X-Cart:Testing PayPal Integration

Before you make PayPal publicly available as a payment method on your store website, you may want to run some PayPal transactions in test mode to familiarize yourself with PayPal and to ensure that everything works correctly.

Follow these steps:

1. Obtain a verified PayPal business account.
2. Set your store's PayPal integration to work in test mode.
3. Conduct test PayPal transactions.

Obtaining account for testing

Testing of PayPal's Website Payments Standard, Website Payments Pro and Express Checkout solutions is performed using the PayPal Sandbox - a self-contained testing environment for PayPal applications. The Sandbox is a mirror of the real PayPal site except that real financial transactions are not made. To be able to access the PayPal Sandbox, you need to have an account at Developer Central. You do not need an existing live PayPal account in order to sign up for Developer Central. After becoming a member of Developer Central, you will be able to access the Sandbox either directly or by launching it after you log in to Developer Central.

To sign up for a Developer Central account:

1. Go to https://developer.paypal.com.
2. Click 'Sign Up Now'.
3. Follow the on-screen instructions.

After you submit the required information to PayPal, PayPal sends login instructions to the email address you used to sign up. Follow the instructions provided to you in the email message to log in to Developer Central. Now you can create the accounts required for testing.

Basically, you need accounts of two types: Business and Personal. A Personal Sandbox account is needed to make test payments via PayPal, a Business Sandbox account - to accept these payments.

Creating a test account in the Sandbox is easy:

1. After logging in to Developer Central, click 'Sandbox'.
2. Click the link 'Create account'.
3. Select the type of account that you wish to create (Business or Personal).
4. Follow the on-screen instructions to create the account.

After creating the necessary Sandbox accounts, you will be able to log in to the Sandbox as a test user of the necessary type.

To log in to the Sandbox using a specific test account:

1. Log in to Developer Central.
2. Click the 'Sandbox' tab.
3. Select the test user that represents the feature you want to test.
4. Click 'Launch Sandbox'.

Please note the following:

• Sandbox accounts are not in any way tied to your PayPal account on www.paypal.com.
• When creating a Sandbox account, your email address attached to that account does not need to be real. It can be any email address, as long as the email address does not already exist on the Sandbox.
• Email from the Sandbox will never be delivered to the email address you enter. All email generated by the Sandbox is captured and displayed by the Developer Central email client.
• After creating a Sandbox account, you may want to confirm the email address for the sandbox user. Check the email client on Developer Central to confirm your email address.
• After creating a Sandbox account, you can also attach a test credit card and bank account for testing.
• More information about the Sandbox is available in the PayPal's Sandbox User Guide (https://developer.paypal.com/en_US/pdf/PP_Sandbox_UserGuide.pdf).

Testing of PayPal's Website Payments Pro Payflow Edition solution is performed using the PayPal Manager - the same administration interface that you should use for live transactions, https://manager.paypal.com. You will be able to access this interface as soon as you set up your production merchant account.

Setting Your Store's PayPal Integration to Work in Test Mode

Your store's PayPal integration can be set to work in test mode as follows:

Website Payments Standard:

1. Go to the PayPal configuration page in your store's Admin area.
2. From the 'Settings' dialog box, select the desired option ('Website Payments Standard').
3. Adjust the configuration fields for the selected option:
   • Specify your Sandbox Business account.
   • Configure the fields 'Payment for', 'Currency', 'Order prefix' as desired.
   • Set PayPal operating mode to 'Test'.
4. Click the Update button to save the changes.

Website Payments Pro and Express Checkout used as an additional payment option:

1. Log in to your Sandbox Business account to obtain API credentials for the test mode (The Sandbox Business account backoffice is organized similarly to the backoffice of your production PayPal Business account, so API credentials for the test mode can be obtained the same way as described in the section ' Setting up Your API Access', with the difference that the Business account in the Sandbox should be used instead of the production account).
2. Go to the PayPal configuration page in your store's Admin area.
3. From the 'Settings' dialog box, select the desired option ('Website Payments Pro' or 'Express Checkout').
4. Adjust the configuration fields for the selected option:
   • Specify the API access credentials as provided by your Sandbox Business account.
   • Configure the fields 'Currency' and 'Order prefix' as desired.
   • Set PayPal operating mode to 'Test'.
5. Click the Update button to save the changes.

Website Payments Pro Payflow Edition:

1. Go to the PayPal configuration page in your store's Admin area.
2. From the 'Settings' dialog box, select the desired option ('Website Payments Pro Payflow Edition').
3. Adjust the configuration fields for the selected option:
   • Configure the fields 'Vendor', 'Partner', 'User' and 'Password'.
   • Configure the fields 'Currency' and 'Order prefix' as desired.
   • Set PayPal operating mode to 'Test'.
4. Click the Update button to save the changes.

When you return to the list of your store's payment methods after setting PayPal to work in test mode as described above, there should be a warning message below the 'PayPal' entry:

This is normal when X-Cart's PayPal integration is in test mode. Now you can perform test PayPal transactions.

Using PayPal in Test Mode

Website Payments Standard, Website Payments Pro and Express Checkout solutions:

The test accounts that you set up in the PayPal Sandbox allow you to explore how PayPal works for merchants and customers. To find out about the merchant's side of the matter, you need to log in to the Sandbox as a user of the 'Business' type. To make test PayPal payments and to learn about the customer's side of the matter, you need to log in to the Sandbox using a 'Personal' account.

Important: In the test mode, to pay for an order using a PayPal payment method, you need to be logged in to Developer Central. Developer Central sessions time out quickly, so it is recommended you log in to Developer Central shortly before going to checkout. The recommended method for logging in to Developer Central is to open a new window in the web browser being used for viewing the store directly before you click the Checkout button on the Shopping cart page and to use that window for logging in to Developer Central. Please note that, if you happen to go to checkout without previously logging in to Developer Central, or if your Developer Central session expires by the time you begin checking out, you will be able to complete checkout, but the process will be a little less streamlined (After selecting PayPal as a payment method and clicking the Submit order button, you will be offered to log in to Developer Central. After logging in, you will be required to click the Back button of your web browser several times to return to the store's 'Place order' page. There you will need to click the Submit order button again to resume the checkout process.)

Website Payments Pro Payflow Edition solution:

The first time you log in to PayPal Manager, you are in Test status (the Home page of PayPal Manager indicates this). This means that you can run mock or test transactions to familiarize yourself with PayPal Manager and make sure your account is set up correctly. These test transactions are not sent to financial institutions for processing, and no money trades hands.

When you are ready to run actual transactions, you will change to Active, or Live status. To change to Active status or see which status you are in, go to the Home page of PayPal Manager and look at the 'Your Account Status' section on the right side. Even after your account is active, you can still perform test transactions if necessary.

At any time, you can activate your account (change to Live status) by clicking the Activate Your Account button on the Home page.

Make sure you have an internet merchant account before you activate your PayPal services account. Otherwise, your live transactions will fail.