We have also added a few new features to the Notifications page, the ability to view logs of successful and failed INS notifications as well as a new testing feature. To access these features you will need to click the Notifications tab from any page on your account. On the Notifications page you will now see 3 new sub-tabs: Success, Failed and Test.

By clicking the Success sub-tab you will be redirected to a log of all successful INS notifications for your account. You will be able to view the Date and Time for a notification, Message Type, Notification Type, URL the notification was sent to, Last Attempted(Date and Time the last attempt for the notification was made) and the Invoice ID. You may also resend any successful notification from this page.

Clicking the Failed sub-tab will redirect you to a log of all failed INS notifications for your account. You will be able to view the Date and Time for a notification, Message Type, Notification Type, URL the notification was sent to, Last Attempted(Date and Time the last attempt for the notification was made) and the Invoice ID. You may also resend any failed notification from this page.

Important note: Notifications listed in the Success and Failed logs will be listed on the report for 30 days and will then fall off the report.

Clicking the Test sub-tab will redirect you to a page where you will be able to send test notifications to a URL that you enter on the page. Suppliers are able to test each message type to ensure their scripts are capturing all of the returned parameters. Suppliers can also make use of the Instant Notification Service Simulator within the developers.2Checkout area as an additional way to test their INS scripts. When testing INS notifications, the following values will be sent for all message types:

• [bill_city] => Columbus
• [bill_country] => USA
• [bill_postal_code] => 43228
• [bill_state] => Ohio
• [bill_street_address] => 1785 Acme Road
• [bill_street_address2] => Apt 2
• [cust_currency] => USD
• [customer_email] => JohnDoe@2co.com
• [customer_first_name] => Raphael
• [customer_ip] => 192.168.2.37
• [customer_ip_country] => USA
• [customer_last_name] => Doe
• [customer_name] => Raphael Doe
• [customer_phone] => 6149212450
• [invoice_id] => 100006320
• [item_count] => 1
• [item_cust_amount_1] => 10.25
• [item_duration_1] => 1
• [item_id_1] => 4562
• [item_list_amount_1] => 9.99
• [item_name_1] => New Account Signup
• [item_rec_date_next_1] => N/A
• [item_rec_install_billed_1] => 0
• [item_rec_list_amount_1] => N/A
• [item_rec_status_1] => N/A
• [item_recurrence_1] => N/A
• [item_type_1] => N/A
• [item_usd_amount_1] => 49.00
• [key_count] => 56
• [list_currency] => USD
• [md5_hash] => F9E2731C0F3F567D18D8647F6EA8D8DB
• [message_description] => Test Message
• [message_id] => 1
• [message_type] => RECURRING_RESTARTED
• [payment_type] => paypal
• [recurring] => 0
• [sale_date_placed] => 2004-03-1619:23:45
• [sale_id] => 100006310
• [ship_city] => Columbus
• [ship_country] => USA
• [ship_name] => Janie Doe
• [ship_postal_code] => 43235
• [ship_state] => OH
• [ship_status] => A
• [ship_street_address] => 134 Acme Lane
• [ship_street_address2] => apt 3D
• [ship_tracking_number] => 2323424234234-234-234
• [timestamp] => 2009-04-0319:48:58
• [vendor_id] => 1007
• [vendor_order_id] => 1008OA

Related Article: Instant Notification Service

What Is A Recurring Product?

A recurring product will form a sale that will automatically bill your customer at a specified interval. These types of products are typically used for such items as web hosting, membership services or ‘Item of the Month’ type products.

In order to use recurring products, you must use the Plug-n-Play parameter set and have these products created within your account. Keep in mind, only credit cards are accepted for recurring products. If you need assistance with creating products, this article will help you.

What Types Of Options Can My Recurring Products Have?

2Checkout currently supports recurrence intervals that will allow the sale to bill your customer every week, month or year. You also have the freedom to set how many of the intervals must pass for the sale to bill. This means you can set a sale to bill every 1 week, 2 weeks, 8 weeks, 7 months or even every 2 years.

Recurring products must also be given a duration, or the total amount of times the sale will bill before it stops billing. You can currently set a recurring product to bill for any specified number of weeks, months, years, or this can be set so the sale bills forever until it is canceled.

