Properties   Methods   Events   Configuration Settings  

The PTBenefit component is used to authorize Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) transactions with the Paymentech NetConnect system on the Tampa platform. An EBT transaction is similar to a Debit transaction, using a PIN and Trace number, but is used for Food Stamp or Cash Benefit programs. This component allows for simple, direct, secure communication to the Paymentech SSL gateway through a standard Internet connection. This component can be integrated into web pages or stand-alone Point Of Sale applications. Because all SSL communications are handled inside the component, any application or web page can be deployed without the need for expensive dedicated SSL servers.

NOTE: What follows is a very short description of the component interfaces. For more information, please consult the help files that come with the respective package.

Remarks

An EBT Card (also known as Cash Benefit Card or Food Stamps) works similar to a bank debit card. EBT is a special application of electronic funds transfer (EFT), or debit card technology, which takes money directly from one account and transfers it to another. (Credit cards, by comparison, simply record a sale for payment later.)

There are just a few steps to setting up the component and sending transactions. First, set the MerchantNumber, TerminalNumber, ClientNumber, UserId, and Password with the information given to you when you signed up for Paymentech service.

After the merchant information is setup, you may enter transaction data. Under normal circumstances, Track2 data should be read from the credit card and placed in the Card. The Card should be set to dsTrack2, and the CardPIN and CardKSN should be filled with the encrypted PIN and key sequence number returned by your PIN pad. If the card reader is unable to read the magnetic stripe, card info may be manually added in the Card, Card, and Card properties. In this case, the Card must be set to dsManuallyKeyed. These are the only two Cards supported for EBT cards.

Now simply set the TransactionAmount and call the Sale method to charge the card. You may also Credit funds back to the card (Food Stamp BenefitType only), as well as send a BalanceInquiry. Voice authorizations may be sent using the Force method.

The status of any of the above transactions will be stored in the Response property, with human-readable text appearing in Response. Like the PTCHARGE component, there are several other Response properties which will contain data that should be logged.

EBT regulations require that all customer receipts include the last 4 digits of the Card and the Response number, as well as the available balance for the account accessed. Balances are returned in the Response and Response properties. Additional Response balance properties contain extra information which the merchant may optionally include.

Once an authorization request is approved, one of two things happen. If your Paymentech account is setup with the Host Auto Close feature, you need take no further action. The host will close the current open batch at a designated time each day. This means that there is no end of day batch processing required from the merchant. In order for the merchant's batch to be included in the Paymentech Host Auto Close process, the merchant parameter file on the host must indicate that the merchant is Auto Close. Without this flag being set, the merchant's transactions must be settled with a Manual Batch Release.

If your account is not setup with Host Auto Close, then after an authorization is approved the transaction is added to the current batch on the Paymentech Server, and the money in the customer's account is blocked and tagged for the merchant. The transaction must go through the Manual Batch Release Settlement process in order for the blocked money to be transferred to the merchant's account. To release a batch for settlement, please see the PTSETTLE component.

Note that this component only supports the above two settlement methods, and does not support Terminal Capture processing.

Property List

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The following is the full list of the properties of the component with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.

BenefitType	Indicates whether the EBT card is a Food Stamps card or Cash Benefits card
Card	Contains the customer's credit card information.
CardKSN	Clear-text Key Sequence Number that is associated with the CardPIN .
CardPIN	DUKPT DES encrypted PIN block.
CashBack	Optional cash back amount for debit transactions.
ClientNumber	Merchant configuration property, assigned by Paymentech.
DuplicateChecking	Indicates whether duplicate checking is enabled.
MerchantNumber	A unique number used to identify the merchant, assigned by Paymentech.
Password	Password for authentication with the NetConnect Server
Proxy	A set of properties related to proxy access.
Response	Contains the response to the authorization.
SequenceNumber	Sequence number of the transaction.
Server	The URL for the PaymenTech NetConnect server.
SSLAcceptServerCert	Instructs the component to unconditionally accept the server certificate that matches the supplied certificate.
SSLCert	The certificate to be used during ssl negotiation.
SSLServerCert	The server certificate for the last established connection.
TerminalNumber	Terminal number assigned by Paymentech.
Timeout	A timeout for the component.
TransactionAmount	Purchase amount for an authorization.
UserId	UserId for authentication with the NetConnect Server .

