Hi good people. For those that have done MPesa paybill integration, help with this one: what are the options provided by QB to the recipients... API integration? A SIM associated with Paybill No? Regards, Mugo
Nowadays they have an IPN API whichis far better than the SIM terminal. rgdz *_______________________________________________________________ We must Keep on, * On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 11:36 PM, m mugo <mugo2of3@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi good people.
For those that have done MPesa paybill integration, help with this one:
what are the options provided by QB to the recipients... API integration? A SIM associated with Paybill No?
Regards, Mugo
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The IPN API is not without it challenges and reliability issues. i.e. I have seen the same IPN message being repeated, messages being truncated most likely due to it originating from a system working with a SMS char-limit. But I agree it is probably the best options at the moment. To answer the original question: No a paybill number is not associated with a SIM. n.b. maybe you can find some useful code in PesaPi you can use for your integration. .. Michael Pedersen On 9/21/12 9:58 AM, joe mwirigi wrote:
Nowadays they have an IPN API whichis far better than the SIM terminal.
rgdz /_______________________________________________________________ We must Keep on, /
On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 11:36 PM, m mugo <mugo2of3@gmail.com <mailto:mugo2of3@gmail.com>> wrote:
Hi good people.
For those that have done MPesa paybill integration, help with this one:
what are the options provided by QB to the recipients... API integration? A SIM associated with Paybill No?
Regards, Mugo
Safaricom IPN is way better than the Sim Based, its more leliable and easier to intergrate, yes the messages are repeated and this is because the service keeps checking if the receiving server is live for a period of i think 24 hrs, its up to you to set up a primary key on ur db to check and stop repetition.. and yes a paybill number is associated with a sim.... you give safaricom sim cards that they configure to receive mpesa-paybill transactions.. On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 12:45 PM, Michael Pedersen <sku@kaal.dk> wrote:
The IPN API is not without it challenges and reliability issues. i.e. I have seen the same IPN message being repeated, messages being truncated most likely due to it originating from a system working with a SMS char-limit. But I agree it is probably the best options at the moment.
To answer the original question: No a paybill number is not associated with a SIM.
n.b. maybe you can find some useful code in PesaPi you can use for your integration.
.. Michael Pedersen
On 9/21/12 9:58 AM, joe mwirigi wrote:
Nowadays they have an IPN API whichis far better than the SIM terminal.
rgdz *_______________________________________________________________ We must Keep on, *
On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 11:36 PM, m mugo <mugo2of3@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi good people.
For those that have done MPesa paybill integration, help with this one:
what are the options provided by QB to the recipients... API integration? A SIM associated with Paybill No?
Regards, Mugo
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-- Regards, Zack K. Githinji Technical Officer, Cell:+254 722 649199 E-mail:zachgithinji@gmail.com "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
Hi Zack, As mentioned I agree it's currently the best option - I am just pointing out that it is not without it flaws too, so it is wise to program all sort of failsafe into your code to anticipate it. The "repeated" messages I am talking about is naturally not the "intended" repeat but when the system does it in error after you have confirmed the first receipt of a message. I was not aware that you could get a paybill associated with a SIM - the one I have is definitely not connected to one. I have heard about this in relation to "buy goods" accounts but that's a different story. Anyway that is interesting although slightly useless ;-) .. Michael Pedersen On 9/24/12 10:26 AM, Zack Githinji wrote:
Safaricom IPN is way better than the Sim Based, its more leliable and easier to intergrate, yes the messages are repeated and this is because the service keeps checking if the receiving server is live for a period of i think 24 hrs, its up to you to set up a primary key on ur db to check and stop repetition.. and yes a paybill number is associated with a sim.... you give safaricom sim cards that they configure to receive mpesa-paybill transactions..
On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 12:45 PM, Michael Pedersen <sku@kaal.dk <mailto:sku@kaal.dk>> wrote:
The IPN API is not without it challenges and reliability issues. i.e. I have seen the same IPN message being repeated, messages being truncated most likely due to it originating from a system working with a SMS char-limit. But I agree it is probably the best options at the moment.
To answer the original question: No a paybill number is not associated with a SIM.
n.b. maybe you can find some useful code in PesaPi you can use for your integration.