By combining your interval and duration you can set a sale to bill for exactly how long you need it to. If you wish to sell a 6 week e-book subscription where you will deliver a new e-book to your customer and bill them every week. To set this up we would create a product that bills every 1 week for 6 weeks. Recurring products can be both intangible product that require no shipping or tangible products which do require shipping. A tangible recurring product will be charged shipping on each installment that is billed. Shipping charges cannot be applied to intangible products.

If you need to add a charge for any reason you can set a start-up fee, which will be added to your products price on the first billing only. This start up fee will only be charged at the initial purchase. Setting a $10 startup fee would allow you to bill your customer, for example, monthly for $20, but charge the customer $30 the first billing.

You may also use a negative startup fee to lower, but not eliminate, the initial charge. Setting a -$10 startup fee would allow you to bill your customer, for example, monthly for $20, but charge the customer $10 the first billing.

Recurring products may be edited, but this will NOT effect current recurring orders for those products. Editing a recurring product will only effect orders placed for that product after the changes have been saved.

What Options Do I Have For Tracking My Sales?

Once a recurring sale has been placed, it can be viewed inside your 2Checkout account on its sale details page. This will show you each installment that has taken place, when it was billed and how much it was. It will also contain all your customer information and sale information just like regular non-recurring sales. If you need help finding a sale inside of your account, this article will assist you.

The “Declined Recurrings” report and the “Recurrings to Bill” report will help you track your recurring sales. The “Declined Recurrings” report will show you each sale that has declined and for what reason it declined. When a recurring sale declines your customer is sent an email notifying them of this and they are provided a link to update the billing information they have on file. Suppliers will also receive a copy of this email so they are aware that a billing was not successful. When a customers updates the billing information the sale will attempt to bill again. If the customer does not manually update the billing information the system will automatically attempt to bill the sale every seven days. The “Recurrings to Bill” report will show you the recurring sales on your account that are set to bill again and when they will bill.

Can I Automate Sales Tracking?

Using the Instant Notification Service (INS) beta, you have the ability to receive information directly from 2Checkout to your website and any system you have in place when certain events occur.

To enable INS, you first need to build a script (or multiple scripts) that will be accessed by and will receive data from our server. The INS User Guide will assist you in developing this script.

Once you have your script(s) constructed, you will want to add them to the Notifications section, which can be found under the Account tab. Fill out the text fields with your script URL(s), making sure to enable each notification that you want to get sent to your script(s).

If you need to be notified when an order is created (recurring or not), you can use the “New Order Created” notification setting, which will be called shortly after a new order was placed through your account. This is similar to the Approved URL within your account settings, but it is *NOT* the same. The Approved URL setting can be used to pass the customer (along with data about the sale) back to that URL on your website, whereas the INS “New Order Created” URL will be accessed in the background by our system after the customer is finished with their order. If you want your customer to be returned to a URL on your website after they place a sale, you will want to use an Approved URL. Otherwise, if you want to just receive data about the new order created, you can use the INS “New Order Created” setting.

Setting the notification URLs for recurring orders can be done using the last five notification items, and are as follows:

• Recurring Installment Successfully Billed — The “New Order Created” URL setting is called (if it is set) on the first time a recurring product is ordered. Then, this “Recurring Installment Successfully Billed” gets called every time the order successfully bills after the initial purchase.
• Recurring Installment Failed — Whenever a recurring order fails to bill, this URL is called. Failures will happen whenever a customer’s billing details can not be billed successfully. This typically happens when a customer’s credit card has expired, or if the customer does not have sufficient funds within their account.
• Recurring Stopped — This URL will be called when a recurring order was stopped before its recurrence length is finished. This URL will be called whether the vendor or a 2Checkout agent ends the recurrence on an order.
• Recurring Complete — This URL will be called when a recurring order successfully bills its final sale and the recurrence has ended. Keep in mind, you will receive an additional call from the “Recurring Installment Successfully Billed” along with a call to the “Recurring Complete” URL.
• Recurring Restarted — When a recurring product has been re-started from previously being stopped, this URL is called. This URL will be called when a 2Checkout agent re-starts billing on a recurring order.

Once you have these URL settings enabled, you will start receiving INS calls as soon as they happen. If you have any issues with the INS or you require assistance with the INS parameters, please don’t hesitate to open a support ticket in the Tech Support category.

How Can I Stop A Recurring Sale?

To stop a recurring sale so it no longer bills, the supplier will need to access the sale detail page we discussed earlier and click the “Stop Recurring” link located at the bottom of each line item on every recurring installment. Once this link is clicked, it will read “Restart Recurring”. Suppliers have the ability to stop a recurring sale whenever they wish. Customers can also contact 2Checkout.com to request the billing be stopped. Suppliers will be notified when this happens and may be requested to provide information before we stop the sale.

