Alternate payment acceptance

[mv07921]

Is there a way to use virtuemart instead of the built in payment processing? The payment processing does not seem to be as full featured as one would like, and rather than expect you to create something as full featured as Virtuemart, it might be better to integrate the payment module with that project or provide a bridge to it.

[andreas]

While this may not be most urgent, I would very much like a virtuemart integration.
However, it is possible, of course, to use VM with JoomlaLMS. But it requires the administrator to register students that have paid their dues.
Knowing the wonderful team Bjarne has, I think there is good reason to hope that VM will be fully integrated eventually. :-)

[msjoedin]

Originally Posted by andreas

While this may not be most urgent, I would very much like a virtuemart integration.
However, it is possible, of course, to use VM with JoomlaLMS. But it requires the administrator to register students that have paid their dues.
Knowing the wonderful team Bjarne has, I think there is good reason to hope that VM will be fully integrated eventually. :-)

That's good news! I need to use some other payment gateway than the one supplied. I have already a solution with VM so rather than having a separate payment process in JoomlaLMS I would prefer th VM integration. Please consider implementing asap. :-)

[mv07921]

Originally Posted by andreas

While this may not be most urgent, I would very much like a virtuemart integration.
However, it is possible, of course, to use VM with JoomlaLMS. But it requires the administrator to register students that have paid their dues.
Knowing the wonderful team Bjarne has, I think there is good reason to hope that VM will be fully integrated eventually. :-)

For many it may not be the most urgent, but as a paid component without full access to the code, it is most urgent for those of us who want to use it to run a paid subscription site. If I can't ensure seamless automated processing for the great majority of transactions (manually updating subscriptions for students when you are promoting to a trade association mailing list of 47,000 valid addresses is not feasible), and the ability to set coupons (maybe I will need to offer a "one course free" coupon to get them to try the site), sell hard goods (books, DVDs) alongside subscriptions (a LMS does not need functionality to sell a catalogue of physical products, but a business does).

Also, the limited payment processors are an issue, the ones implemented are long term EXPENSIVE! (3-5.5% + transaction fee!), they seem to have been chosen because they have low or no upfront fees at the expense of the long term percentages (or maybe they are just more open with their IDEs and they are more developer friendly) Since you can't charge shipping and handling to a customer for a subscription service, you wind up either eating the costs - or looking like you are high priced because you need to cover the fees in your price, not "hidden" in the shipping and handling charges.

All in all, I am very impressed with the product, but I am in a bind with purchasing it if I cannot ensure that step one of my customer interaction... payment... is not easily automated. I can easily batch process exams by programming a simple form for a quiz and mail the completion results out to my students once a month, or find similar workarounds for other downstream issues that joomla and joomlalms may have in terms of not _exactly_ fitting my workflow out of the box, that do not delay the "instant gratification" to a customer of subscribing to a course and taking it immediately online. If I can't complete that step, I lose them to a competitors' site... who can take their money the instant they want to pay and let them take a course.

If Bjarne can inform us of the roadmap for some of these development items, or can help me determine how we can bridge this little gap, I will be diving head first in to JoomlaLMS. Even if there is a solution as simple as quickly implementing "credits" which are paid for in VirtuMart and applied to the course by the student to register for the course, rather than requiring the admin to manually register the students, then I could live with that as a stopgap until a full VM integration was completed. But I don't see anything on the forum aside from speculation that VM integration is even on the roadmap, so I can't base my entire e-commerce platform on the hope that this will be implemented in the future.

If someone from the development or business team can PM me perhaps we can determine how to achieve a successful integration.

[andreas]

Describing your needs as specific as possible has been helpful in the past - I can assure you as one of the testers!
Yet, I am not part of the developing team and can't speak for elarningforce.dk .... However, looking at their main website you will find they are using VM themselves, so it's a pretty good guess they will listen to your suggestions.

I am wondering, where Bjarne is at the moment (he usually reacts extremly fast). Hopefully he is okay...

My intention with my posts was to support this process (I am using VM as well), while at the same time pointing at a workaround - (in addition to the paypal solution).

Now, if you are lucky enough to start a complete e-learning site of the scale you suggest, I am sure workarounds are not your cup of tea. But I am as sure Bjarne will be in touch with you soon ;-)

[mv07921]

I hope my e-learning site works out to be as good as I have dreamed it up to be, because writing up all these educational programs is taking a lot of time :-)

Thanks for the encouragement from people who are obviously using the product!

[White]

HI,
I am looking forward to more payment processors. I am using another LMS at the moment but would like to switch to JoomlaLMS because I believe it is superior in functionality and long-term flexibility. Currently, I am using PaypalPro which has a lower rate than the processors in JoomlaLMS available now. I use PaypalPro using Virtuemart but I would like to migrate to JoomlaLMS. I'd also like to use verisignPayflowPro (now owned by paypal), it seems to be the best solution of all for my purposes. I don't mind the upfront cost of setting up the latter. It is worth it. JoomlaLMS has a lot of power and flexibility which warrants an investment. Does anyone know of future payment processor development plans?

[jeffhoneyager]

The easiest way to add VM support is to open up that section of the code. Let the OS community do what it does best!

I'm sure this could be accomplished in a matter of a few days. Then we'll have at it! The result, a better product.

[den]

In new version JoomlaLMS 1.0.4 there will be added authorise.net payment processor. For now we are not receiving much requests for new processors, that is why new processors will be developed most likely by paid development.

However our system is customizable and if you have knowledge in the php and processor development, you can develop new processor, using one of the existing as an example. (Just copy new processor into the processors folder and it will be installed automatically, of course if it was coded correctly).