.. Michael Pedersen
On 9/21/12 9:58 AM, joe mwirigi wrote:
Nowadays they have an IPN API whichis far better than the SIM terminal.
rgdz /_______________________________________________________________ We must Keep on, /
-- Regards, Zack K. Githinji Technical Officer,
Cell:+254 722 649199 E-mail:zachgithinji@gmail.com <mailto:E-mail%3Azachgithinji@gmail.com>
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
Thanks guys, I now have an idea about the whole thing @ Zack, that I can ask them to configure it in SIM card, any idea about Short Code instead? Regards, Mugo On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 11:02 AM, Michael Pedersen <sku@kaal.dk> wrote:
Hi Zack,
As mentioned I agree it's currently the best option - I am just pointing out that it is not without it flaws too, so it is wise to program all sort of failsafe into your code to anticipate it.
The "repeated" messages I am talking about is naturally not the "intended" repeat but when the system does it in error after you have confirmed the first receipt of a message.
I was not aware that you could get a paybill associated with a SIM - the one I have is definitely not connected to one. I have heard about this in relation to "buy goods" accounts but that's a different story. Anyway that is interesting although slightly useless ;-)
.. Michael Pedersen
On 9/24/12 10:26 AM, Zack Githinji wrote:
Safaricom IPN is way better than the Sim Based, its more leliable and easier to intergrate, yes the messages are repeated and this is because the service keeps checking if the receiving server is live for a period of i think 24 hrs, its up to you to set up a primary key on ur db to check and stop repetition..
and yes a paybill number is associated with a sim.... you give safaricom sim cards that they configure to receive mpesa-paybill transactions..
On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 12:45 PM, Michael Pedersen <sku@kaal.dk> wrote:
The IPN API is not without it challenges and reliability issues. i.e. I have seen the same IPN message being repeated, messages being truncated most likely due to it originating from a system working with a SMS char-limit. But I agree it is probably the best options at the moment.
To answer the original question: No a paybill number is not associated with a SIM.
n.b. maybe you can find some useful code in PesaPi you can use for your integration.
.. Michael Pedersen
On 9/21/12 9:58 AM, joe mwirigi wrote:
Nowadays they have an IPN API whichis far better than the SIM terminal.
rgdz *_______________________________________________________________ We must Keep on, *
-- Regards, Zack K. Githinji Technical Officer,
Cell:+254 722 649199 E-mail:zachgithinji@gmail.com
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
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@mugo if you manage to get them route the messages to a shortcode, its in my opinion way better than having to struggle with a terminal. They will however need letters from the owner ( You or client) to authorize this. With the IPN as @ Pedersen has mentioned, there are other issues that currently safcom is trying to fix to improve reliability such as a 2nd route just incase your server 'aint receiving' and they had talked of email even for the current setup but todate av not seen that -may be i keep missing what an email should be- All in all, they promised upgrades by August of this year. Rgds *_______________________________________________________________ We must Keep on, * On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 12:40 PM, m mugo <mugo2of3@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks guys, I now have an idea about the whole thing
@ Zack, that I can ask them to configure it in SIM card, any idea about Short Code instead?
Regards, Mugo
On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 11:02 AM, Michael Pedersen <sku@kaal.dk> wrote:
Hi Zack,
As mentioned I agree it's currently the best option - I am just pointing out that it is not without it flaws too, so it is wise to program all sort of failsafe into your code to anticipate it.
The "repeated" messages I am talking about is naturally not the "intended" repeat but when the system does it in error after you have confirmed the first receipt of a message.
I was not aware that you could get a paybill associated with a SIM - the one I have is definitely not connected to one. I have heard about this in relation to "buy goods" accounts but that's a different story. Anyway that is interesting although slightly useless ;-)
.. Michael Pedersen
On 9/24/12 10:26 AM, Zack Githinji wrote:
Safaricom IPN is way better than the Sim Based, its more leliable and easier to intergrate, yes the messages are repeated and this is because the service keeps checking if the receiving server is live for a period of i think 24 hrs, its up to you to set up a primary key on ur db to check and stop repetition..
and yes a paybill number is associated with a sim.... you give safaricom sim cards that they configure to receive mpesa-paybill transactions..
On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 12:45 PM, Michael Pedersen <sku@kaal.dk> wrote:
The IPN API is not without it challenges and reliability issues. i.e. I have seen the same IPN message being repeated, messages being truncated most likely due to it originating from a system working with a SMS char-limit. But I agree it is probably the best options at the moment.
