Hi Everyone,
I am pretty new to this product and need to create some integrations. We make use of the ARB functionality and I saw that there are some great emails sent out when something happens (such as subscriptions or credit cards that are about to expire). My question however is whether such information can be accessed thru some means other than email. Is there a query or api call I can do that would get me the same information or is the only way to parse the emails?
Thanks,
Willie.
01-23-2012 03:11 PM
You can get an ARB subscription status using the ARBGetSubscriptionStatusResponse API call but of course that won't do you any good until after the subscription is suspended. Other then that you can only really monitor subscriptions via those emails. You can sort of keep track of the subscriptions using Silent Post and the Transaction Details API but they won't really tell you when a subscription is about to expire, etc, like those emails will. Of course you can keep track of when a customer's card is about to expire in your database as well, if you don't mind the extra overhead and the potential PCI compliance issues depending on how you implement that system.
01-23-2012 05:56 PM
Kind of defeats the purpose of using ARB if you're going to store credit card data in your own system. Don't even mention that as an option. About all you can do is set up a Silent Post page and detect transaction failures, then update the subscription status in your db and send the customer an email with a link to a page where they can update their credit card info (obviously, with some sort of hash code and/or user login for security purposes)
01-23-2012 09:35 PM
Thanks for your replies TJPride and stymiee.
This is a bit of a downer to say the least. Is there a way to file a feature request?
But moving toward an automatic solution: are there any examples of the emails that are sent so I can start to think about a parser for them?
Thanks again for your help!
Willie.
01-24-2012 10:27 AM
The Authorize.Net team follows these forums and makes a note of all feature requests so you can be sure they'll make a note of this. That doesn't mean it is going to happen, or if it is that it is going to happen soon, but it is something they will consider. They are always looking to improve their products.
01-24-2012 11:30 AM
Just in case someone is also looking for the ARB email samples I ended up finding them here:
http://support.authorize.net/authkb/index?page=content&id=A497&actp=LIST_POPULAR
01-25-2012 11:25 AM
Hey Willie,
Glad you found what you needed in our Support Center. But I'm also forwarding your feedback to our development teams anyway. That'd be a good feature!
Thanks for the feedback.
Michelle
Developer Community Manager
01-27-2012 02:10 PM
Awesome! I look forward to being able to ditch this parsing code I am writing right now :)
Thanks,
Willie.
01-27-2012 02:30 PM