Complete PHP example

[oldbrit]

I don't understand why Click and Pledge can't provide a complete php example that shows the complete processing of a credit card for a donation - including the error processing, etc.

Click and Pledge has some great features and is worth what they charge. The sole reason for going with PayPal or Authorize.net is because of the lack of support for the Click and Pledge API. Our assessment for the moment is that the cost of a programmer to develop a complete Click and Pledge API form with all of the processing for errors, etc. is more expensive than paying $20 or $30 per month to PayPal or Authorize.net.

We estimate it would take 40 hours or so for a programmer to learn the Click and Pledge API, create a form, write the supporting scripts, and test it sufficiently to put it in a live system. -- That would pay for 3 or 4 years of monthly fees to PayPal or Authorize.net.

This means that the risk is much less going with PayPal or Authorize.net than going with Click and Pledge. We pay the monthly fee and know we have a working solution with the others. With Click and Pledge, we could spend a bunch of up-front money on a programmer and not have a working solution -- or it could cost much more to implement than we estimated.

We also think that if we had a complete working example such as those provided by PayPal or Authorize.net, we could create the form, supporting scripts, and test it in 5 to 10 hours -- Which would be cost-effective and low-risk.

Every API has some gotcha's which can be avoided with a good example that can be tailored for use.

If it is reasonably simple to use the API, why do you (Click and Pledge) promise examples and then only provide a php test rig instead of an actual example?

By making excuses for not providing a complete example, all you do is create the impression that using the API is difficult, requires a high-level of PHP expertise, and an expensive investment in programmers to create a simple example. -- Which only increases the risk of going with Click and Pledge.

Surely, the Click and Pledge programmers could produce a simple example showing a complete transaction in an hour or two.

But, given that no examples exist, it appears that Click and Pledge programmers can't produce a complete example in a reasonable amount of time, or they would have produced one. Again, increasing the risk of using Click and Pledge.

Surely, they already have some examples that just need a little bit of packaging to distribute them. How did the programmers even test the api unless they wrote a complete example or two? If the programmers don't have these test examples, the risk goes up again.

Since Click and Pledge programmers apparently can't produce a simple and complete processing example, why would anyone commit to Click and Pledge unless they have significant programming resources? And, if an organization has that level of resources, why wouldn't they simply implement Authorize.net or another payment processor that provides complete examples which can be tailored in 25 minutes?

The perceived risk of going with Click and Pledge is simply too high compared to better-understood processing systems. That's why the decision makers in my organization decided to use PayPal and are debating whether or not to pay the $30.00 per month for PayPal's virtual terminal or to go with Authorize.net.

I've lost credibility by arguing for Click and Pledge, so, now, I'm arguing for Authorize.net instead of Click and Pledge.

Click and Pledge has some great features and is worth what they charge. The sole reason for going with PayPal or Authorize.net is the risk associated with the lack of support for the Click and Pledge API. Initially, Click and Pledge was the obvious choice because there is no monthly fee and the non-profit oriented features -- until we understood what would be required to implement the API.

Our software has built-in PayPal and Authorize.net interfaces. If you assume that a complete Click and Pledge API form with processing could be produced with 40 hours of programming and testing, at $30.00 per hour, that's $1,200 - which pays the PayPal monthly fee for 40 months and doesn't require upfront payment to a programmer.

I've asked the director to complete the Authorize.net application so that we can use authorize.net instead. We already have the Authorize.net interface and the cost is $20.00 per month.

In both cases, the discount rate on each transaction is 1.0 to 2.0 percent cheaper than Click and Pledge. So, if we are successful in fund-raising, we will do better by using Authorize.net or PayPal.

Sorry for the negative post, but I keep seeing many questions that could be answered with a simple example. It's very frustrating. It probably costs Click and Pledge more to answer these questions over and over again in one month than it would cost them to create a complete PHP example.

Liz

[CnP.Support]

PHP Example

Hi Liz,

Thank you for your comments. Your comments are not by any means negative and no need to be sorry for constructive comments.

I understand your comments but would like to provide a little insight into what we are doing.

Our philosophy for any development is to create a platform and not simply provide simple solutions that are more like patches and not a complete solution. Our API is an extensive solution. It is integrated with Salesforce, ConstantContact, MailChimp, Twitter, and the upcoming Click & Pledge social platform. Considering the RaaS and FaaS services the solution is quite impressive with its offering.

This week we are releasing the PHP library which provides complete integration with the API. By the end of September we are releasing a familty of widgets that provide various solutions for ticketing, shopping carts, and a few other applications that I rather not discuss prior to release. The delivery date is October 1, 2009.

