The Authorize.net gateway is so popular that every major shopping cart, and minor ones, too, offer built in support for its services. But not every ecommerce solution uses an out-of-the-box solution. In these cases their developer coding the project will need to write their own code to interact with Authorize.net’s API. Typically interacting with any API is moderately difficult to do and can be above the technical capabilities of some coders.
Fortunately, the process of interacting with the API offered by Authorize.net can be greatly simplified and the learning curve shortened thanks to the great support offered by Authorize.net. Outlined below are the tools offered by Authorize.net to developers to make integrating their gateway as simple as possible.
Step 1 – Request a Test Account
Naturally it is very difficult to develop any application without having all of the necessary components available for testing. A web developer who is integrating the Authorize.net gateway into an existing merchant account can use their instance of the merchant’s gateway and turn on test mode to test their application. But if you are a web developer who is developing your own software that will need to integrate with Authorize.net gateway, like a shopping cart, or wish to get into the ecommerce development arena, you will not have an Authorize.net account to test your code on.
Fortunately the developers at Authorize.net had the foresight to understand that not every developer will have an Authorize.net account to test on and will not want to wait until they have a customer to start writing their code. (Plus having a testing environment available for developers allows more applications to be certified thus potentially growing their marketshare). For these developers Authorize.net has a system in place for allowing developers to have fully functional test accounts to test their integration code.
You can request a test account by going to http://developer.authorize.net/testaccount/ and completing their short application. It takes about one business day to receive your account credentials which is why I recommend doing this step first. While you wait you can start writing your code using what can be found on step 2…
Step 2 – Download the Implementation Guide
While you wait for your test account credentials to be provided to you by Authorize.net, you should download the documentation which explains how to communicate with their API. Their documentation is in pdf format and can be downloaded here: Advanced Integration Method Integration Guide. It offers a clear explanation of all of their API calls and should explain what you need to do to communicate successfully.
Step 3 – Sample Code
If reading boring documentation is not the best way for you learn, Authorize.net offers yet another way to learn more about their API. You may request sample code to demonstrate how to connect successfully to their API. They offer sample code for ASP (VBScript), ASP.Net (Using C# or VB.NET), Cold Fusion, Java, Perl, and PHP. The code samples work so writing code to work with their API can be as simple as modifying their code.