Payflow Pro

Payflow Pro is a server-to-server payment option for businesses who have a merchant account. Unlike Express Checkout, it doesn’t require redirecting the user to PayPal’s site and allows a customer to use a normal bankcard instead of their PayPal account. Read more details on the PayPal site.

Note

This version of the library was built using the PP_PayflowPro_Guide.pdf guide found in the docs/guides folder. It is recommended that developers at least skim-read this guide so that they are familiar with the overall processes. It also has magic bankcard numbers that can be used for testing. Find the latest developer docs on the PayPal site.

Getting started

You’ll need to create an Payflow account with PayPal in order to get a:

  • Vendor ID
  • Username (usually same as vendor ID)
  • Password
  • Partner ID (normally “PayPal” when you register directly with PayPal)

In practice, you only really need a vendor ID and a password. Add settings to your project with your credentials:

# settings.py
...
PAYPAL_PAYFLOW_VENDOR_ID = 'mypaypalaccount'
PAYPAL_PAYFLOW_PASSWORD = 'asdfasdfasdf'

Next steps

The next steps are to plumb the payment gateway into your checkout and order processing. There is no one-size-fits-all solution here - your implementation will depend on your business model.

A good way to start is to browse the sandbox project within the repo - this is a fully integrated Oscar site.

Note that in an Oscar site, you should only consume the API of the paypal.payflow.facade module.

For checkout integration, you’ll typically want the PaymentDetailsView in the following ways:

  • Override the get_context_data method to provide a bankcard and billing address form.
  • Override the post method to validate the forms and render them again in the preview view (but hidden).
  • Override the handle_payment method of your checkout’s PaymentDetailsView to call either the authorize or sale method of the facade depending on whether you are using one- or two-stage payment processing.

For general order processing integration, you’ll likely need to adjust your EventHandler to make calls to the PayPal facade when certain shipping events occur. For instance, you may call delayed_capture when items ship in order to capture the funds at that stage.

You can log into your Payflow account to manage transactions under review and view reports. https://manager.paypal.com/

Settings

Required settings:

PAYPAL_PAYFLOW_VENDOR_ID
Your merchant login ID created when you registered the account with PayPal.
PAYPAL_PAYFLOW_PASSWORD
Your merchant password.

Optional settings:

PAYPAL_PAYFLOW_CURRENCY
The 3 character currency code to use for transactions. Defaults to ‘USD’.
PAYPAL_PAYFLOW_USER
The ID of the user authorised to process transations. If you only have one user on the account, then this is the same as the VENDOR_ID and there is no need to specify it.
PAYPAL_PAYFLOW_PARTNER
The ID provided by a PayPal reseller. If you created your account directly with PayPal, then the value to use is "PayPal - this is the default.
PAYPAL_PAYFLOW_PRODUCTION_MODE
Whether to use PayPal’s production servers. This defaults to False but should be set to True in production.
PAYPAL_PAYFLOW_DASHBOARD_FORMS
Whether to show forms within the transaction detail page which allow transactions to be captured, voided or credited. Defaults to False.

Not included

  • Recurring billing
  • Account verification (TRXTYPE=A)
  • Voice authorisation (TRXTYPE=F)
  • SWIPE transactions (eg card present)
  • Non-referenced credits (eg refunding to an arbitrary bankcard). All refunds must correspond to a previously settled transaction.

Using without Oscar

To use Payflow Pro without an Oscar install, you need to use the paypal.payflow.gateway module directly. This module is agnostic of Oscar and can be used independently.

The paypal.payflow.facade module is a bridging module that provides a simpler API designed to link Oscar to the gateway module.

API

Facade

Gateway