How to use the PayPal Order Status Checker

If you use PayPal as your payment provider for Online Registration, you may find that on occasion your registrations are not confirmed automatically. For example, you may find an "Incomplete" registration in Main Street Sites even though you received a payment confirmation from PayPal.

By default, Main Street Sites relies on PayPal to tell us (via "IPN Notifications") when a payment has been received. PayPal IPN notifications are generally reliable, but on occasion the IPN notification is never received. If you enable the PayPal Order Status Checker, then Main Street Sites can be more proactive on your behalf by programmatically polling PayPal regarding the status of recent registration payment activity. In the rare case that an IPN is not received, the PayPal Order Status Checker can still determine that a payment was made and, as a result, can update the registration status automatically in your Main Street Sites account.

How it works

Once you have given us permission to access your transaction history in PayPal, we will begin periodically checking your recent account activity in PayPal to make sure your Main Street Sites account is up-to-date. When the status checker detects that a payment has been received in PayPal, we'll update the registration in Main Street Sites, getting the confirmations sent to you and your customers faster and more reliably.

In order for the status checker to work, you must do two things:

Update your PayPal settings to grant us limited "API Access" to your PayPal account activity.
Update your online registration settings in Main Street Sites.

These steps are described in detail below.

Step1: Update your PayPal Settings

To enable this tool, you need to tell PayPal that is is OK for Main Street Sites to access your transaction history. To do this, login to PayPal.com and hover over your name in the upper right. Select "Account Settings" from the menu. In the "Account & Security" section, select "Account Access." It should be the default option.

In "Account Access," click on the option to update in the "API access" section. From the list of tools scroll down to find "API Credentials" and open it.

On the page, find the "PayPal API > Pre-built payment solution" sub-heading and click on "Grant API permission."

The next page should be "Add New Third Party Permission." You'll be asked to enter the code for Main Street Sites as a third-party vendor. Enter huyserb_api1.symmetrictech.com and click on "Lookup" to continue.

You should now see a page similar to the following:

To grant API permission, do the following:

Check off the "Obtain information about a single transaction" and "Search your transactions for items that match specific criteria and display the results" options.
Click "Add" to save your changes.

Now you have given Main Street Sites permission to access your account history.

Step2: Update your Main Street Sites settings

Before the PayPal Order Status Checker can attempt to access your account, you'll need to let us know that you would like to use this feature. Please go to Setup > General > Settings, and click on the checkbox highlighted below. Then save your changes.

The PayPal Order Status Checker will now begin keeping watch on your recent registrations. When your orders are confirmed in PayPal, it will make sure they are appropriately confirmed in Main Street Sites, too.