must be the response token as returned from the SetCheckout method.

The following example shows how to successfully use ExpressCheckout to create a new recurring payments profile:

  ExpressCheckout1.OrderTotal = "0"
  ExpressCheckout1.ReturnURL = "http://localhost"
  ExpressCheckout1.CancelURL = "http://localhost"
  ExpressCheckout1.BillingAgreements = new String[1]
  ExpressCheckout1.BillingAgreements[0] = "My Description"
  ExpressCheckout1.SetCheckout()

The customer must now login and accept the Billing Agreement before creating the actual profile or the CreateProfile() call will fail. The customer may accept the agreement from the site that is created by substituting the actual ResponseToken in the following URL:

URL: https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_customer-billing-agreement&token=PUT_TOKEN_HERE

Once the customer has been redirected to the above URL and accepted the billing agreement, the following code will create a new profile:

  RecurringPayments1.Token = ExpressCheckout1.ResponseToken
  RecurringPayments1.Description = "My Description"
  RecurringPayments1.BillingDetails.Period = BillingPeriods.bpMonth
  RecurringPayments1.BillingDetails.Frequency = "12"
  RecurringPayments1.BillingDetails.Amount = "12.01"
  RecurringPayments1.BillingDetails.StartDate = "2009-08-25T07:00:00Z"
  RecurringPayments1.CreateProfile()

Once the profile is created, the ProfileId and Status properties will be populated. You must save the profile Id to access it later.