Actinic Payments first review

[outdooraction]

Hi all
[before i start im writing this as someone who didnt have a psp, but processed order through a pdq machine]

We have been set up on the new actinics psp service and just want to write a few words about it.
We are on the pilot sceme and been using it for the first time over the last few days.
First impressions are extreammly positive, having the preauthorize set up and all the buttons within actinic has made life about an hour a day quicker, also having the refund button there will speed up our returns procedure for our customers.
We are with RBS, and we require 2 merchant numbers one for the website payment and a second for moto payments through the offline orders tab in v9. this may well vary from bank aquirer if 2 numbers are required

Beacuse actinic doesnt have a live stock control, there are times when we have either sold out or over sold, because we have set it up on preautherize money doesnt get taken till i say so, which does look good on the customers point of view.

The look of the psp page is very professional and very soon will have a limited adaptedability to your own website.

The niggles we have had are, when taking maestro, Seceure code has to be enabled, which in turn has enabled it on both visa and mastercard, we havent seen to much of a problem so far, but a couple of orders havent gone through because its there, [unsure if this is not good because of revenue, or good because it wasnt a fraud user]

The reports are very versitile and can be accessed online at any time, can be viewed from day to day on multiple days up to years. and also when being debited to your account over nigh show up in either visa, mastercard or maestro.

All in all we have been very please with what we have now, and i just want to send my praises to Neil, Darren and Daniel at actinic who hasve been a fantastic help with all my questions and problems we have had over the past week, [Pay rises are needed for this lot]

if anything elses pops up ill let you all know, or if you have questions fire away.

PLEASE STOP PLACING TEST ORDERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HERE IS A SCREEN SHOT

http://www.outdooraction.co.uk/actinicscreen.jpg

[RuralWeb]

hmmmm cannot say I'm that impressed tbh. Basic things like shop name and SSL certificate are missing. Also the logo looks pants if this is to become a credable system then it needs to have some brand - all actinic means to most people is a hair loss problem. I thought it wasbuilt on the biggest provider in the Market not a hairdressing salon.

Sorry I'm not that positive but as jo public I would not put my card details in

[TraceyHand]

hmmmm cannot say I'm that impressed tbh. Basic things like shop name and SSL certificate are missing. Also the logo looks pants if this is to become a credable system then it needs to have some brand - all actinic means to most people is a hair loss problem. I thought it wasbuilt on the biggest provider in the Market not a hairdressing salon.

Sorry I'm. Of that positive but as jo public I would not put my card details in

I have to say I was less than impressed also.
The payment page itself is 'bland' looking and, as Malcolm says, doesn't inspire shopping confidence.
Additionally, there's a security warning bug in Firefox so I've been deterred from putting AP live yet ..this is supposed to be getting sorted for 8.5.4/9.0.2 so we'll see what happens then.

Sure, the reporting etc is good..I delved about a bit. The interface in Actinic with 9.0.1 is obviously a big plus (I'm on 8.5.3 so can't comment on that yet) and being able to set things like address/postcode/cv2 checking and 3d secure from the 'configure method' option in Actinic is good too (when you know it's there :rolleyes: )

I'm just not 100% convinced yet...but we'll see

[RuralWeb]

thinking about it a bit more I think I prefer the old SSL page at least it did not look like you were buying hair conditioner.

I cannot believe they have been working on this all this time to get it so wrong. Yes the reporting may be good but you need sales first. They need to read the recent thread about SSL.

[RuralWeb]

perhaps the op would like to give us his online order figures before and after fitting ap also the checkout abandondment figures to illustrate if the new system has improved things or not. I'm not really that interested in post sales stuff I want good conversions and this does not look good so far. I will need to hear of a good number of increased conversions before I move anyone from hsbc onto it

I'm not completely negative as I have a client who is interested in it but it will take alot to convince me to recommend a change.

[Jan]

I like Actinic payments, as soon as I can, I will move to it, there are a couple of admin issues stopping me ATM but like my move to business post for a courier where suddenly all parcels sent were delivered, I think that moving to Actinic payments will ensure that all payments are taken (and they certainly are not ATM)

Regards,

[RuralWeb]

how will ap ensure payments are taken??? Clients I have on other psps get very few failed payments so I don't see how it will improve things unless I'm missing something.

