I'd thought when I first started this project that we could just use the Paypal plugin on Moodle. There would be fees of course but they'd be relatively low, especially compared to what the company is paying now.
Trouble is we want to offer member discounts and apparently the Paypal plugin doesn't allow this, it's one size fits all. I googled for companies that set up the shopping cart system for you (such as Course Merchant who I found to be very helpful by the way) but they charge too and it's quite a bit. If we had budget for that I would have used them but if we had budget for that they probably wouldn't have hired me, they would have got someone who knew what they were doing.
Luckily (or not) the company is in the process of setting up its own shopping cart and payment gateway so we can sell stuff (membership, books etc.). This system should be up and running by the end of August (not holding my breath) and will handle member discounts as a matter of routine. Huzzah! One less thing for me to think about.
Now, though, I have to work out a way for Moodle and this new shopping cart to talk to each other. If I can make it work I think this would be very helpful to others, the Moodle forums are full of people looking for an alternative to the Paypal plugin. The way I see it working is detailed on the flowchart below.
I thought it might work through the external database enrollment plugin. The shopping cart would update a database that Moodle calls upon. Of course it has just occured to me that if the shopping cart is updating a database to allow access to a course it could create the user account too. This would mean our users could buy a course from the company website they already use and then get dumped out at the Moodle page already logged in. Hmm...
A couple of hours later and I've done a new flow chart. Forget that old one because the new one blows it out of the water.
It is a much more elegant method to have the Moodle accounts created automatically rather than have users create their own accounts and then have to leave the Moodle site to enroll on a course. Plus our users are not super computer savvy so the fewer steps the better.
Trouble is now I can't really get the payment system any further until the shopping cart is all built and that will be at least a month if not longer. The Moodle site as it stands now is just about ready for what I am calling 'Public Beta.' These will be users who get courses at a discount price on the proviso they give feedback and don't kick up a fuss if the server can't handle it and dies. To let these guys in I think I'm going to have to use a course enrollment key. This can be distributed to the testers and they can sign themselves up via self enrollment.
