Authorize.net - Multiple Shopper Groups

[millermulti]

Hello, I'm looking for a better solution to my problem dealing with multiple Shopper Groups and Authorize.net.

Here is my set up: Joomla 1.5, VirtueMart 1.1.2, SSL enabled. I have the default shopper's group and a second group for Wholesale shoppers. The wholesaler's get their own pricing.

Problem: I set up the Credit Card payment method with all of my Authorize.net information. After a little troubleshooting, I was able to get orders to go through as a default shopper. If I placed an order as a Wholesale user, I would get errors when checking out:

Error: Failure in Processing the Payment. Technical Note: The required transaction key is empty! The payment method settings must be reviewed.
Error: Failure in Processing the Payment (ps_authorize)

I saw some talk in the forum regarding this error and multiple Groups. As I need the Wholesale group I'm not 100% sure how to resolve the error.

Partial fix: I do have a partial fix, I created a second Credit Card Payment Method using the same information as my default Credit Card only with this new method I made the Shopper Group my Wholesale group. Now when a wholesale member checks out they see both the default Credit Card and my new Wholesale Credit Card options. Selecting the Wholesale CC option fixes the problem.

My question is, Have I somehow set up my Wholesale group improperly so that it can't use the default credit card method for check out or is this a VirtueMart issue? Anyone have a solution to have multiple groups but only one Authorize.net CC method.

Any help would be appreciated.

[sacramentojoe]

I am having the same issue. This doesn't seem right to me.
Any ideas of a fix yet?

[ltllzrd]

I need this fixed as well. It seems so counter intuitive to not allow multiple shopper groups for a payment method.

[Rod Martin]

this is really huge.... has anyone figured this out yet??

I can't rely on users to pick the right CC!!!

[VGarcia]

This is the same problem I'm having. I'm not sure why the methods don't filter up, like Joomla content does, e.g. Anything "default" can do, "wholesale" should be able to do, too. It should be more restrictive as you go, but should flow through. For now, I'll be using the same solution you are. At least something works. But I just spent waaaay too much troubleshooting this . . .

[_stu]

Here's how I got around this issue:
When /administrator/components/com_virtuemart/classes/payments/ps_authorize.php retrieves the Transaction Key, it verifies the shopper_group_id matches the shopper group of the logged in user. One solution would be to remove this (AND shopper_group_id='".$auth['shopper_group_id']."') from the SQL on line 269. However, this is a code hack, and would require maintenance if the code was upgraded.

The preferred solution is to duplicate the retail credit card payment method for retailers and not make it active. It was necessary to walk all the way through the setup, including the transaction key. Making the payment method active only displays it on checkout. It does not prevent the code from retreiving the transaction key for the payment method/shopper group.

Note, I did modify the error code (embedded in ps_authorize.php) to tell the shopper that they are not authorized to use a credit card.

[Bill]

I'm having the same exact problem as everyone else here...

The only thing that works for me is to use _stu's hack and remove (AND shopper_group_id='".$auth['shopper_group_id']."') from /administrator/components/com_virtuemart/classes/payments/ps_authorize.php.

Hope someone can come up with a better solution.  At least this works.

Bill

[larrysm]

Thanks to _stu

What worked for me was the preferred solution mentioned by stu. I didn't understand at first, but basically you need to create a copy of the payment method for each group, but you don't need them all to be active.
So right now I have 3 copies of Credit Card method for authorize.net for each of my 3 shopper groups, but only the -default- group is active.

I guess this was the original thinking for the shopper group SQL statement mentioned by _stu - that you need to purposely enable each group to use the method. Maybe this was documented somewhere and I missed it. However it could be a little smoother if a payment method has both an "enable for shopper group" and a "show on checkout" setting in order to be explicit.

Thanks again
Larry

[ou81aswell]

Do you have multiple payment methods using ps_authorize? Even if they are disabled, they may be selected internaly when the transaction fires:

http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=58552.0