Method Community

We sent a new client a link to log in with his email and pay an invoice.  His payment was processed 4 times. This happened with another customer before I researched the issue with the Intuit Merchant Services & came to find out that there are no actions in place to prevent duplicate charges from processing if the client hits the Process Payment button multiple times due to impatience and/or lack of notification for successful processing.

For a quick fix, I added a note on the screen above the button warning to only click once to avoid multiple charges to card.

Since this is a fairly new process for us, when another client had confirmed she paid online, I inquired with her as to if she'd received her confirmation and she replied:

I have to say the process was weird because after I hit submit payment, the screen went blank white and there was no indication that it was processing, had processed or anything, even after I waited over 5 minutes.  I let the screen sit there while I got on the phone.  When nothing happened, I finally just X'd out and went to my email to see if I received confirmation.  So yes, I did get confirmation.

I understand I could add a new action to redirect them to a new screen, or show a pop-up message, but thought you may have some other suggestions, or at least appreciate the feedback.

Thanks!

@AutumnW

 Payment through a Portal are using a 3rd party Merchant Service (not Method) for these transaction. I believe that there are prompt screens that come up when using these portals receive payment. However, if the user clicks on the Submit button multiple times then I can see why those transactions are charged accordingly. We have seen these occurrence in the past and a warning can be placed for the user not to select it multiple times.

Being a 3rd party system within Method it might the difficult to pinpoint the issue and solution. I would recommend to make notification for portal user not to select it multiple time.

Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Thank you, although it doesn't seem there are any prompt screens showing the status of the payment transaction (i.e. Processing, Successful, etc). What is the relationship between the Method Payment Screen, the 3rd Party Merchant Service, and the Method Portal? Is it some sort of hidden re-direct that processes the payment?

Since you suggested adding a notice for the user, which would obviously require copying/customizing the standard Method screen, it brings up another, more general question I have. 

Let's say next month you make enhancements to the Portal Receive Payments screen that will show a pop-up window that the payment is processing, has processed, etc. Is my customized screen left out of the update? And for me to get it the enhancement, would I have to first: monitor announcements, then re-copy & recustomize my screen? This is really a more general question, as it applies to any screens that are customized and have updates made after the fact.

Thanks!

@AutumnW

Great question. We here, at Method, always try to see if any new changes will affect existing screens and customization. However, there is always a chance that future updates might produce issues with customized screens. How we deal with those cases, is to determine if the stock screen (out of the box) has the same problem. If it was determine that the stock screen was affected then we will work to resolve the problem. If the problem is ONLY on a customized screen then one option is to have us troubleshoot the issue during chargeable consulting time. Furthermore, if we found that it was ultimately from our side then we will gladly refund you the consulting money.

That being said, changing or adding messages (most times) will not have a great impact on the screen architecture. Hence updates will not have a great impact on them. However, if you are customizing your screen with (as an example) new tables and new relations to fields, objects and action set then we cannot offer free support to dive into these screens to examine the problem. 

Method is a very powerful tool and let the user have a tremendous amount of resources at their fingertips. Unfortunately, in the "wrong" hands, then a huge mess can be created. Sometimes the mess does not come to light until an update. 

I hope this helps with your question

I am having the same issue with customers clicking multiple times because there is no feedback to the user that an action has taken place. I am using Authorize.net as the payment gateway. I have greated a screen that should pop up after the customer clicks submit stating "your payment has been received for processing". I also added texted to the CustomerPortal_ReceivePayment(2) and pointed the screens to each other. Even before customization (which hasn't been much), I was getting an error message about Action 5 and Action.Sequence9 and still am. Not sure how to correct this.

I am trying to test to see if it will allow the "process payment" button to be clicked one time, but I also get an error message saying "Administrator has chosen to email a template, but no template has been selected in the Receive Payment preferences." I checked the email templates in method and they are filled out as far as i can tell. Once these errors are cleared up, I may have a solution to the mutiple payment issue.

Also, I noticed that Authorize.net can generate a "received payment" page, but I don't know where it needs to point to to be able to display in the portal after the process payment button is clicked. I have spent 3 days working until 2:00am trying to resolve this issue due to a lot of payments from customers that need to be processed. I am about to the point of just removing the Method portal and installing a different one, Any ideas? Thanks.

Thanks

Hi Lucas,

The stock portal screens are prefixed with "ContactsPortal" so they action sequence errors you're receiving on your CustomerPortal screen are advising you where the issues persists. The fifth and ninth actions when clicking your button. I would suggest looking at those actions to figure out the root cause of the problem. Try this on the stock ContactsPortal screen and let me know if you experience similar behavour.

- Ashur

I had the same issue as soon as I set up the portal with the stock CustomerPortal screen. It pops up when you click to go to the ReceivePayments screen. It comes up immediately when the page loads. Action 5 and 9 is referring to Entity. I don't know where Entity and I haven't changed it. I duplicated the screen and tried to resolve the issue, but no luck. Now I get an error message that says "Your Administrator has chosen to email a template, but no template has been selected in the Receive Payments preferences. I have the default payment template setup. There should be no reason for the error.

If we can get these issues resolved, is there a way to have the Receive Payments screen go to a "Processing Payment" screen and clear the form to prevent duplicate payment entries once the payment is processed based on the receiptID? Shouln't this already be set up out of the box? All other websites when making online payments function this way.

I think I may have found the issue with action 5 and 9. It is trying to reference TransactionsEntity

Acrtion 5

Get From: Shared Result name resultTransactionEntity

Assign To: Action Result name resultTransactionEntity

internal notes:Get the shared result resultTransactionEntity

Action 9

Call another actiion set

Current action sets Hidden Payment Information>>Received From_TextChanged

internal notes: _Call the Received From_TextChanged event

I have no tables, tabs, or screens labeled TransactionEntity in my lists. If one used to be there, I didn't delete it. There is a transactions tab on mobile but not on desktop. How can I add the transactions tab to the desktop customer screen and is this what the action error message is referring to?

This isn't a tab, tab link, table, or field. It's an action result which holds temporary values for your screen. So the value held within the resultTransactionEntity Shared Result is being assigned to an Action Result for you to use on your object/field.

Can you please email me your Company Account name (not user name) along with a contact number to reach you on, then enable the MethodSupport user. I would like to start a screen sharing session with you. To enable the MethodSupport user go to Customize > Users > scroll down to the bottom of the screen and ensure there's a checkmark in the Active box for the MethodSupport user.

- Ashur