Setting up recurring billing memberships 7.3.3

I need detail instructions on setting up Dolphin 7.3.3; including on the PayPal side of things, for recurring billing memberships.

Anton, hope you have not forgotten about this.

Any luck on getting help with this?

 Anton is suppose to answer this on Monday.

Waiting for Anton

AlexT said that AntonLV was going to answer this yet, no answer.

Hello

I'm sorry for so long delay. I was away and cannot answer you faster.

1. Current version of PayPal integration from "Payment" module doesn't allow to use recurring payments.

2. Recurring paymens are available if you are using "PayPal PayFlow Pro" as payments processing module instead of the "Payment" module. If you plan to use it you need to start from registering PayPal PayFlow Pro account. Also you'll need to activate recurring payments on the account during its creation by contacting with PayPal PayFlow Pro support. When the account is ready you'll need to install "PayPal PayFlow Pro" module, configure "PayPal Recurring Billing" by providing your PayFlow account's details and enable "PayPal PayFlow Pro" module as default payment processing module via admin panel -> settings -> advanced settings -> general -> "Payment module (at least one payment processing module should be installed)" setting.

Thanks Anton but you did not give me any new information. I am trying to help someone set up recurring billing for memberships and it is not working.  The person will not give me access to the PayPal account so I was hoping you would give detail information on the PayPal side of things that might help the person understand what they need to do; including screenshots of the PayPal side.

Bumping up because it is still not working.

 Maybe this can help. :/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36kR02-8oac

Thanks but that is a bit different tnan setting up recurring billing for Dolphin memberships.

Hey there.  I've used this in the past and found it a pretty air-tight way to keep spammers out.

https://www.moonclerk.com/

So when they click join, it takes them to my form on moonclerk, where they can check out, set up recurring billing, etc, then once it has gone through, it redirects them to to join.php on my dolphin site where they set up their profile. So every user has a credit card and a recurring memebrship from the get go.  You can set up forms to give them 10 days free or 90 days free or whatever, then it will charge them once their trial period has ended.  

Geek Girl is rad and answers my lame shit quiestions on here like a boss- hope this helps!

Thanks for your answer.  I just don't understand why Boonex does not give some detailed information on recurring billing; this was one of their big new things.  Boonex, have you actually created a PayFlow account and test this new module?  If so, then you have the knowledge of what we need to do both on the Dolphin side of things and the PayPal side of things.  If you have not, then man up and say so.

Hello 

Sure, we had an account and tested the integration. All 3 payment methods worked as they should.

About the Merchant Account itself. We were provided with the account by PayPal. During the integration we contacted with PayPal support person who was assigned to help us. He did some tweaks in the Merchant account and associated our Business PayPal account (sandbox). He didn't describe what exactly was changed but from integration manuals I know the following:

a. To enable Recurring billing for your Merchant account you need to contact with their support.

b. Reference Transactions should be enabled in both accounts. You may easily do it in Merchant Account by yourself. You need to do the following: Log in to PayPal Manager -> Click Account Administration -> Click Transaction Settings -> Set Allow Reference Transactions to Yes -> Click Confirm. To enable it in your Business PayPal account you need to contact with PayPal Support team. There is no way to do it by yourself.

c. If you are in a test mode then you need check in your PayPal Manager -> Service Settings -> Hosted Checkout Pages -> Set Up -> Choose your settings section -> Transaction Process Mode should be set to Test. Also on the same page you need to check PayPal Express Checkout section and specify PayPal email address for live mode and PayPal Sandbox email address for test mode.

I tried to configure PayPal Payflow Pro module on fresh installed Dolphin 7.3.3 using our old Merchant account and as I see single time payments are completely working. Recurring Billing (RB) is working partially. The first payment which is used to create RB Profile is processing as it should but then RB Profile itself cannot be created. Log file shows error #7 with 'Field format error: RB Profile cannot be created with EC Token' description. May be something was changed in the integration API or our accounts require some additional tweaks. I contacted with PayPal Merchant Support team and am waiting for the response.

Setting up the PayPal Payflow Pro module in Dolphin:

1. The module was installed.

2. The module was selected as main Payment Processing module in admin panel -> settings -> advanced settings -> general -> Payment module (at least one payment processing module should be installed) setting.

3. Filled in Partner (PayPal), Merchant login, User login and User password in PayPal Express Checkout and PayPal Recurring Billing in admin panel -> modules -> PayPal PayFlow Pro -> Details (to sell membership levels) and in user end -> my account -> payments -> settings tab (to sell products in Store). Activated them and enabled Test modes for both.

As you may see the setup in Dolphin end is easy enough. From my experience the setup of PayPal end requires a lot of communication with PayPal support team.

So, what is the exact problem do you have? You are saying that you don't have access to client's PayPal but may be you have access to client's PayPal Manager. Are you trying to activate it in Test or Live mode? What error messages are you receiving in log files in modules/boonex/paypal_payflow/log/ folder. I need more info to be able to guide you somehow. 

I don't have any answers; It is being tested in live mode.  All I hear is that recurring billing is not working.  I did pass on your information to them and perhaps they can continue working with PayPal.

Log file?  I did not know there was a log file for the module; that might really help with tracking down the errors, I will post back the log file.

I have set up a sandbox account for testing this and I am getting error code 25; "Not signed up for this tender type" and PayPal developer site states to add payment type in PayPal Manager.  Is it that for the sandbox I can not test using PayPal checkout for express checkout for recurring billings?

Hello

Yes, sandbox account can be used for testing but it should be connected to Merchant account. As I wrote above (point 'С') you need to do it via PayPal Manager -> Service Settings -> Hosted Checkout Pages -> Set Up -> PayPal Express Checkout section. Also if you are working in a test mode don't forget to set 'Transaction Process Mode' setting to test on the same page.

Ah, there is the rub then; there is no Express Checkout section in the test mode.  I have contacted PayPal to see what they have to say about it.  I know one thing I won't do, and that is pay PayPal for an account to try and figure this out.  Personally, I think this whole solution is just too cumbersome.  In my opinion if I have to use this for recurring billing I will just say F-it and just go with standard billing.

 Did you end up just using standard billing? I really need recurring billing and although I got 99% of everything to work and am willing to pay the now lower price of $30 per month with PayPal, when I actually try to process transactions with PayPal Payflow Pro, they just sit in "processing" and don't follow through to completed. Has anyone else had this problem? When FINALLY get this stupid thing to work, I'm going to write a detailed post on here to explain how I got it all to work. The documentation (or lack there of) has had me livid regarding this. How Dolphin can implement a feature and NO documentation is beyond me. I'm a developer and I always document my work and how it operates in the end. Very frustrating.

In the end, yes.  You need to set up the sandbox account; which is a lot more difficult than in the past; in the past it was easy peasy.  Then once the sandbox is up and running and connected to the site; then you can try working with PayPal to get things going.  I wish I could help but in the end we gave up.

Hello

Everything we did with our test PayPal PayFlow Pro account was described here and in some of my posts above. You are saying that payment status stays 'processing'. Do you see it in your PayPal PayFlow Pro account or associated PayPal account? Do you use Test or Live mode? Could you please describe your actions in more details.

There is another post in the forums that may indicate a bug in the PayPal Payflow module.  We are waiting to see what AlexT has to say on it.