Conducting Live Transactions
Before you conduct live transactions, you must configure your shopping cart routine to call the CyberCash software and pass payment information. Your shopping cart routine should provide a pay-now link to the appropriate payment driver file for your environment. When you integrate your storefront with the CyberCash software, set up a mechanism to log the results that financial networks return for each transaction—e.g., a database or text file.
Perform test transactions while your electronic store is still hidden from public view. Your test transactions should include purchases, returns, and funds captures for auth-only transactions. You need to test any transaction you will implement in the live environment. Screen 5 shows a CyberCash test form. Before going live, ensure that you have valid configuration data from CyberCash by going back to the CyberCash registration site and clicking the login link for existing merchants. Then click the Merchant Configuration link to view your configuration information, including your merchant bank account. Checking your configuration data lets you make a final review of your merchant information before you begin processing transactions.
After you confirm your configuration information and successfully conduct your test transactions, your retail site is ready to go live. Notify CyberCash of your status by clicking the Go Live link on the registration site. CyberCash will change your configuration to live mode, which means your CyberCash software will process all transactions sent from your site (i.e., money transfers). Perform several live tests, and use the CyberCash administrative interface to refund the transactions. (Figure 1 charts the flow of a CyberCash-processed payment.) Congratulations—your e-commerce retail store is now open and ready for business.
Administering Transactions
An administrator's work is never done—you need to maintain your new e-commerce site. CyberCash makes administration easy by providing a Web-based interface to CyberCash's CashRegister administrative software. You can access this interface at https://cr.cybercash.com. CashRegister is secured with SSL and requires your registered username and password for entry.
The CashRegister interface uses simple HTML forms that let you review and maintain transactions for your site. You can use CashRegister to assemble batches of auth-only transactions that customers completed previously and submit the transactions in a group for processing (capturing funds). The CashRegister interface lets you request the transfer of funds from the customer's credit card account to your merchant account for auth-only transactions. You can also use CashRegister to query orders and enter credit card information for simple authorizations and returns. Screen 6 shows CashRegister's Merchant Card Direct Card Input screen.
Happy Selling
Even small companies can use products such as CyberCash to enable their Web site for e-commerce. Whether you choose to develop your site and shopping cart or outsource those tasks, you can simplify e-commerce setup and maintenance in your IIS environment with CyberCash. Good luck and happy selling