Technical issues

In general, there are two ways to implement PayLane payments:

• Secure Form - it's a ready-to-go solution, you just have to redirect your customers to a payment form prepared and hosted by PayLane.
• RESTful API - API allows you to accept payments directly on your website, use many additional features (like single-click payments) and fully customize the purchasing experience.

You can read more about these solutions on PayLane Developer Zone.

You can integrate with PayLane using any programming language you like. Currently we offer API clients written in PHP, Python, and Ruby, but you can also create a wrapper to our REST API in your favorite programming language.

PayLane API gives more possibilities and flexibility, but requires the know-how. Besides that, you will need an SSL certificate for the website on which you'll be accepting payments. You will also need to be PCI compliant as a merchant but we take care of that for you.

You can start by creating a testing account. This means that you don't have to actually process real payments. With a testing account you can run tests and see if chosen and integrated by you features really work. On your side you will need a developer who will be able to implement different codes to see if the integration went through successfully. Code examples have been created by our team for you to learn how to integrate and create a payment form with ease using PHP, Python, Ruby, or any other programming language.

For more information check out our Developer Zone.

You can also read more here: Integrating with a payment gateway via API

Secure Form is one of the ways merchants can integrate with PayLane. It's a payment form created and hosted by PayLane. As a merchant, you only have to redirect your customers to the payment form during the checkout process. After they submit the payment, they'll be redirected back to your website.

The form itself can be active in up to four different languages (English, Polish, German, and Spanish), all of the payment methods chosen by you are available, and the design is based on our default PayLane form or a customizable one. The Secure Form is also available in a mobile version.

Read more:

• Secure Form guide

Code examples can be found in our Developer Zone.

The Merchant Panel is composed of various tabs which have three main functions: sales, technical, and billing. In the panel you can find information like your transaction history, invoices, current rates, etc.

See more:

• Merchant Panel: an introduction

If you want to return customer's money, either the whole amount or just a part of it, you have to perform a refund, it allows you to return funds in reference to a specific transaction. In order to perform a refund, you must know the transaction ID number. This ID number identifies the transaction in PayLane's systems. You can easily retrieve this number while performing the transaction.

For specific information and examples visit our Developer Zone.

Check whether you have a proper merchant_id and a salted hash. Log into the Merchant Panel – you will find the said information by clicking account → secure form customization → options. You can also learn about calculating the hash on the Secure Form Implementation page.

Transaction notifications are not required to process a payment, so it's really up to you whether to implement them or not. However, it's a recommended and good practice.

Yes, we have a list of such test numbers. They can be found in our DevZone.

You may have used an error code. This feature is present only in test accounts to make implementing payments easier. If the amount you've set is an error code then this error is returned instead of a sale confirmation.

If the amount happens to be an error code number, the proper error is returned instead of the sale confirmation. This works only for test accounts; it simply makes it easier to implement payments.

Our software automatically generates an invoice for every transaction, you can find your invoices in the "Sales" tab in the Merchant Panel. Once you click on a specific transaction you will see a "generate invoice" button.

PayLane offers the most popular e-commerce plugins such as: Magento, osCommerce, Zen Cart, OpenCart, and PrestaShop; you can integrate in seconds just by checking out our DevZone. Additionally, we support WordPress, one of the most popular open-source blogging tools and CMS; and Shoplo, an online store platform.

Read more:

• Payment Gateway integration is once again simple!
• E-commerce plugin for osCommerce!

Information on how to download and implement plugins can be found in our Developer Zone

Secure Form

When your clients wish to buy something from you, they search your website looking for what they need. When they find it, they add it to the cart. When the cart is full, the shopping should be completed, so the client should pay – and you are there to make it possible. You need to implement the “call to action” button (it might be “buy now” button), which transfers the client to our site – the payment gateway, in order to make payment. When the payment is fulfilled, the transaction is made and both you, and your client know the transaction status, the client is redirected to your website again.

The code

In order to make this magic happen, you need to write a code which directs your customer to PayLane's payment gateway.

Here you can find the simplest HTML code example, you can use:

<form action="https://secure.paylane.com/order/cart.html" method="post">
    <input type="hidden" name="amount" value="19.99" />
    <input type="hidden" name="currency" value="EUR" />
    <input type="hidden" name="merchant_id" value="john_test" />
    <input type="hidden" name="description" value="TR001" />
    <input type="hidden" name="transaction_description" value="Product 1 transaction" />
    <input type="hidden" name="transaction_type" value="S" />
    <input type="hidden" name="back_url" value="http://johns-shop.com/purchased" />
    <input type="hidden" name="language" value="en" />
    <input type="hidden" name="hash" value="6926ed14d1ae4d8eb2350d3c15e6a420e3bb7052" />

    <button type="submit">Pay with PayLane</button>
</form>

In order to put everything into practice follow the below-mentioned hints:

1. You start with 1 constant - which is salt that is known only to us and you, it belongs to your merchant account.

Remember: merchant id and salt are sent to you by email when we open your account. If, by aby case, you lose this email, you can easily find these credentials in your merchant panel – you can do it by clicking account, Secure Form customization and Options.

2. You gather parameters from e.g the shopping cart: $amount, $currency, $description and pass it to above script - eg you pass it as a $_POST

3. Now you should change variables declaration like so: $amount=$_POST['amount'];, $description=$_POST['desc']; ... etc

4. You should calculate the hash value using this example:

hash = SHA1(salt + "|" + description + "|" + amount + "|" + currency + "|" + transaction_type)

Remember to put the hash`s result in the code, not the equation.

5. Now your work is basically done, because hash is calculated when someone hits your script with appropriate $_POST parameters.

What happens next?

After the payment process – when the transaction is made successfully, the buyer comes back to your website which was set as the back_URL parameter. The buyer is redirected to your website and the provider (PayLane) sends you some important data: eg transaction status, transaction ID that help you identify the purchase.Then you should write a script which enables sending the transaction status to your customers so they are informed about the transaction status as well.

Always be sure!

As life is very unexpected, so are the electric devices. It may always happen that something goes wrong, e.g. electricity shortage, the internet connection or server breaks down or any other unexpected thing happens. This is why we strongly recommend you to use our transaction notifications.
Owing to them you will always be notified about the transaction status, so you will be sure whether the money was really sent to you. In order to make this possible, the only thing you need to do is to write a script which is able to receive the POST data and receive the specific content. Once you send us the URL with this script, we will set it up on your account(s). This would mean that you will receive the transaction notifications. Finally, the notifications are on and you don't worry about transaction statuses. As easy as that!

If you'd like to read more, check our devzone!

http://devzone.paylane.com/secure-form-guide

http://devzone.paylane.com/transaction-notifications