[leehack]

The worst thing about this all IMO is the way it has lost impetus and in both recent versions releases, it doesn't do as fully expected and now has to be fixed. I have had a real good feeling over this for the past few months, i am just plain bored waiting to see it happen now. I have 2 builds on hold until V9 is classed as stable and AP is released and working, it's crazy really that we are now thinking of using 8.5.2 instead on one of the builds.

Brand name aside, the worst problem i see with this is the very unfair bad press it will get when it goes down and is not working. I don't see a way round this unfortunately, after years of trouble free service with HSBC, plus some exceedingly generous compensation payments after, HSBC is still publically flogged, you can just imagine what will be said about AP when it happens.

Lets all keep our fingers crossed and hope that the delays are because this is going to be released without a hitch and bring a smile to many of our faces. However bad it may look, i simply cannot wait to get rid of Actinic shared SSL, that is a definite 8-pinter.

[TraceyHand]

I think 3d secure/Mastercard securecode are to 'blame' for the majority of payment drop outs so I don't see AP making any difference there.

Compared to Protx, however, I would expect to see an improvement as I get a number of customers call me because they are unable to proceed to the Protx pages.

I still get a significant number of 'unpaid' orders that should have gone through Protx and, for whatever reason (browser/3d secure) don't.

As long as that improvement (assumed improvement, obviously) isn't cancelled out by customers being deterred by the 'look/feel' of the interface, that is.

[RuralWeb]

I would assume that 3d will exist on ap as well so I cannot see how it will improve failed payments. As lee says if it goes down and there are lots of actinic sites on it then the cost to actinic could be huge.

I will not have any sites using it for a long time yet so I will watch user experiences with interest.

[Darren B]

Compared to Protx, however, I would expect to see an improvement as I get a number of customers call me because they are unable to proceed to the Protx pages.

To me this is not an issue, i do wonder how much users effect this and also hosting issuess, If i have a problem payment i normaly get an email sayin they did not understand the 3d thingy or the payment 3 orders later, maybe a bit of clicking back aswell

As for the AP i found the payment page completely amature to be honest, a custome page to suit the site really needs to be avaliable, im not saying it cant have actinic on it but jees it is bloody awfull.

As for when it go's down, your right it will probabaly get a bigger kicking than the others, for ages everyone has praised HSBC but i think the last few months has shown that it is not a case of if but when. Regardless of the compensation offered, it happened twice. Protx got a slagging for there upgrades, caused no end of problems for some and very little for others. But they got a beating. I hope actinic have there tin hats on when it does happen.

ooh i see no one has mention GC lately :D

D

[Mike Hughes]

I agree completely. The page has to be fully customisable.

For a customer to order they have to trust the people they're doing business with and that means both the shop and the payment processor. So there are really only two sensible options for successful integration of a PSP.

1. Use a brand that people will know and trust (i.e. HSBC, paypal etc) or

2. Make it look like your website as they already have enough trust to order from you.

Anything else and you're asking for trouble.

Ignoring the look for the moment. The layout of the payment page is completely useless. Who in the world thinks that the way to show an address is to split it into 2 columns? Completely illogical and unreadable.

Mike

[RuralWeb]

nothing against the op but why test a new psp with a user who has never used one before. To someone who has only used SSL and processed offline then this would look like the Hubble space telescope but put up against a current Psp it looks like one of those plastic telescopes you buy at Blackpool.

I cannot understand why the test group did not include users experienced in psps as all these issues would have been spotted immediately and an this negativity avoided. If there were any experienced psp users involved then they were not up to much IMO.

Unfortunately things move on fast in the ecommerce world and the trend now is for the use of third party card holders eg good old GC. It is now over a year since I started the wish list for gc and I must say that I now join the people who argue that gc is a must have for ecommerce as g is integrating it into everything it does.

[leehack]

My reaction when I first saw the page was the same, WTH are those addresses doing, surely beside each other and displayed as we actually read/write addresses, thus reducing the length of the page by half is a much better idea.

I thought the colours and the design looked very dated too, so also hope that will become customisable. This forum actually looks more modern than AP at the moment. I liked the clear amount on show, in fact I would say this could even be a bit clearer, but the overall look is just second grade IMO. It simply has to look more professional, all it does mainly at the moment is make me think what on earth is this, instead of filling me with confidence.

It needs to be softened with rounded corners to look more modern also I feel.

I've seen enough design from the actinic end, why don't you throw up a design contest to get some ideas on how it could look.

