Importing From Whmcs: Stripe

[FRH Dave]

Since Blesta doesn't support CDG Commerce, I'm going to have to do some payment shuffling before migrating from WHMCS.  Naturally I want to inconvenience my customers as little as possible.

 

If I set up the Stripe module in WHMCS using offsite storage (all card data is stored only with Stripe, leaving only tokenized data in WHMCS), will Blesta import the tokens during the migration?  Or will customers have to re-enter their card information after moving to Blesta?

[Paul]

I was hoping Cody would see this and respond. The importer will import credit card numbers into their own payment accounts, but I am not sure about tokens.

 

If you are using CDG Commerce, but are storing credit cards locally they will be imported locally and you can use whatever merchant payment gateway that you want.

 

The Stripe module works for both local storage, and remote storage of card numbers.

 

I believe if you import, use Stripe, and have stripe set to offsite (token) storage of cards, these imported payment accounts will just work.. though they will not be converted to token based. Then, newly saved payment accounts will use their token method.

[Cody]

Blesta does support QuantumGateway (by CDG Commerce). Are you currently using CDG Vault, or is there some other gateway you're interested in?

 

As Paul said, tokens are not currently imported over. Though that is a good suggestion for the next rev of the migrator.

 

If you have the card numbers in your WHMCS install, they will be pulled over. And like Paul said, they'll just work, with whatever gateway you choose to use (as long as it's not an "offsite only" gateway).

[FRH Dave]

Thanks, both of you.  We currently use offsite storage for CDG via QuantumVault.  No card information is stored or collected locally.  I think I got confused -- Blesta doesn't yet support QuantumVault, does it?  Because if it did, my life would get a LOT easier.  I could gently and slowly encourage my customers to slide over to Stripe.

[Paul]

No Vault yet. I'm pretty sure though, since you're using offsite storage of card details that a migration to any other gateway would necessitate customers re-enter their card details.

 

If they are able to get the card details to you (Quantum Vault), we could potentially write an importer to bring those into Stripe. I'll defer to Cody on how complex that would be, but it should be possible, assuming there's a way to "export" these details from Vault.

 

This is, of course, the biggest problem in my opinion with token based storage.. it becomes much more complex to switch to a different gateway.

[FRH Dave]

There's definitely going to have to be manual customer involvement to switch to Stripe.  What I'm trying to do is minimize customer inconvenience.  If I can, I'd like to install the Stripe module for WHMCS, gently encourage everyone to move to Stripe over a month or two, and then migrate to Blesta, hopefully bringing the Stripe tokens along.

 

If that's not possible -- if that would cause the customers to have to enter their card details once in WHMCS and again after migrating to Blesta -- then I'd just have to do it cold turkey and drop CDG when I move to Blesta.  Definitely not preferable.

[Paul]

There's definitely going to have to be manual customer involvement to switch to Stripe.  What I'm trying to do is minimize customer inconvenience.  If I can, I'd like to install the Stripe module for WHMCS, gently encourage everyone to move to Stripe over a month or two, and then migrate to Blesta, hopefully bringing the Stripe tokens along.

 

If that's not possible -- if that would cause the customers to have to enter their card details once in WHMCS and again after migrating to Blesta -- then I'd just have to do it cold turkey and drop CDG when I move to Blesta.  Definitely not preferable.

 

That raises a question for Cody -- can the importer now, or with some minor tweaks, import token payment accounts from WHMCS? I'm guessing something will need to be done to get Blesta to import or link these up with Stripe properly.. but it may or may not be very complicated.

[Cody]

That raises a question for Cody -- can the importer now, or with some minor tweaks, import token payment accounts from WHMCS? I'm guessing something will need to be done to get Blesta to import or link these up with Stripe properly.. but it may or may not be very complicated.

 

Like I said, it definitely doesn't import gateway tokens currently. That is something that could be done, but would require not only importing payment account tokens but all payment gateway settings.

[FRH Dave]

Like I said, it definitely doesn't import gateway tokens currently. That is something that could be done, but would require not only importing payment account tokens but all payment gateway settings.

 

Anything to make the import easier for the customers.  If they don't have to re-enter their card information, then so much the better.

[FRH Dave]

Just wanted to check in and see if any progress has been made here.  Is Quantum Vault still just around the corner, or should I be looking at switching to Stripe?

[Paul]

Just wanted to check in and see if any progress has been made here.  Is Quantum Vault still just around the corner, or should I be looking at switching to Stripe?

 

It's unresolved, but it's currently a blocker for 3.2. I discussed this one with Cody last week, and he seemed confident that it wouldn't take much time to implement and that it is likely to be included in 3.2. This is assigned to CORE-852 and can be tracked there.