This checklist is the mandatory steps required to engageYou can find out about CU Ecommerce by visiting the main page for this service.
As you may know, we use a Carleton form, and a third-party secure payment gateway, E-xact, to allow you to take payments for events and services on campus. Ecommerce has many moving parts that have to be prepared for it to be able to go live. Here is a checklist of items you need to have before you start your ecommerce journey with us.
First things first
A timeline
We generally need 2-6 weeks to get an ecommerce event ready and into production. Plan early to avoid disappointment! Bear in mind that in May many many conferences are hosted at Carleton and so there is a log jam of ecommerce requests in March/April. At that time it might take 6 weeks to get your registration form, ready, tested, updated, and launched. Ideally then, you will approach us in December so we can get working on your pages in January. We will need to know when your event is and when you want to make the registration/purchase available publicly.
A name
This is the name of the event or service you are selling through CU Ecommerce.
A refund policy
This is mandatory. If you don’t provide one, we will – and you won’t like it.
A form
Once you have at least these items ready, you can place a request for the ecommerce service, using this form. We only accept requests via this form. You can email us and we will get back to you eventually with an answer. The answer will be: Fill out this form. You can also fill out this form if you just want to discuss whatthe offering is.
A meeting
Once we have received the form from you we will ask you to meet to discuss your needs.
A tax clearance confirmation
For the vast majority of events and services at Carleton levying HST is mandatory. If you think your event should not be charging HST then you must contact the Business Office to request a confirmation of this. (An email that you can forward to us is all we need.)
And not forgetting…
Everything else – as listed below – can be ironed out after we meet to discuss your requirements and how we can help.
A list of fields
These are for the form on the initial page – this is any info you want to gather from the customer. Name and email are mandatory – beyond that, it is up to you (within reason).
Prices
If prices are not yet finalized (because you have planned far in advance like you should do – see A timeline above) don’t worry – we can drop the real prices into the form when they are decided upon. In the mean ttieDifferent prices for different folks (students, alumni, emeritus etc.)? No problem – we can handle that too. Need a coupon for some customers? Also no problem.
Copy
The page where your form sits might require text to guide the user – e.g., a list of prices, an explanation of what the price includes, etc. You will need to provide us with the copy for this.
Email addresses
You need to be able to receive notifications of registration/intent to pay, and you have to also provide an email to which the payment system can send notifications of payments. To complicate things, while the application we built allows us to use as many email addresses as required (yours, your manager’s the departmental address, etc.) E-xact only allows us to enter one email address for administrative uses. We recommend that this be a departmental or project email rather than a personal email address (e.g., ancientgreek@cunet.carleton.ca or ourfieldtrip@cunet.carleton.ca rather than juanita.doe@cunet.carleton.ca).
Email messaging
When a customer submits the form they receive an email automatically. What would you like that to say? It can remind them of the date, time and location of an event or the details of a service. Or it could underline certain conditions or obligations. For example, if it is for a field trip for a course you can use this email to remind students they must provide a signed confirmation of the rules and regulations of the trip.
There may be other items that come up but these are the main areas that need to be covered in order to engage the service so you can start to take payments. Please submit any further questions via the ITS Service Desk.