Paying for Programs Online

To allow patrons to pay for programs online, your library must acquire the Ecommerce product.

Using Ecommerce for Program Registration, your library can offer patrons the ability to pay for program fees online using a credit card. Library staff can specify whether payment online is possible on a program-by-program basis by setting the ECOM REQ fixed-length field in each program record.

For more information on paying for programs online, see:

Paying for Programs using Ecommerce

With Ecommerce for Program Registration, patrons make payments for programs during the registration process. The patron is redirected to an external server maintained by PayPal for data entry when paying, and is returned to the WebPAC when finished.

To pay registration fees for a program using Ecommerce:

  1. In the WebPAC or program calendar, register for a program. After you have entered your information on the registration page, click Continue. The system reserves the seat(s) you have requested (pending the transaction being completed), and displays your registration fees for the program on the program fees form (program_cart.html).
    Ecommerce not Enabled for a Program

    If Ecommerce is not enabled for that program (per the setting in the ECOM REQ field in the program record), the system processes your registration and displays the confirmation page (program_confirm.html).

  2. Select one of the following options:
    Pay Online
    To pay for the program, click Pay Online. The system takes you to PayPal's website. Continue to the next step.
    Pay Later
    To continue the registration process without paying registration fees, click Pay Later. The system displays the warning message (defined by the ECOMM WARN field) on the program payment warning form (program_paywarn.html). To complete the registration, click Register Anyway. Otherwise, click Back to return to the display of registration fees.

    If you choose to register anyway, the system processes the registration. If successful, the system displays the confirmation screen. Otherwise, a message indicating why the registration failed is displayed.
    Ecommerce Required

    The option to pay later is only available if the ECOM REQ field is set to "o" (ecommerce optional).

    Cancel
    To cancel the registration, click Cancel.
  3. On the payment page, enter your credit card information, and click Continue.
  4. On the following screen, enter any remaining credit card information (for example, the card security code or CSC) and your billing information.

When finished, click I Authorize this transaction. PayPal displays a summary page for your review.

  1. Review your billing and credit card information. If you notice an error, click Back to return to the previous page.

If the information is correct, click Submit Transaction For Processing. PayPal then processes the credit card transaction. If successful, a confirmation page appears; if unsuccessful, an error message appears.

  1. From the confirmation page, click Return to return to the WebPAC. The system displays a confirmation page (program_confirm.html).
  2. From the confirmation page, you can Print a copy of registration receipt.

Incomplete Registrations

The system reserves the seat(s) you have requested when you click Continue on the registration page. The registration is not complete, however, until you finish the payment transaction and receive the registration confirmation message. If you do not complete the payment transaction before the timeout value is reached, the system cancels the registration. This process ensures that the system frees up any seats that have been reserved, but for which the registration was never completed (for example, if you walk away from the computer without cancelling the registration process). In this case, the registration appears briefly in the patron record until the system times out and the registration is rolled back.

The system has a default timeout value of five minutes. Contact Innovative to change the default setting.

If you have set up the Automatic Transfer of Patrons feature and the ECOMM REQ field is set to "optional", waitlisted patrons are moved to the registered list when the system frees up a reserved seat.