To answer the original question: No a paybill number is not associated with a SIM.
n.b. maybe you can find some useful code in PesaPi you can use for your integration.
.. Michael Pedersen
On 9/21/12 9:58 AM, joe mwirigi wrote:
Nowadays they have an IPN API whichis far better than the SIM terminal.
rgdz *_______________________________________________________________ We must Keep on, *
-- Regards, Zack K. Githinji Technical Officer,
Cell:+254 722 649199 E-mail:zachgithinji@gmail.com
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
_______________________________________________ Skunkworks mailing list Skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke ------------ List info, subscribe/unsubscribe http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks ------------
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The advantage the paybill SIM has over the IPN method is that the transaction is 'true' realtime i.e. the moment the sender has received the MPESA text, your modem has also received a copy. The downside is scalability - I wonder how many transactions you can pull with such a device over time. I've used the SIM with a Cinterion modem (reading with Perl) and it was working fine but has issues with concatenated texts where a transaction takes 2 mem slots. Other issues to consider include stability of the modem...Cinterion is a good brand but once or twice it has hanged on me thus having to log in to MPESA and manually make entries...and run to the remote site for a cold reboot...you get the drift. If you push many transactions a day you definitely don't want this. The IPN avenue is the best IMO - once you've ironed out the duplicate messages it's fine. Messages hit your db in ~5 min after the sender receives the MPESA text. Another problem (for some transactions) is that you'll run into the 160-char limit they impose on the IPN texts - so if you want to parse the text to know your utility balance it can be a PITA. I don't really understand why they do this. With some code that reads over the previous entries in the db to intelligently reconstruct the balances, that shouldn't be much of a hassle. My wish is that they implement JSON responses :)
Hi all, I missed this discussion earlier not sure how. I am actually the architect and developer of the Safaricom MPESA IPN. It currently hosts over 200 paybill numbers and is fairly stable. @Haggai, the IPN is actually more realtime THAN the modem (but other factors may apply e.g you maybe on internet link instead of a p2p). Also, modems process 1 sms for each 6 seconds or about that...lose network, fill sim card (auto deleting doesnt always work in my experience). @Pederson, the issue of character was resolved a while back, if you are still experiencing it i suggest you contact safaricom ipn support. IPN tries to submit transactions several times so the advise that you check for duplicates is a good one. If you have specific technical challenges with using IPN holla offlist and i maybe able to help you or direct you to relevant support at safaricom. Regards Bernard Kioko *Bernsoft * On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 3:56 AM, Haggai Nyang <haggai.nyang@gmail.com>wrote:
The advantage the paybill SIM has over the IPN method is that the transaction is 'true' realtime i.e. the moment the sender has received the MPESA text, your modem has also received a copy. The downside is scalability - I wonder how many transactions you can pull with such a device over time. I've used the SIM with a Cinterion modem (reading with Perl) and it was working fine but has issues with concatenated texts where a transaction takes 2 mem slots. Other issues to consider include stability of the modem...Cinterion is a good brand but once or twice it has hanged on me thus having to log in to MPESA and manually make entries...and run to the remote site for a cold reboot...you get the drift. If you push many transactions a day you definitely don't want this.
The IPN avenue is the best IMO - once you've ironed out the duplicate messages it's fine. Messages hit your db in ~5 min after the sender receives the MPESA text. Another problem (for some transactions) is that you'll run into the 160-char limit they impose on the IPN texts - so if you want to parse the text to know your utility balance it can be a PITA. I don't really understand why they do this. With some code that reads over the previous entries in the db to intelligently reconstruct the balances, that shouldn't be much of a hassle.
My wish is that they implement JSON responses :)
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Guess we got the right person here, @bernard on being on the internet, does it omit a transaction incase it doesnt read a |FAIL? OR | OK say link down? Coz this is the modal answer I was getting sometime back while doing some followup Rgds *_______________________________________________________________ We must Keep on, * On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 3:34 PM, bernard kioko <bernsoft@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
I missed this discussion earlier not sure how.
I am actually the architect and developer of the Safaricom MPESA IPN. It currently hosts over 200 paybill numbers and is fairly stable. @Haggai, the IPN is actually more realtime THAN the modem (but other factors may apply e.g you maybe on internet link instead of a p2p). Also, modems process 1 sms for each 6 seconds or about that...lose network, fill sim card (auto deleting doesnt always work in my experience).
