Talk:Fundraising system spec

Do we have anything currently working? or is this all a "start from scratch" thing. --ErrantX (talk) 20:24, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Gift aid & payment processing

Ok, so rather than clog up the main page too much.. here's an outline flow

• Collecting "yes to gift aid" is simple enough. Taking the Paypal API as an example (the other API is unknown at this point - we probably need to get that information from SmartDebit) you generally, depending on the preffered flow, ping Paypal to request a redirect url & transaction ID.
• Gift aid preference and transaction ID could be pushed into a queue (i'd use something high availability like resque or something) and the user directed to the gateway
• Gateway sends them back, after payment, to a thank you page (along with transaction id). This triggers a (background) query the for further details (name, address, current status of payment etc.) which are added to the queue
• Depending on the API's being used:
  • Once payments are validated the gateway pings us with the transaction ID, a worker grabs the relevant queue entry and updates CiviCRM
  • A background job regularly checks queue entries for their status (via the gateway API) & pushes them to CiviCRM as appropriate

This needs a lot of refinement but should work. I am not sure what we used in the past?? --ErrantX (talk) 20:56, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

In the past we've used a manual process for CiviCRM integration which involved downloading a file of all transactions from Paypal and SmartDebit every so often, playing with it in Excel, and uploading a CSV file to SmartDebit. The Gift Aid and Data Protection tickboxes are handled as follows: for Paypal, they are passed to the payment processor along with the other payment information, and end up in a "custom number" field in the Paypal back end. For SmartDebit we create a reference number with each transaction that is begun, and record against it the GA and DP status in an HTML table. The reference number is passed to the payment processor and the GA/DP status is then manually looked up in the table before the Smartdebit file is uploaded to Civi. The Land (talk) 21:06, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Ouch :P I see why you want something more integrated! :) --ErrantX (talk) 21:14, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Code Rights

Will the code developed as a part of this contract be released as open source? 115.114.59.182 11:27, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

A lot of it is likely to be very bespoke work that wouldn't really be of any use to anyone else. There might be an add-on to CiviCRM that can be released, but other than that the developer is likely to be very busy and frantically trying to get everything to work for us and won't have time to make sure everything is done it a way that makes it feasible to release it. --Tango (talk) 17:23, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt clarification. I should have framed my question in a better manner, actually I am eager to work on this project but due to some legal constraints I might be able to work on it only if the code copyrights are not exclusive to WMF. It does not matter so much if the code is in a proper releasable format or not, just the code should not become an exclusive intellectual property of WMF. Is that feasible on this project. Thanks in advance!

I would very much hope that WMUK will do its best to make the code available under an open source licence. Even if in its implementation it is not very useful to others, the ability for it to be re-used might make some of it valuable to them. On the other hand, if a developer wanted to incorporate some existing open source software that necessarily required the finished product to carry (at least in part) an open source licence, I'd be urging the Board the see that as something to be welcomed. Hope that helps, --RexxS (talk) 18:27, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I should clarify, I was merely speculating. I've been involved in various discussion about this work, but I'm not actually involved in the final decisions. Also, the contract would be with Wikimedia UK, not the WMF. Wikimedia UK is affiliated with, but independent from, the WMF. --Tango (talk) 19:24, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Thankyou all for your prompt help. I shall be forwarding my application soon. 115.114.59.182 10:47, 7 September 2012 (UTC)