How does Authorize.Net Silent Post work?

Question

Authorize.net offers a "Silent POST" feature for their Automated Recurring Billing. It's supposed to POST data to a url of your choosing, telling you whether they were able to charge the customer, how much, etc. The problem is, it isn't very well documented.

• Is there any way to test a post to that URL? I've signed up for a developer account, but there's no way to specify that URL like you could in the actual system. Hence, there doesn't seem to be a way to test it out.
• If not, is there a list of possible values it could return? It appears to send x_first_name, x_amount - I've seen code that uses those values - but since I can't actually get it to send a response, I'm not sure.
• Is there documentation for this feature anywhere? Or even class that implements it fully?

Answer 1

Better late then never: All About Authorize.Net’s Silent Post

Answer 2

You still have to call your account rep for them to activate Silent Post URL with your account because that is not something that is enabled automatically

Answer 3

Our clients use the following tool to test silent post url requests sent from the Authorize.Net gateway.

Simply add the following url to your silent post settings and change the email address for the results to be delivered to an email of choice.

URL:

http://www.silentposturl.com/action/email/[email protected]

Answer 4

I have not seen much on it only for AIM and SIM, you might just give them a call.

Answer 5

Log in to your Authorize.Net order processing account, and click on the Settings link (under ACCOUNT, in the left column). Then click on the "Silent Post URL" link in the Transaction Format Settings area. You can enter your silent post URL on the next page. The next page also contains a link to the documentation explaining the technical details. HTH

Answer 6

Here's a few more (somewhat) useful posts I found on the subject.

• Merchant Account Services - gives some limited sample code (PHP)
• Experts Exchange - lists a few helpful variables, gives an idea of what's being sent (ASP).