Donation API - PayPal error - Error: The donation bean was not found during finishMethod.

Ian Banks:

Ian Banks:

I'm implementing a donation form API and am getting this message after clicking the continue button on PayPal.

Error: The donation bean was not found during finishMethod.

Full JSON response is:

{"donationResponse":{"errors":{"reason":"UNSPECIFIED","code":"101","message":"Error: The donation bean was not found during finishMethod."}}}

Any idea what the "donation bean" is? I thought this error was displaying because I had the form in preview mode, but I switched it to live, and it's still having issues.

Help would be appreciated.

 

In looking at the Luminate error codes, 101 means the donation failed. Ok, I get that...but what the heck is a donation bean? Could it be this required pixel to initiate a session? 

<img src="https://secure2.convio.net/ccod/site/PixelServer" />

 

Usage Notes

Important: This method is used to process online credit card donations. It supports only Client API calls. To maintain PCI data security standards for payment card transactions, you must call this method directly from the client's browser and never proxy the call through an external server.

John Schultz:

Brian Mucha:

John - I think that your form's POST URL...

<form class="donation_form" method="post" action="https://www.memri.org/new_donate/send_data.php">


...violates the restriction from proxying through an external server. This form should post directly to Luminate: https://secure2.convio.net/organization/site/CRDonationAPI|

 

Usage Notes

Important: This method is used to process online credit card donations. It supports only Client API calls. To maintain PCI data security standards for payment card transactions, you must call this method directly from the client's browser and never proxy the call through an external server.

Bouncing the form to your PHP page this way means that credit info touches your server, and therefore causes PCI compliance concern.


Not to mention that it also means that all the code that handles that actual donation is hidden on your server where we can't see it.

 

We found this PHP library on the "Downloads" section of Convio here: http://open.convio.com/downloads/


We simply downloaded the library from there, which seems to have been created by Convio itself (see here: http://open.convio.com/downloads/php-library-for-convio-open.html), and implemented it according to the example provided. Furthermore, the library is working just fine for credit card donations; we are only having problems when people try to donate via PayPal. 


Are you saying Luminate is no longer compatible with this library?

 

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Hey Ian! Just wanted to reach out and see if you were able to resolve your error? Everything on the up and up?

Ian Banks:

Update here: so during the call with Luminate support they said they would have one of their developers take a look and get back to us. Today I got the following email:

Thanks for taking time to speak to me this morning. As briefly explained during the call this issue here is not with the Luminate API but with the actual API implementation. The bean error you are seeing here is thrown when the server doesn’t receive session that tells it where the returned information from PayPal belongs. I would recommend that the developer make use of a third party JavaScript library “Luminate Extend” https://github.com/noahcooper/luminateExtend in implementing this donation form.

 

There is also an entry on our Blackbaud Forum where other developers have discussed ways to remediate the issue. The entry can be found herehttps://community.blackbaud.com/forums/viewtopic/1/29210 ,you would need to create an account or login using Gmail account to access this forum. Please have the developer review this entry and send me follow-up questions if any.

So aside from the tech referencing this very thread (which I think is hilarious) it appears that for donation forms that aren't hosted on the Luminate platform (ie. selfhosted) I need to have success/finish callbacks AND have an authentication token set. Both of those things were listed as optional in the API documentation which is why I didn't use them. They also mentioned again using the Luminate Extend library someone mentioned above https://github.com/noahcooper/luminateExtend. I must have missed that during the conversation about PCI compliance...and it's kindof too late for this project since I already built everything out lol.


To summarize though:

• Need authentication token
• Need to implement `finish_success_redirect`
• Contact support again to have them change PayPal to support a separate confirmation page

One of the more frustrating things is that the DonationBean error code didn't specify any of the above.


I'll update this thread with progress when I get a chance to work on the PayPal integration piece again.

 

Noah Cooper:

Ian Banks:

Update here: so during the call with Luminate support they said they would have one of their developers take a look and get back to us. Today I got the following email:

Thanks for taking time to speak to me this morning. As briefly explained during the call this issue here is not with the Luminate API but with the actual API implementation. The bean error you are seeing here is thrown when the server doesn’t receive session that tells it where the returned information from PayPal belongs. I would recommend that the developer make use of a third party JavaScript library “Luminate Extend” https://github.com/noahcooper/luminateExtend in implementing this donation form.

 

There is also an entry on our Blackbaud Forum where other developers have discussed ways to remediate the issue. The entry can be found herehttps://community.blackbaud.com/forums/viewtopic/1/29210 ,you would need to create an account or login using Gmail account to access this forum. Please have the developer review this entry and send me follow-up questions if any.