[leehack]

To someone who has only used SSL and processed offline then this would look like the Hubble space telescope but put up against a current Psp it looks like one of those plastic telescopes you buy at Blackpool.
This is a very funny analogy.:D

Maybe Actinic are marketing to the smaller sites and thinking a little smaller than we hopefully were. I find it hard to believe that any of my more successful sites would be chomping at the bit to have this included, that's a shame as I had (and still do have) great hopes for this. It just looks out of tune with what people want and this seems to be a recurring theme from my corner. I'd like to see what the masses think to gauge a real opinion. For Actinic Shared SSL users, this will be a great improvement i guess, so a more rounded opinion, especially from it's target audience is probably wise to listen to IMO.

[RuralWeb]

nothing from the op yet. We are asking questions and you offered to answer them or can we have some input from other testers please after all this is what you sign up to when you test for actinic as we all know.

You are now the expert in this area and its our turn to ask for help so can you post a step by step integration guide so we can see the process involved.

[leehack]

The look of the psp page is very professional and very soon will have a limited adaptedability to your own website.
This may be the problem in a nutshell, previous non-PSP users will love it, whereas current PSPers will not. Looks like design is going to be limited also. The feedback on the buttons and the integration sounds very favourable, if they can get the look right, it will open up to many more people i feel.

[Darren B]

To me it sums up what we already know, actinic has and idea and they go with it, the forum has a wealth of information, suggestions comments e.t.c yet they always ignore it, had they read the posts about HSBC, PROTX, e.t.c and customisation of the payment pages then they might have made a good 1st attempt.

But alas i think my decision has now been pushed to us another provider, unfortunatley this could mean actinic are about to miss out on almost a million in sales per annum, which im sure would have generated some money for actinic. Unless they can convince me otherwise.

Mind you after my long discussion with CB a while ago about AP i am a little supprised this is what has been generated.

D

[RuralWeb]

you know this is really winding me up now WTF did they not send out a questionare or start a thread asking for ideas. They keep it so in house that they cock it up every time. Even looking at what the competitors are doing would have produced a better result after all they have all been doing it for years and actinic are the new boys in town. Its basic really if you are starting a new business then you do Market reaserch and harvest all the good ideas out there. The new back office stuff means nothing to the vast majority of my clients so why would they move to this and loose business in the process.

This is exactly like the launch of v8
all over again.

[RuralWeb]

yet again another big issue for actinic raised over a weekend. Come Monday morning they will have lost all thier potential business. I have recently lost a good client because of Psp and other issues with v8 so I've no issues about jumping ship at the moment as it seems we are constantly battling with the software and supporting actinic rather than the other way round.

[Darren B]

Unfortunately Mal, i think its the few that really notice the issues with actinic and the probelms with there focus, developement and support which is a gamble as to who you get.

They have a large customer base and for alot, they use it straight out of the box without chnages and see it as a great package, which it is for that sort of thing, but for the more professional people looking for the edge over other ecommerce sites then actinic lets you down on a number of features.

We are all aware of the many of the missing features and alot wont ever notice, but when you add all these up there is a fare lump missing or in need of some serious work to correct the bugs or make it better.

D

[TraceyHand]

I cannot understand why the test group did not include users experienced in psps as all these issues would have been spotted immediately and an this negativity avoided. If there were any experienced psp users involved then they were not up to much IMO.


I think, for the most part, it did include current PSP users (from conversations I'd had with Neil, that's the impression I got anyway, bearing in mind there are only 10 initial users) but , speaking personally as one of the 'experienced psp users involved', I didn't get to see ANYTHING of the interface until AFTER it was done.

I was given my merchant IDs after I upgraded to 8.5.3 and, when I placed the first couple of trial orders/payments through it, that was the first I'd seen of ANY of it.
Even then, the security warning (in Firefox) was the most glaring issue for me (that and a complete lack of any customer or merchant email confirmation of payment) but I will mention the 'look/feel' of the actual payment page because it IS bland and not very confidence inspiring for the reasons Mike mentioned below.

I'm trying not to be negative about it because it offers a good value service but, if customers are being turned off by the payment page itself then it's a pointless service at best.

I'm sure Actinic will be following this thread but I will mention the concerns to Neil on Monday.

Right, I confess I've only scanned the thread after this part of Mal's post, I just wanted to respond to it before I forget LOL
I'll read the rest now!

[outdooraction]

I am still here
unfortunatly i am not on this forum 247 so cant reply instatly, but have been reading from great interest.