@Pederson, the issue of character was resolved a while back, if you are still experiencing it i suggest you contact safaricom ipn support.
IPN tries to submit transactions several times so the advise that you check for duplicates is a good one.
If you have specific technical challenges with using IPN holla offlist and i maybe able to help you or direct you to relevant support at safaricom.
Regards
Bernard Kioko *Bernsoft *
On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 3:56 AM, Haggai Nyang <haggai.nyang@gmail.com>wrote:
The advantage the paybill SIM has over the IPN method is that the transaction is 'true' realtime i.e. the moment the sender has received the MPESA text, your modem has also received a copy. The downside is scalability - I wonder how many transactions you can pull with such a device over time. I've used the SIM with a Cinterion modem (reading with Perl) and it was working fine but has issues with concatenated texts where a transaction takes 2 mem slots. Other issues to consider include stability of the modem...Cinterion is a good brand but once or twice it has hanged on me thus having to log in to MPESA and manually make entries...and run to the remote site for a cold reboot...you get the drift. If you push many transactions a day you definitely don't want this.
The IPN avenue is the best IMO - once you've ironed out the duplicate messages it's fine. Messages hit your db in ~5 min after the sender receives the MPESA text. Another problem (for some transactions) is that you'll run into the 160-char limit they impose on the IPN texts - so if you want to parse the text to know your utility balance it can be a PITA. I don't really understand why they do this. With some code that reads over the previous entries in the db to intelligently reconstruct the balances, that shouldn't be much of a hassle.
My wish is that they implement JSON responses :)
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IPN tries to submit a transaction to your server UNTIL it gets the OK. the number of retries is 3 and should be at hourly intervals (not sure if safcom changed that.). On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 6:20 AM, joe mwirigi <joemwirigi@gmail.com> wrote:
Guess we got the right person here, @bernard on being on the internet, does it omit a transaction incase it doesnt read a |FAIL? OR | OK say link down? Coz this is the modal answer I was getting sometime back while doing some followup
Rgds
*_______________________________________________________________ We must Keep on, *
On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 3:34 PM, bernard kioko <bernsoft@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
I missed this discussion earlier not sure how.
I am actually the architect and developer of the Safaricom MPESA IPN. It currently hosts over 200 paybill numbers and is fairly stable. @Haggai, the IPN is actually more realtime THAN the modem (but other factors may apply e.g you maybe on internet link instead of a p2p). Also, modems process 1 sms for each 6 seconds or about that...lose network, fill sim card (auto deleting doesnt always work in my experience).
@Pederson, the issue of character was resolved a while back, if you are still experiencing it i suggest you contact safaricom ipn support.
IPN tries to submit transactions several times so the advise that you check for duplicates is a good one.
If you have specific technical challenges with using IPN holla offlist and i maybe able to help you or direct you to relevant support at safaricom.
Regards
Bernard Kioko *Bernsoft *
On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 3:56 AM, Haggai Nyang <haggai.nyang@gmail.com>wrote:
The advantage the paybill SIM has over the IPN method is that the transaction is 'true' realtime i.e. the moment the sender has received the MPESA text, your modem has also received a copy. The downside is scalability - I wonder how many transactions you can pull with such a device over time. I've used the SIM with a Cinterion modem (reading with Perl) and it was working fine but has issues with concatenated texts where a transaction takes 2 mem slots. Other issues to consider include stability of the modem...Cinterion is a good brand but once or twice it has hanged on me thus having to log in to MPESA and manually make entries...and run to the remote site for a cold reboot...you get the drift. If you push many transactions a day you definitely don't want this.
The IPN avenue is the best IMO - once you've ironed out the duplicate messages it's fine. Messages hit your db in ~5 min after the sender receives the MPESA text. Another problem (for some transactions) is that you'll run into the 160-char limit they impose on the IPN texts - so if you want to parse the text to know your utility balance it can be a PITA. I don't really understand why they do this. With some code that reads over the previous entries in the db to intelligently reconstruct the balances, that shouldn't be much of a hassle.
My wish is that they implement JSON responses :)
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participants (6)
-
bernard kioko -
Haggai Nyang -
joe mwirigi -
m mugo -
Michael Pedersen -
Zack Githinji