Method List

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The following is the full list of the methods of the component with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.

BalanceInquiry	Retrieves the balance remaining on an EBT card.
Config	Sets or retrieves a configuration setting.
Credit	Credits a cardholder's account.
Force	Sends a Force (Prior) transaction to the PaymenTech server.
Interrupt	Interrupt the current method.
Reset	Clears all properties to their default values.
Sale	Sends a Sale transaction to the host.

Event List

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The following is the full list of the events fired by the component with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.

Error	Information about errors during data delivery.
SSLServerAuthentication	Fired after the server presents its certificate to the client.
SSLStatus	Shows the progress of the secure connection.
Transfer	Fired while a document transfers (delivers document).

Configuration Settings

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The following is a list of configuration settings for the component with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.

SystemInformation	System Information field for Batch Inquiry and Release transactions.
CustomerDefinedData	Additional transaction identification data.
HTTPVersion	The version of HTTP used by the component
UserAgent	Information about the user agent (browser).
Authorization	The Authorization string to be sent to the server.
AllowHTTPCompression	This property enables HTTP compression for receiving data.
TransferredDataLimit	The maximum number of incoming bytes to be stored by the component.
KeepAlive	Determines whether the HTTP connection is closed after the completion of the request.
ProxyServer	Name or IP address of a proxy server (optional).
ProxyPort	Port for the proxy server (default 80).
ProxyUser	A user name if authentication is to be used for the proxy.
ProxyPassword	A password if authentication is to be used for the proxy.
ProxyAuthorization	The authorization string to be sent to the proxy server.
ProxyAuthScheme	The authorization scheme to be used for the proxy.
IfModifiedSince	A date determining the maximum age of the desired document.
MaxHTTPCookies	Instructs component to save the amount of cookies specified that are returned by the server when a SetCookie event is fired.
MaxHeaders	Instructs component to save the amount of headers specified that are returned by the server after a Header event has been fired.
AcceptEncoding	Used to tell the server which types of content encodings the client supports.
EncodeURL	If set to true the URL will be encoded by the component.
GetOn302Redirect	If set to true the component will perform a GET on the new location.
UseWinInet	If set, the WinInet API is used for retrieving the URL
UseWinInetCookies	Controls whether to send and accept cookies when making http requests through WinInet
UseIPv6	Whether or not to use IPv6.
MaxLineLength	The maximum amount of data to accumulate when no EOL is found.
FirewallListener	If true, the component binds to a SOCKS firewall as a server (IPPort only).
CloseStreamAfterTransfer	If true, the component will close the upload or download stream after the transfer.
TcpNoDelay	Whether or not to delay when sending packets
AcceptAnyServerCert	If set the component will accept any certificate presented by the server
SSLProvider	The name of the security provider to use.
SSLCipherStrength	The minimum cipher strength used for bulk encryption.
SSLEnabledProtocols	Used to enable/disable the supported security protocols.
SSLSecurityFlags	Flags that control certificate verification
ReuseSSLSession	Determines if the SSL session is reused.
OpenSSLCipherList	A string that controls the ciphers to be used by SSL.
OpenSSLPrngSeedData	The data to seed the pseudo random number generator(PRNG).
OpenSSLCAFile	Name of the file containing the list of CA's trusted by your application.
OpenSSLCADir	The path to a directory containing CA certificates.
InBufferSize	The size in bytes of the incoming queue of the socket.
OutBufferSize	The size in bytes of the outgoing queue of the socket.
AbsoluteTimeout	Determines whether timeouts are inactivity timeouts or absolute timeouts.
FirewallData	Used to send extra data to the firewall.
CodePage	The system code page used for Unicode to Multibyte translations (Windows/COM only).