Its seems allot of people are going to be critical, and i appreciate comment, but as i say before form someone who didnt use a psp this is like christmass come early for this system we have. there are niggles which with a new psp there is going to be, but having said that i am aware of other companies who are using it who have nothing but praise for the set up and link with actininc v9

As far as i can tell we have not lost substatantial amount of sales yet beacuse of worried, and to check security of an order has made me more warry and happier to see what is what. i recon its about 5 abandons a day or people putting there wrong information in as i can see duplicate tries

in terms of why i choose actinic, is one its inbuilt and i like actinic, but second because we are already with RBS we already had some extreammly good card rates, unlike some out there. maybe i could of gone elsewhere, but havin it inbuilt and the pre authorize made me go with them.


as i asay i can answer questions but because im not on here 24/ 7 ill reply when i can.

[RuralWeb]

I'm sure it is like Christmas for you as it is a big difference to what you have been used to but its way behind current psps that most people are using.

Its easy to impress users who know no better - dont take that in the wrong way but if they had used someone using hsbc etc then I think the result would have been better.

[outdooraction]

I'm sure it is like Christmas for you as it is a big difference to what you have been used to but its way behind current psps that most people are using.

Its easy to impress users who know no better - dont take that in the wrong way but if they had used someone using hsbc etc then I think the result would have been better.


none taken.

i think your right, maybe time will tell on how well it turns out, but i think out the box all is good, and going well so far for us.

Anything else that pops up ill let you know.

[outdooraction]

Right next person to place a test order but not go through with its Gets it!!!!

Hounestly tough here is a screen shot

http://www.outdooraction.co.uk/actinicscreen.jpg

[RuralWeb]

you are going to get thousands doing it. Actinic should have really launched a demo site for people to play on rather than us all using your live site

[RuralWeb]

Looking on the eKashu website it says:

Customisabe payment pages: You can maintain your brand image by customising the payment pages to the look and feel of your website

So in theory the payment page should be fully customisable

[RuralWeb]

More info here http://www.electronic-payments.co.uk/solutions/eKashu and http://www.ekashu.com/index.php

[RuralWeb]

I get an error on a failed payment HTTP/1.1 405 Method not allowed

[Jan]

how will ap ensure payments are taken???I use Protx ATM and find it to be an unreliable system, a lot of my customers can't enter payments via it at all. I'm expecting AP to be better, I guess I'll find out when I try it.

I have been told that the payments page can be modified by the way.

Regards,

[RuralWeb]

I have been told that the payments page can be modified by the wayIf that is the case and it looks like it is from the other info I have found then it means that we can get rid of the standard actinic page and brand as per the shop which will go a long way to sorting it out IMO.

As previously posted it has got to be shop OR big name branded to be effective. I would also like to see some evidence of page security on there other than the padlock/https eg scanalert or comodo.

[parklifeclothes]

The one thing that has to be changed is the box for Card Verification Value:
although we merchants know what it means, do most customers? surely it would be clearer to have something like CVV Number (3 digit Security Number) and the branding does let it down a fair bit

[TraceyHand]

I use Protx ATM and find it to be an unreliable system, a lot of my customers can't enter payments via it at all. I'm expecting AP to be better, I guess I'll find out when I try it.


Ditto that, Jan and that's why I offered myself ( I don't make a habit of it :p ) as a guinea pig for AP because it has to be more reliable (god help it if it isn't!)

[RuralWeb]

well its already failed on me when a failed payment produced an error rather than taking me back to the store.

[outdooraction]

What error came up rural


and for the rest of you

And im not kidding with the amount of test orders, i know you want to see it, but my figures are being thrown out and i cant tell anymore if people are strugling or you guys checking it out. if you want an hounest opinion of if it is working or putting people off, then

STOP IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[RuralWeb]

I posted the error earlier.

[Mike Hughes]

Perhaps actinic could put it live in test mode on their demo site here: http://www.actinic.co.uk/examples/acatalog/

At least that would stop all the testing one Andrews site.

Mike

[gabrielcrowe]

actinic payments isnt an option to choose on that site, you're right. and it should be.

also: a plain textbox to put card details in, without a padlock, makes me feel uneasy.

[pinbrook]

Can i assume there is no way of customising the AP chackout pages, is seems extremely shortsighed not to allow any customisation or even the bare rudiments of being able to add your own company name to the checkout.

my only info on this is the screen shot provided by outdooraction

http://www.outdooraction.co.uk/actinicscreen.jpg

I've said before how i don't really care about customisation, so i may be doing a U turn here but then i guess i was assuming a minimum level - it takes 30 secs to add the basic customisation to worldpay

Pinbrook Secure Payment Page
This payment page has been created by WorldPay for Pinbrook.net. Please review your purchase details, then select a card or payment to proceed to the next page. on the attached image this the text above is all i've ever changed to the default WP page.