So aside from the tech referencing this very thread (which I think is hilarious) it appears that for donation forms that aren't hosted on the Luminate platform (ie. selfhosted) I need to have success/finish callbacks AND have an authentication token set. Both of those things were listed as optional in the API documentation which is why I didn't use them. They also mentioned again using the Luminate Extend library someone mentioned above https://github.com/noahcooper/luminateExtend. I must have missed that during the conversation about PCI compliance...and it's kindof too late for this project since I already built everything out lol.


To summarize though:

• Need authentication token
• Need to implement `finish_success_redirect`
• Contact support again to have them change PayPal to support a separate confirmation page

One of the more frustrating things is that the DonationBean error code didn't specify any of the above.


I'll update this thread with progress when I get a chance to work on the PayPal integration piece again.

 

The reason it may make sense to use luminateExtend is that it handles all of this sort of thing for you automatically. If you don't want to though, it's still possible to get this working.


Like you mentioned, the first thing is that you definitely need finish_success_redirect and finish_error_redirect in your call to the startDonation method. If you haven't used redirect URLs before, it's worth checking out http://open.convio.com/api/#main.using_redirect_parameters.html for details on how they work, namely how you can pass success and error data to the URL using XPath.


The second part is establishing a session. The reason using luminateExtend works is that it always establishes a session for you before making a request. It does so by calling an undocumented (I know ...) CRConsAPI method called getLoginUrl, e.g. 


https://secure3.convio.net/myorg/site/CRConsAPI?v=1.0&api_key=key&method=getLoginUrl


In addition to an auth token, this method gives you back a JSESSIONID. You'll need to pass this in the POST data when you call startDonation.


One other thing that's super important when calling the API cross-domain (which again luminateExtend handles for you) is that you set the withCredentials property on the XMLHttpRequest to true. This ensures that cookies are passed in the request.


And you're certainly correct -- the donation bean error message isn't as clear as it could be. Really what it's indicating is that Luminate Online doesn't know which session to connect the request to.

 

Ian Banks:

Brian Mucha:

Noah Cooper:

 

Like you mentioned, the first thing is that you definitely need finish_success_redirect and finish_error_redirect in your call to the startDonation method. If you haven't used redirect URLs before, it's worth checking out http://open.convio.com/api/#main.using_redirect_parameters.html for details on how they work, namely how you can pass success and error data to the URL using XPath.

Figuring out the syntax to do that wasn't really easy, so I thought I'd drop this here.


<input name="finish_success_redirect" id="finish_success_redirect" type="hidden" value="https://secure3.convio.net/ABC/_thanks.htm?cons_id=${donationResponse/donation/cons_id}" />


https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/88537


edit: Here's how you get the rest of the data.


<input

    name="finish_success_redirect"

    id="finish_success_redirect"

    type="hidden"

    value="https://secure3.convio.net/ABC/_thanks.htm

        ?cons_id=${donationResponse/donation/cons_id}

        &amount=${donationResponse/donation/amount/formatted}'

        &value_of_goods=${donationResponse/donation/value_of_goods/formatted}'

        &tax_deductible_amount=${donationResponse/donation/tax_deductible_amount/formatted}

        &org_tax_id=${donationResponse/donation/org_tax_id}

        &transaction_id=${donationResponse/donation/transaction_id}

        &confirmation_code=${donationResponse/donation/confirmation_code}"

        &date_time=${donationResponse/donation/date_time}'

/>


There's also summary_data that lists each field. The contents of this object depends on the fields on the form. But you can get them like this:


        &summary_data_date_id=${donationResponse/donation/summary_data/field[1]/value}

        &summary_data_dd_originator_id${donationResponse/donation/summary_data/field[2]/value}

        &summary_data_tracking_code_id=${donationResponse/donation/summary_data/field[3]/value}

         ...


You can also elect to have html for a summary page returned. I didn't try that, but the syntax should be:


        &summary_page=${donationResponse/donation/summary_page}

 

@Noah and @Brian, the two of you have been incredibly helpful as as I've been working through this.


Do either of you know if there's a way to activate PayPal sandboxing? I'm pretty sure I got myself blacklisted running test donations while attempting to fine-tune the finish_success_redirect xpath get parameters. I thought that passing the preview was allowing me to do test donations without spending real money...but that isn't the case with PayPal it seems without turning on sandboxing.


I've attempted to just switch the URL from https://www.paypal.com/... to https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/... but that results in an invalid session with the message 

This transaction has expired. Please return to the recipient's website to complete your transaction using their regular checkout flow.

Also, Noah, I'm going to see if I can find time int he future to re-write the donation page I built to use LumianteExtend since it handles all these things in a less clunky way. Your documentation for it is superb. You should write some docs for the other Luminate API's