Integration and Testing

[andrewliu]

Hello I saw a great blog post by stymiee about AIM integration with PHP, I was wondering if there's any blog posts or tutorials for CIM integration? And a few questions on how does CIM work? What do we keep in our database? and how does it get processed and saved?

Thanks!

[WHeisenberg · Accepted solution]

CIM has two versions.

The first is the Hosted CIM.   Using this, you don't have to store any data about your customers payment information because all of that information is provided through a form on the AuthNet site itself.

The second is the API version.   Using this you gather all of the customer payment information on your own site,  do whatever you want with it at your end (such as storing it locally or even NOT storing it locally),  and then you pass that information over to the CIM system to be stored.

In either case,  once the customers information is stored on the CIM system,  you just need to give AuthNet the payment profile ID number of the payment method the customer wants to pay with, and the AuthNet system pulls that data out of the CIM and uses it for the transaction.

If you are going to store the information on your own server anyway,  using CIM is probably a waste of your time.   CIM is to store customer data so you dont 'have' to.   

:)

WHeis

[andrewliu]

I tried to edit my post, but I ran out of time...

I saw a video about CIM and I think I got it all wrong? CIM is used for merchants to go on authorize.net's website to create customer profiles? I would like customers to create their own profile on my site so they can store their own credit card and billing and shipping information so when they need to pay for other items, they could pick and choose their credit cards without going back to filling out a whole list of forms for their payment. Do I just need to integrate AIM with this feature?

Thanks

[WHeisenberg · Accepted solution]

CIM has two versions.

The first is the Hosted CIM.   Using this, you don't have to store any data about your customers payment information because all of that information is provided through a form on the AuthNet site itself.

The second is the API version.   Using this you gather all of the customer payment information on your own site,  do whatever you want with it at your end (such as storing it locally or even NOT storing it locally),  and then you pass that information over to the CIM system to be stored.

In either case,  once the customers information is stored on the CIM system,  you just need to give AuthNet the payment profile ID number of the payment method the customer wants to pay with, and the AuthNet system pulls that data out of the CIM and uses it for the transaction.

If you are going to store the information on your own server anyway,  using CIM is probably a waste of your time.   CIM is to store customer data so you dont 'have' to.   

:)

WHeis

[andrewliu]

Oh thanks! for the reply, this clears up a lot of my questions. 

I have another question if you may be able to answer them:

I hear people recommend not storing credit card information in mysql database. But if thats is the case, how would we do so with CIM? Or what do people usually do to store those types of information?

Thanks!

[WHeisenberg]

MySQL is just one 'brand' of database.

There are many others.   MS_SQL,  Oracle,  Foxpro (if you're old), Access and so on.   MySQL is just a 'brand' which is popular because it's open source and pretty much free.

"Not storing in MySQL" is usually because of the fact that MySQL is open source, and pretty prone to hacking due to how much it is used because of it's price tag ($0).

All databases have their problems and vulnerabilities.. but MySQL seems to be the high target for hacks these days.. just like Internet Explorer leads the way for browser hacks and Microsoft Windows for operating system hacks.  Whatever is being used 'the most by the least experienced' is prime stuff for hackers to go after.

But, short version,   use whatever DB you want :)

[andrewliu]

Thanks!

So storing credit card information is not a bad idea? just as long as it is properly secured right? or can CIM work where you can store users credit card information into Authorize.net website but also display say, last 4 digits of the card on site to users profile credit card information pages?

Thank you!