I've noticed at the bottom of the page it makes reference to the fact that WP is part of RBS, this would be better placed at the top of the page to inspire confidence in the brand and maybe add that nat west is part of rbs - then WP would be on a par with HSBC for branding - i guess i'd better put that to WP, and not the good folk of this forum :D

[TraceyHand]

and likewise, with Protx, you can email them with a small logo and it gets added to your payment page just giving better 'flow' between store and PSP.
As it stands, when you move from store to AP, you could be going anywhere and the basic 'look/feel' of the whole thing just doesn't make a customer feel 'easy' parting with their information, IMO.

There HAS to be some basic level of customisation involved. Name or logo or, better still, BOTH to present a less disjointed transition from checkout to payment pages.

[cdicken]

Actinic Payments is customisable by supplying an alternate CSS file - which you reference via a call in the Act_OCCActPayTemplate.html - you'll see there's some example code in there commented out. You can also include references to your own custom images as part of this to supply alternative logo images and background images etc.

There is a full CSS customisation guide written, with some example code for changing all the colours and images. It will be added to the AUG and the knowledge base once Actinic Payments is made fully live.

All the positioning of the address elements are also controlled by CSS so it's probably really easy to move these into a single column. I'll check this out, and might update the default code.

With regards to the rest of this discussion, I haven't been too involved with the Actinic Payments developments personally, so I've asked a member of the team with more experience to comment.

[pinbrook]

which you reference via a call in the Act_OCCActPayTemplate.html this seems like a lazy bit of coding here, why not add the ability to change css in the actinic interface rather than making people maintain something extra?

surely it should be an extra CSS (or the same css as actinic stylesheet) in the drop down for page type.

[TraceyHand]

Actinic Payments is customisable by supplying an alternate CSS file - which you reference via a call in the Act_OCCActPayTemplate.html
Is this also available in 8.5.3? because, while I've located it in my Site1>CommonOCC in V9, I don't see it in v8 :confused:

[Darren B]

Well Chris it looks to me as though actinic have not supplied the testers with enough information then, One of the testers is far from an a beginner and even they were unaware of the options to customise the page?

With regards the images, are these going to be on the same server as the payment pages, if they are called from you own site will this not break the SSL if they are link to external sites? i may have miss understood what you saying though

D

[TraceyHand]

With regards the images, are these going to be on the same server as the payment pages, if they are called from you own site will this not break the SSL if they are link to external sites?

which is probably why we have to email them ourselves to Protx so they can host them along with the payment pages.

[pinbrook]

WP give you an online facility to customise checkout with your own images, you upload to the WP server.

It would be nice to see AP adpot this, rather than the Protx method of emailing images. - make it less labour intensive for actinic and place control with the user

[TraceyHand]

WP give you an online facility to customise checkout with your own images, you upload to the WP server.

It would be nice to see AP adpot this, rather than the Protx method of emailing images. - make it less labour intensive for actinic and place control with the user


I completely agree, Jo
I wasn't suggesting emailing the images was a good idea ... it isn't...who knows when they might (if ever) actually get done at the other end! (although Protx, to be fair, have always done mine within a day, even at the weekend)

I was more emphasizing Darren's point that uploading alongside a customised CSS isn't going to work properly but, definitely, images need to be uploadable, by the merchant, somewhere.

[RuralWeb]

WP give you an online facility to customise checkout with your own images, you upload to the WP serverSecurehosting has the best method I have used. You download a template - customise it and upload - job done.

[Darren B]

To be honest, why is there alwasy a need to over complicate things i will never know, as Mal said and template to download, change and upload would be the best option.

If you break it then thats your fault for removing required elements.

D

[cbarling]

Just a few comments.

As has been stated, you can customise elements of the Actinic Payments payment page. However, if you do, then currently you must store the alternate CSS file and images under an SSL certificate to avoid a security warning. Providing an improved way of customising the site is one of the further developments being considered.

All developments involve a series of compromises. In this particular case, there was a time pressure because of the pressure being put on merchants to comply with PCI DSS. It meant that less of the requirements could be delivered in the time than we might have liked. However, we are planning further developments.