I understand that you feel the solution is not complete but the solution is also 4 months old and with the RaaS and FaaS platforms I hope you appreciate the depth of the product. PayPal, Authorize.net, and other gateways are not comparable with our platform. We are not about credit card processing, we are a platform that offers so many integrated options making a programmer's life easy that is not even comparable with the likes of PayPal. Frankly PayPal is a simple solution and is the number one company that people switch to us from. We have four bank partners that sign up all their clients with Click & Pledge. We also have over 100 partners that include our system with all their offerings.

Options such as eTickets, name badges, receipts, PDF receipts, third party integration options, upcoming eChecks, and a lot more are integrated into the API which is simple to use by adding simple tags.

We have many clients that are using Click & Pledge's API. We are told by many developers that our API is quite simple. The last client I am aware of went live over a weekend from start to finish and started to accept money for their campaign on Monday.

As I said before we have a lot that is coming shortly .. we hope you come back and visit our site this week and towards the end of September when these products are released. We also have a few big products that will be released based on the API in November .. stay tuned.

Let me know if we can answer any specific questions.

Regards,

Kamran Razvan
CEO
Click & Pledge

[oldbrit]

Perhaps, you don't understand my point about examples

Our philosophy for any development is to create a platform and not simply provide simple solutions that are more like patches and not a complete solution. Our API is an extensive solution. It is integrated with Salesforce, ConstantContact, MailChimp, Twitter, and the upcoming Click & Pledge social platform. Considering the RaaS and FaaS services the solution is quite impressive with its offering.

Kamran Razvan
CEO
Click & Pledge

As an aside, please note the number of people who have read this post. I think that indicates an interest in some solid examples.

You seem to have missed my point. It isn't that we would only be interested in simple solutions. The reason for simple but complete examples is that they communicate very effectively how to use the API and can then be built upon to use the advanced features.

Also, a simple working example can be plugged in to a website and tested. If the example doesn't work, the problems with the website platform, and misunderstandings about parameters such as userid, etc., can be resolved before doing any serious customization.

There's nothing worse than building something based on a specification and have it not work - Is it my coding? Is it my server? Is it??

The point is that simple, but complete examples are extremely useful -- not as the endpoint -- but as an excellent way to easily get started, test the customer's environment, and resolve issues at the very beginning - when they are more easily solved.

I must say that I am rather surprised that you defend the lack of examples by pointing out that others have used the API successfully.

As I said in my post, the perceived risk of proceeding without knowing the difficulty or complexities involved to make the API work are rather high compared to simply using Authorize.net or PayPal and the programming expense of setting up your API would pay for many months of these other processors.

You might want to determine how many of your customers actually use the advance features at the very beginning. I'll bet that most of them start out with simple contribution processing and then add Salesforce, name badges, and other advanced features later.

I'll go a step further and tell you that management of my organization doesn't see the benefit of the advanced features. They want to collect legally required reporting data, process credit cards through the website, and have a virtual terminal.

HOWEVER: I can assure you, that were they to use your platform, they would come to recognize the value of the advanced features. Managers are often blind in this way. Part of what prompted me to suggest Click and Pledge - without even mentioning the advanced features - was my belief that the advanced features will become important to them in the future.

The problem is that I can't get them over the hurdle of spending the upfront money required to setup and test the API compared to the costs involved in using Authorize.net or PayPal.

And, without a working example, I have to over-estimate the cost of implementing your API. They would be happy if I over-estimated and it cost less, but I would lose any credibility I have if I told them it could be implemented in a weekend and it actually took 60 hours to implement and test.

If I had a complete working example, I could plug it in and immediately know the EXACT amount of time required to implement the solution we need.

Without that, I can't convince my management to use Click and Pledge because we know exactly how much it will cost to implement Authorize.net. And, I'm not going to risk my own credibility without actually seeing working Click and Pledge API code running on the website.

I've delayed the decision as long as I can. The only other possibility is if we found a programmer who has implemented your API multiple times and could give us a fixed price for doing the work.

Liz

[CnP.Support]

Complete PHP Examples

Hi Liz;

We just updated the manual:

https://developers.clickandpledge.com/WordDocuments/formsamples.htm

We worked on 3 examples for PHP and we will be adding more examples as we find needs for.

Here are 3 forms that are in PHP:

• https://demo.clickits.clickandpledge...mples/php/001/
• https://demo.clickits.clickandpledge...mples/php/002/
• https://demo.clickits.clickandpledge...mples/php/003/


The files are available for download through the link in the developer's site.

Please let us know if you wish to see more detailed examples.

Each of the above forms were developed to address a specific aspect of the API. If you like to see a different example highlighting a feature let us know and we can develop it for everyone to see.

Looking forward to hearing back from you.