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I have just created my first PayPal button and it is working correctly within sand box. I would like to know the best way (if possible) to issue a unique activation code on my return url ensuring that the user has definitely paid before they receive the code. I could manually email the code but wondered if the was any way of automating this using some sort of return value? Possibly returning to an aspx page which then reads from my database to get the next activation key and displays it?

Thanks Garry

Resource Box
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2 Answers2

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The best way to handle that would be to use Instant Payment Notification (IPN).

Any time a transaction happens on your site (whether it's a payment, refund, cleared pending payment, dispute, etc.) the PayPal server will POST details about that transaction to a script you have sitting on your server.

This script can receive the data and process it accordingly allowing you to automate things like updating a database, generating email notifications, hitting 3rd party web services, delivering e-goods, etc.

If you want the activation code to be visible on the return URL you can look at Payment Data Transfer (PDT), which is just like IPN except that it's made for use with the return URL. It is not recommended to use this, though, for post-transaction processing because there is no guarantee the user will make it back to the return URL, for one, and also it wouldn't handle things like e-checks correctly.

Steven
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Drew Angell
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As you already know that PayPal doesn't provide such facility for delivering activation instantly but it does offer the Instant Payment Notification API (PayPal IPN) which can be used to build such a platform. Here is a great article for that purpose only. https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/383207/Selling-software-using-PayPal-IPN-as-an-eCommerceenter link description here

PankajSingh
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