I will put up my hand to one particular mistake. During testing, we identified that you get a security warning when using Firefox. In technical terms it is totally benign, although not necessarily in business terms. To solve it required changes at both Creditcall's and Actinic's ends. Also, I believe that Paypal suffers from the same problem. In the light of this, we decided not to fix this until 9.0.2 (the actual fix has already been coded). We've now decided that this was a wrong decision and we will be releasing a small 9.0.2 with this and a few other critical fixes within the next (very) few weeks.

What was previously v9.0.2 (with performance improvements) will now be v9.0.3.

Another thing. We have been using Actinic Payments live for some time ourselves and have seen no drop off in orders, and many problems solved. From direct feedback received, this seems to be the experience of Actinic merchants who have gone live with Actinic Payments too.

Chris

[TraceyHand]

As has been stated, you can customise elements of the Actinic Payments payment page. However, if you do, then currently you must store the alternate CSS file and images under an SSL certificate to avoid a security warning.
Can I clarify this?
If we choose to customise the payment page then, in order to avoid a security warning (which is a bad, bad thing on payment pages, IMO) , we need our OWN SSL certificate to host the CSS/images on?

[Darren B]

Can I clarify this?
If we choose to customise the payment page then, in order to avoid a security warning (which is a bad, bad thing on payment pages, IMO) , we need our OWN SSL certificate to host the CSS/images on?

Thats the way i read it :rolleyes: so another cost to be added on, i know its small, but i got a beating for stating actinic payments were not loads cheaper than others, but this only makes the gap even less, dont shoot me just raising the point

D

[cbarling]

You are right, Tracey.

So today, there are really two choices:
- use the Actinic Payments branded page as is
- use your own branding, but you need an SSL certificate on your site

The development we are considering is to have some additional central Actinic Payments servers where merchant's CSS and images can be stored free of charge under an SSL certificate.

We don't want to allow any uploads directly to the actual payment servers because that presents a possible compromise to security and is another avenue for a performance attack.

Chris

[RuralWeb]

We don't want to allow any uploads directly to the actual payment servers because that presents a possible compromise to security and is another avenue for a performance attackOthers seem to manage ok in this area:confused:

[pinbrook]

Why not simply offer an interim alternative of just adding text to the pages, at least then you can get a company name on the checkout pages - in my mind this is crucial.

Actinic does not have a big enough worldwide brand awareness to be able to get away with only having its own branding on checkout pages. There are numerous posta about brand awareness issue in the checkout - this is in reference to protx, worldpay etc.

I was really looking forward to AP - now i am going to take a back step and wait a year or so until all these silly issues are resolved - most of which could have been integrated if more consultation had taken place with seasoned developers and shop owners.

[Darren B]

I was really looking forward to AP - now i am going to take a back step and wait a year or so until all these silly issues are resolved - most of which could have been integrated if more consultation had taken place with seasoned developers and shop owners.

You and me both Jo, to me this is another one of actinics "missing the point" exercises im not saying they should listen to everyone but they really need to get there heads out of the sand and take a good look around, as i said earlier my discussions with CB were obviously a complete waste of time as it was more about an investigation on what people currently pay, and the conversation about what is required was just flannel.

The development we are considering is to have some additional central Actinic Payments servers where merchant's CSS and images can be stored free of charge under an SSL certificate.


LMFAO i should bloody hope it is free aswell

[RuralWeb]

at least then you can get a company name on the checkout pages - in my mind this is crucial.
Its madness not to have this - who in the world missed that off.



most of which could have been integrated if more consultation had taken place with seasoned developers and shop owners.This is so obvious the marketing/devolpment team should be shot. Within seconds of seeing the page it is obvious what is missing. If its aimed at Actinics current SSL user base then they would not spot the seriousness of the errors.

Another thing. We have been using Actinic Payments live for some time ourselves and have seen no drop off in orders,

Yes of course it works well on the Actinic website as CB says but that is to be expected as it is an Actinic branded payment page - DOOOOOH

[Darren B]

Yes of course it works well on the Actinic website as CB says but that is to be expected as it is an Actinic branded payment page - DOOOOOH

I cant believe i am pissing myself here on such and important issue

[Ginnys Attic]

I'm a little curious from looking at the screenshots etc where AP is getting the customers First and Last Names (seperate fields shown on AP) from as i can only see a Full Name field within Actinic?

[guccij]

as i can only see a Full Name field within Actinic?In v9 you can choose from First/Last or Full.

