Receipt Data Reliability

Introduction

Certain combinations of receipt page settings can increase the reliability and redundancy of the receipt page data transmission. When business actions need to be performed based on this data, maximizing the reliability of its transmission is key. This article will outline the best settings to use to ensure data receipt. It's important to note however that there is no perfect system that can ensure data receipt - many outside factors can have an influence on its transmission such as web hosting companies and Internet service providers.

Using the customer's browser to send data

The AUTO-GET, AUTO-POST, and REDI methods all use the customer's browser to transmit data returned from E-xact to the merchant web server. The advantage of employing the customer's browser to transmit data is that its timeout length is longer than that of the server-to-server connection used by Relay Response, another data transmission method. The disadvantage of these methods however is that they can fail if a customer takes certain actions, such as closing their browser. When used in conjunction with Silent POST however, a server-to-server connection discussed below, maximum reliability can be achieved.

Using Silent POST to receive data from E-xact

Silent POST uses a server-to-server connection, and operates independently of customer browsers. This configuration allows data to be sent regardless of any actions the customer may take. Note that the data sent using this method is exactly the same as the data sent using the customer's browser as discussed above.

A note on Relay Response

One of the other receipt methods available is called Relay Response. With the view of increasing reliability, this method should not be used as it also employs a server-to-server connection like Silent POST. When Relay Response is used, it overrides the AUTO-GET, AUTO-POST, and REDI methods, which takes the browser's more forgiving connection out of the equation.

Summary

In short, to ensure maximum reliability of data transmission, the following steps should be taken:

1. One of the AUTO-GET, AUTO-POST, or REDI receipt link methods should be used.
2. Silent POST should be used.
3. Relay Response should not be used.

By using both a browser-to-server and server-to-server connection, two separate avenues of data transmission are used to provide some redundancy.

Finally, when creating or updating scripts or processes to deal with this data consider that the same data is being returned twice and should be handled accordingly to avoid actions like duplicate database updates or duplicate email notifications.