Protx VSP Direct v2.0.0

[cmwoods]

Hi

I have a small problem which hopefully for me can be fixed. When the basket contents get sent to Protx via your v3 mod, what we call our "Packing and Carriage" charge of £4.95 inc VAT seems appears in the VSP Admin as "Shipping" at £4.95, which no ex VAT and VAT split.

Zen Cart treats this correctly so I am assuming it is your module which is responsible for this slight problem. If it is, can it be fixed or if it is something else, can you advise on who to speak to.

Thanks

--
Chris Woods

[conor]

Hi Chris,

How are you?

Zen Cart treats this correctly so I am assuming it is your module which is responsible for this slight problem. If it is, can it be fixed or if it is something else, can you advise on who to speak to.

What exactly do you mean by "treats this correctly"?

The information about the shopping basket that is sent to Protx is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be used as anything other than a convenience... the main Zen Cart order information is the only definitive order information for an order.

The "shipping" information that the module sends is taken directly from the order information using the following code:

$shipping = $order->info['shipping_cost'] 

The protx module doesn't attempt to calculate shipping/packing costs in any way and simply reads and forwards on the information provided to it by Zen Cart.

Unfortunately Zen Cart currently has the nasty habit of combining all the tax subtotals together into one overall total so it's not an easy job to work out how much (if any) of the shipping cost is tax and therefore the module just doesn't bother.

As I said, the cart details is for informational purposes and convenience only so the effort involved in performing these calculations just can't be justified at this time.

Sorry I can't be more help than that!

If this information is essential to you then you could get a developer to write a function to tot up the totals for the basket's line items, get their tax total, subtract any discounts etc. and then get the final total for tax left over that must belong to shipping.... all doable but as you can tell, quite a bit of work! :)

[cmwoods]

Hi Chris,

How are you?

I am fine, thanks for asking. How are you?

What exactly do you mean by "treats this correctly"?

I mean, that when I enter the shipping cost in the flat-rate option, I enter the ex VAT figure. For every order, the total VAT figure also includes the VAT element of the "Packing and Carriage" charge so Zen is working as I need it to.

If this information is essential to you then you could get a developer to write a function to tot up the totals for the basket's line items, get their tax total, subtract any discounts etc. and then get the final total for tax left over that must belong to shipping.... all doable but as you can tell, quite a bit of work! :)

I know what the VAT on the "Packing and Carriage" would be all the time, 74p with the ex VAT figure being £4.21. We only have the one carriage charge at the moment. As the Protx system is what connects to the banks, our accounts people and the taxman really need to see the VAT charged on the "Packing and Carriage" charge. Is there a quick hack which can be made for now to give us some breathing space??

Thanks

[conor]

Hi Chris,

I am fine, thanks for asking. How are you?

Getting there, thanks! :)

I know what the VAT on the "Packing and Carriage" would be all the time, 74p with the ex VAT figure being £4.21. We only have the one carriage charge at the moment. As the Protx system is what connects to the banks, our accounts people and the taxman really need to see the VAT charged on the "Packing and Carriage" charge. Is there a quick hack which can be made for now to give us some breathing space??

Erm, your accounts people should really be taking the order information from the Zen Cart orders database, rather than the payment gateway's transaction database. Protx's records are more about the card processing records, which is really just the security information and total balance. The cart details are actually a nicety which Protx provides to make the VSP admin more functional and intuitive... most other payment gateways don't provide this information at all.

Are you saying that your accounts people interact solely with your VSP admin and not your actual store?

I can see how that could actually be quite handy and will be offering a suggestion on how to make things work the way you want them to work below but I felt it important to point out that you are using the sytems in a way they weren't designed to be used.

Since your shipping is resulting in a standard charge, you can introduce a "kludge" to the module's code, specific for your site, which will output the information as you require it.

This kludge is completely inflexible though so please be aware that it will output the same information for every order irrespective of shipping method chosen/used...

The line you will want to change is line 1128 of /includes/modules/payment/protx_direct.php:

$cart_string .= ":Shipping:1:" . $shipping_formatted . ":----:" . $shipping_formatted . ":" . $shipping_formatted; 

Change it to:

$cart_string .= ":Shipping:1:4.21:0.74:4.95:4.95" 

It should be pretty obvious what's being done above so I don't think I need to explain it, but if any of the values need changed, obviously just adjust them as required!

As I've said though, this isn't a standard or recommended way to use the system, but if it's what you want then it's what you want! :)

Please also remember that you'll have to manually apply this change each time you update the Protx Direct module (although no upgrades are planned for the near future as there are currently no known issues! :) ).

[jameswilson]

Conor
Thanks for the replies
I must admit i have done nothing with the css as i didnt understand the instruction. This might be where my problom lies.
On looking at the doc of the v3 module it talks about adding css comments but i dont know what i should be adding and more importantly to what lol

Thanks, James

hope your fixing up nicely

[conor]

Hi James,

I must admit i have done nothing with the css as i didnt understand the instruction. This might be where my problom lies.