[Ginnys Attic]

In v9 you can choose from First/Last or Full.
So there is, I found it under business setting > Ordering thanks for pointing that out.

[malbro]

All developments involve a series of compromises. In this particular case, there was a time pressure because of the pressure being put on merchants to comply with PCI DSS. It meant that less of the requirements could be delivered in the time than we might have liked. However, we are planning further developments.

So if there is such a time pressure why has the launch been put off from Mid April to Mid May (see the recent change on the http://www.actinic.co.uk/services/actinic-payments.htm page). I thought the deadline was today 30th April.

Also can we expect an upgrade to 8.5.3 or will it just be V9 from now on.

[TraceyHand]

Also can we expect an upgrade to 8.5.3
there'd better be one!
Hopefully, we'll see the same level of fixes put into 8.5.4 as in 9.0.2 for Actinic Payments but, as ever, we'll have to wait and see, I suppose.

[Darren B]

I see no reason why but you just never know these days, i also notice that there is no feed back from actinic regards the comments made after the initital response, i guess they are busy putting it right

Im still convinced someone at actinic towers turned the server off at the weekend because of the comments :D

[cdicken]

We're releasing a new PSPSetup.exe file for 8.5.3 and also a 9.0.2 which will sort out this incorrect error message issue with Firefox (interestingly, my internet banking has just stopped working with Firefox as well, so there are obviously some fun and games to had in this area with different browsers.)

Anyway - those will both be made available very shortly.

(and can check back in this thread for responses from Chris B and myself to the comments in the thread - they've got a bit buried, but they are there)

[TraceyHand]

We're releasing a new PSPSetup.exe file for 8.5.3 and also a 9.0.2 which will sort out this incorrect error message issue with Firefox (interestingly, my internet banking has just stopped working with Firefox as well, so there are obviously some fun and games to had in this area with different browsers.)

Anyway - those will both be made available very shortly.


glad to hear it.
I'm getting seriously p***ed off with Protx at the minute as almost 1 in 5 customers are having to try multiple times just to GET from Actinic to Protx and it's resulting in my PSP Pending folder getting junked up with large numbers of duplicate orders (thank goodness for being able to switch the psp pending stock control off in 8.5.3!)

There may be areas of AP's interface I'm not happy with but I'm willing to take the chance if it reduces the dropout rate I'm getting because of this (although I am going to run it alongside Protx for now)

[Darren B]

We're releasing a new PSPSetup.exe file for 8.5.3 and also a 9.0.2 which will sort out this incorrect error message issue with Firefox (interestingly, my internet banking has just stopped working with Firefox as well, so there are obviously some fun and games to had in this area with different browsers.)

Anyway - those will both be made available very shortly.

(and can check back in this thread for responses from Chris B and myself to the comments in the thread - they've got a bit buried, but they are there)

thanks Chris, so is there a 9.0.2 release comming then a psp fix after it has been released, or is this all in the the 9.0.2 release.

also regards actinics replies, i was being a bit tongue in cheek, but that said, some of us dont understand the restriction on using there images on the secure server? What security risk? surely this all depends on how you guys manage it, im not saying open it up completely.

I would love to see a payment page customised, if anyone has managed it

d

[cdicken]

I would love to see a payment page customised, if anyone has managed itActually the default Actinic Payments design is technically a customised design that was created by supplying a new stylesheet and some new images. The default design that came with the PSP was bright shocking pink. Seriously - you needed sunglasses. Although the current default design isn't chock full of whizzy translucent effects and rounded corners, at least it doesn't make you vomit on your legs. It's also very easy to customise.

[cdicken]

thanks Chris, so is there a 9.0.2 release comming then a psp fix after it has been released, or is this all in the the 9.0.2 release.9.0.2 should be out on beta tomorrow and includes just a small range of significant fixes, together with all the latest fixes to make Actinic Payments work perfectly with Firefox.

There are no layout or script differences between 9.0.1 and 9.0.2 so it's very simple upgrade.

[RuralWeb]

It's also very easy to customise.So does that mean that it will be available to customise with out having to host images on ssl as mentioned earlier? ie can people easily get thier own logo and business name on there as a minimum

[TraceyHand]

Chris,
I assume the PSPSetup.exe for 8.5.3 won't be far behind the 9.0.2 beta?

