Enable PayPal IPN (Instant Payment Notifications)

Enable PayPal IPN (Instant Payment Notifications)

PayPal has many mechanism for making your site’s checkout experience more secure and a better experience for your users. Instant Payment Notifications helps by increasing both the security and usability of your checkout experience. IPN works by sending messages directly between PayPal and your site. Using this channel of communication, your site can automatically update when orders complete. Without IPN, orders can get lost due to user error. By enabling IPN, you give PayPal the ability to directly communicate with your site, making the checkout process easy and secure.

PayPal IPN is required for some features such as recurring payments.

Below are the instructions on how to enable IPN for your Vantage install:

Note: In order to use IPN, you will need a PayPal business account. Upgrading is easy and free. Just log into your PayPal account and click Upgrade.

1. Log into your PayPal account
2. Click My Account > Profile
3. Click Selling Tools
4. Under Selling Preferences, look for Instant Payment Notification Preferences
5. Click Choose IPN Settings
6. In another tab, open up your Vantage install and go to the PayPal Gateway Settings under the Payments > Setting page.
7. Copy and Paste the Listener URL from the PayPal Gateway Settings into the Notification URL field on the Instant Payment Notification Preferences page on PayPal.com
8. Press Save on PayPal.com
9. Go back to your PayPal Gateway Settings, and check the Enable IPN box.
10. Press Save. PayPal IPN is now enabled.

Notes for Return URL:

• If any of your payment plans use recurring payments, this option must be checked. PayPal will be unable to communicate with your site otherwise.
• If you have no other sites that use PDT, you can enter any URL into Return URL. Vantage controls the return URL and overrides any URL entered into Return URL. Regardless, we recommend entering your site’s root URL (IE: www.yoursite.com)
• If you have another site that uses PDT, you should enter the return URL that you prefer for that site. Again, Vantage controls the return URL for your Vantage site and does not use the return URL provided on your PayPal account.
• When PayPal IPN or PDT is enabled, the low-security validation mechanism used to validate non-IPN or non-PDT purchases will be disabled.