CSS is a technology used to lay out HTML pages. It allows you to specify styles which can be applied to HTML elements by type (e.g. h1, h2, p) or by tagging an element with a class or id.

The Protx Direct module uses CSS classes in some of the templates supplied with the module so that you can style the module to suit your shop.

To style the elements provided by the Protx Direct module you have to put some CSS styles into a file called a stylesheet which comes along with Zen Cart.

Open the file

includes/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/css/stylesheet.css

in your Zen Cart installation and add the following lines to the bottom of it:

.ProtxDirectCardsAcceptedSideboxCardIcon { margin-left: 4px; margin-bottom: 4px; }

.ProtxDirectCardsAcceptedSidebox3DSecureIcon { margin-left: 4px; margin-bottom: 4px; }

.ProtxDirectFormGadgetError { background: #FF6633; }

.ProtxDirectCardIcon { margin-right: 4px; margin-bottom: 4px; }

If the above file doesn't exist, create it by copying across the file:

includes/templates/template_default/css/stylesheet.css

to the above directory, substituting your template's name for YOUR_TEMPLATE :)


Hope that helps!

[smudge]

Hi,
I have 2 problems with 3.2.2 on Zencart 1.2.6 which I hope someone may be able to shed some light on. I have read all mesages in this thread and docs.

1. Step (3) code snippet for retaining credit card details
This is not working for me after amending what I think are the correct files. In my version of Zencart 1.2.6 I have header_php.php NOT header.php as per the documentation! If Iuse the 1.3.x instuctions it checkout_payment (step 2 of 3) fails to load.

2. I have a Plesk based host which has proven difficult install via Pear. I have installed Crypt_Blowfish manually as per instructions and the Admin show this as OK. With the Crypt directory in place step 3 of 3 checkout_confirmation.php fail with a blank page!

Thanks
Paul

[conor]

Hi Paul,

1. Step (3) code snippet for retaining credit card details
This is not working for me after amending what I think are the correct files. In my version of Zencart 1.2.6 I have header_php.php NOT header.php as per the documentation! If Iuse the 1.3.x instuctions it checkout_payment (step 2 of 3) fails to load.

You have to use 1.2.x's instructions of course! :) However, you are right, the files to be modified are header_php.php not header.php, that was a typo! I've updated the docs but won't be releasing a new version for such a minor change. However, read on as it looks as if you may as well skip this step...

2. I have a Plesk based host which has proven difficult install via Pear. I have installed Crypt_Blowfish manually as per instructions and the Admin show this as OK. With the Crypt directory in place step 3 of 3 checkout_confirmation.php fail with a blank page!

Unfortunately your host doesn't support PEAR at all then.

My first recommendation would be to move host if possible. If that's not possible then you'll have to remove the Crypt_Blowfish files and run the module without encryption support.

I'm afraid they appear to be the only two options open to you with your host.

It' s not a disaster but it's not a great situation to be in either as potentially anyone with access to your PHP sessions directory can now read credit card details of the currently logged in customers. (They'd have to be on the lookout for this but that's not an impossibility on a shared host).

Sorry I can't be of any more help!

[jameswilson]

Hi James,



CSS is a technology used to lay out HTML pages. It allows you to specify styles which can be applied to HTML elements by type (e.g. h1, h2, p) or by tagging an element with a class or id.

The Protx Direct module uses CSS classes in some of the templates supplied with the module so that you can style the module to suit your shop.

To style the elements provided by the Protx Direct module you have to put some CSS styles into a file called a stylesheet which comes along with Zen Cart.

Open the file

includes/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/css/stylesheet.css

in your Zen Cart installation and add the following lines to the bottom of it:

.ProtxDirectCardsAcceptedSideboxCardIcon { margin-left: 4px; margin-bottom: 4px; }

.ProtxDirectCardsAcceptedSidebox3DSecureIcon { margin-left: 4px; margin-bottom: 4px; }

.ProtxDirectFormGadgetError { background: #FF6633; }

.ProtxDirectCardIcon { margin-right: 4px; margin-bottom: 4px; }

If the above file doesn't exist, create it by copying across the file:

includes/templates/template_default/css/stylesheet.css

to the above directory, substituting your template's name for YOUR_TEMPLATE :)


Hope that helps!

Coner
Many thanks for trying I have done as you say but the images are still too wide, ie all the cards are on one line and is too wide, I have manually added the images to my main page and will leave it at that for now

James

[YorkshirePetShop]

Is it possible to use this module to allow customers to order as normal and have an option to use the moto account, so staff can put orders through the zen cart site as normal, but without getting the 3d secure pages?

Protex have mentioned creating a seperate button for staff to use and change the AccountType parameter from E to M. (as mentioned at the bottom of page 40 in this document: http://www.protx.com/downloads/docs/...nGuideline.pdf )

Not sure how that will work, as everyone could just use the staff button to bypass the 3D stuff (unless IP addresses could be used.)

I've tried to work it out myself, but I'm no programmer so I'm not sure what I'm looking for.

We need this as we need the orders to be entered into the zen cart database as it is integreated into Sage.

Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks

Warren