Also, you mentioned there's a Customisation Guide.
How do we get hold of one of those as it's never been mentioned to me? (IMO, it should have been)

[cdicken]

So does that mean that it will be available to customise with out having to host images on ssl as mentioned earlier? ie can people easily get thier own logo and business name on there as a minimumThe merchant's company name will appear correctly in Actinic Payments when it's released. With regards to images and logos etc. short term they will need to be hosted on a server with an SSL certificate. This is, of course, an extra service you can offer to your clients. Medium term, we are coming up with some sort of solution for this.

Tracey - the CSS customisation guide is attached. Hope you find it useful. As I say, it will be in the knowledge base and the Advanced User Guide when Actinic Payments goes live.

[cdicken]

I assume the PSPSetup.exe for 8.5.3 won't be far behind the 9.0.2 beta?They should be around the same time. I want to make sure this company name issue is sorted out first though.

[pinbrook]

The merchant's company name will appear correctly in Actinic Payments when it's released. With regards to images and logos etc. short term they will need to be hosted on a server with an SSL certificate. This is, of course, an extra service you can offer to your clients. Medium term, we are coming up with some sort of solution for this.
is there any reason why this can't be offered as a freebie from actinic to those peeps who are upgrading from actinic shared SSL to AP.

These peeps should already have ssl available to them

[cdicken]

is there any reason why this can't be offered as a freebie from actinic to those peeps who are upgrading from actinic shared SSL to AP.There is no shortage of willingness on our part to do something - the limitation is there is no technical infrastructure for doing this yet. The Shared SSL servers didn't allow FTP upload either. We basically have to come up with a completely new hosting service to do this - no small job - so it won't be available concurrently with the Actinic Payments launch.

[TraceyHand]

The merchant's company name will appear correctly in Actinic Payments when it's released. With regards to images and logos etc. short term they will need to be hosted on a server with an SSL certificate. This is, of course, an extra service you can offer to your clients. Medium term, we are coming up with some sort of solution for this.

Tracey - the CSS customisation guide is attached. Hope you find it useful. As I say, it will be in the knowledge base and the Advanced User Guide when Actinic Payments goes live.


I'm dragging this thread back up again.

Has anyone, using AP, managed to successfully change their payment page using this customisation guide?

[bart]

If you download the current ekashu.css file that your ap page is using it has the full list of layout styles currently being used.

I have made a few changes to the attatched file. You might want to down load the pictures from your ap page too

I've not made many changes yet but this is more use than the supplied small bit of code...

[TraceyHand]

Thanks, Bart.
That, in fact, is my point!
The Customisation Guide is about as much use as a chocolate teapot.
Fact is you DO need to start with the FULL ekashu stylesheet and the snippets given in the guide are next to useless without it :rolleyes:

I've done mine too now.. Just minor tweaks although much more is possible if I had the time and inclination to do it.

[johnshackleton]

Hi Tracey and Bart,

Just wondering how you got on with customising the ekashu stylesheet?

I'm reasonably happy with mine now, just a few issues, wondering if you have the same;

1. The payment page is fine except when you click on the link 'What is this?' for the Issue No and Card Verification Values explanations, the background is still linking to the grey gradient jpeg.

2. The subsequent 'success' or 'failed' page appears to be still linked to the old ekashu.css. it looks a bit odd especially when you click for the receipt page when is completely different again.

Can these be changed?

Thanks in advance

[TraceyHand]

ummm..I couldn't tell you John, tbh!

I'm not at my Actinic PC for a bit but I'll take a look if and when I can in a day or so.
Did you only edit the parts given in the 'Customisation Guide'?
It might be that there are extra parts of default ekashu stylesheet that can be done too.
Or, it could be that these areas are still controlled by another stylesheet.

[bart]

For the 'success' or 'failed' pages try editing Act_ActPayOK.html and Act_ActPayError.html from the CommonOCC folder.

I've not tried this yet but they look like they should work

[cleverhomes]

For the 'success' or 'failed' pages try editing Act_ActPayOK.html and Act_ActPayError.html from the CommonOCC folder.

I've not tried this yet but they look like they should work

You can edit both of these files and link them to your ekashu stylesheet so that all of the Actinic payments pages are reasonably consistent.

[johnshackleton]

You can edit both of these files and link them to your ekashu stylesheet so that all of the Actinic payments pages are reasonably consistent.

Yep, that has worked, many thanks!

[0ad]

hi

just wondering what the latest is with skinning or templating the Actinic Payments screens?

0ad

[cbarling]

Yes, you can do this. Search the knowledge base for an article on how it's done.

Chris