This new version has streamlined message parameter definitions, and more INS messages than the original preview version.

Messages in this release:

• Order Created
• Fraud Status Changed
• Shipping Status Changed
• Invoice Status Changed
• Refund Issued
• Recurring Installment Success
• Recurring Installment Failed
• Recurring Stopped
• Recurring Complete
• Recurring Restarted

A full set of updated, streamlined and simplified documentation is posted online will be posted online soon. These documents provide detailed information and multiple examples of the parameters that are passed back for each message.

In this release, all messages will share one of 2 parameter set definitions: Item level or Invoice level. Additionally, some parameters have been added, including:

• customer_ip
• customer_ip_country
• ship_status
• ship_tracking_number

Detailed descriptions of the new parameters will be provided in the new documentation. Release details and new documentation will be posted online soon; we’d like to thank everyone again for their participation and feedback!

Please Note: The INS Opt-in can only be found within our new Vendor Area, located here. Use your regular username & password from the old Vendor Area to login.

Also, keep in mind that suppliers can make use of the Instant Notification Service Simulator within the developers.2Checkout area as an additional way to test their INS scripts.

Originally posted April 22, 2008

• Order Created
• Recurring Stopped

A full set of updated streamlined and simplified documentation will be posted online soon. These documents will provide detailed information and multiple examples of the parameters that are passed back for each message.

This release will also include changes to some of the parameters and values passed with each INS message. If you implemented INS based on the advanced preview documentation it will be important to review these changes and edit your scripts.

In the new release, all messages will share one of 2 parameter set definitions: Item level or Invoice level. Additionally, some parameters have been added, including:

• customer_ip
• customer_ip_county
• ship_status
• ship_tracking_number

Detailed descriptions of the new parameters will be provided in the new documentation. Release details and new documentation will be posted online soon; we’d like to thank everyone again for their participation and feedback!

Please Note: The INS Opt-in can only be found within our new Vendor Area, located here. Use your regular username & password from the old Vendor Area to login.

Also, keep in mind that suppliers can make use of the Instant Notification Service Simulator within the developers.2Checkout area as an additional way to test their INS scripts.

INS is, in plain terms, a service which will post sets of cgi parameters to any URL you specify. These posts are each a message containing all the information you need about a specific event (such as when a recurring order re-bills successfully).

This service currently includes the ability to opt-in and receive messages for the following events:

• Recurring Order Stopped
• Recurring Installment Billing Failed
• Recurring Installment Billing Succeeded
• Order Refunded
• Order Canceled
• Order Fraud Status Changed

So what can you do with these messages? Well, please remember that you are getting the very first look at these messages, we do not yet have any prepared add-ons for carts you may be using. We are hopeful that several of the carts out there will be responsive and create add-ons which read in the information from the message and use it to automate some inventory or customer access tasks, making your lives easier. We also hope some of our very talented vendors will create message receiving tools on their own and share them with our community.

We, for our part, will be contacting carts and encouraging them to integrate INS as well as creating some example CGI scripts that our vendors can use as a starting point for integrating these messages into their systems.

The INS Opt-in can only be found within our new Vendor Area, located here. Use your regular username & password from the old Vendor Area to login.

After you are logged in, to get to the INS opt-in page, you need to select the “Account” tab, then the “Notifications” sub-tab. You can also get there directly by using this link after you’re logged in: https://www.2checkout.com/va/acct/ins_settings.

Opting into the INS is as simple as checking the box next to each message you wish to receive, and entering the URL you want it sent to.

Technical specifications detailing each message type and the parameters it will include can be found online here, but we are very interested in receiving your feedback in order to improve it. Please feel free to reply to this post or contact us via the ticket system if you have suggestions or additional questions.

On omission in the current documents has already come to our attention, but rather than the delay this preview while we corrected it, we felt we should move forward with the preview and just add the information here.

The message_type parameter, which indicates the event which triggered the message, can have one of the following values:

• Recurring order stopped
• Recurring installment failed to bill
• Recurring installment successfully billed
• Recurring installment retry successfully billed
• Order refunded
• Order cancelled
• Order fraud status changed

Thank you again for your interest in the 2CO Instant Notification Service and thank you in advance for your valuable feedback!

Sincerely,
2Checkout.com