Store Testing Outside of SpringBoard
With so many factors available to you when setting up your products, it is important to run tests to make sure that the settings chosen work the way you expect. Store testing is often the best way to make sure the user experience is optimal; testing also confirms how SpringBoard notifies you of completed transactions. Once you have completed store testing within SpringBoard, and your FastSpring store has been activated, you should set up your website to link to your FastSpring store. You should then run additional test orders and they should begin on your website, where you will click a Buy Now or Add to Cart link for your product, and then you should continue through the FastSpring order process.
Using the Test Modes on Live Order Pages
When you begin on your website, where you click on a Buy Now or Add to Cart link to your product, you will be taken to your FastSpring order page and the customer details fields (name, address, company, phone number, etc.) will be blank. To allow you to run tests without entering real details (including payment information), FastSpring offers two test mode options, each of which can be appended to the end of the URL you use to link to your FastSpring store.
Both test modes will fill in some of the customer's details automatically, and when you select Test Payment as the payment method you will be able to go through the order process and complete an order. This will show you how all of the order pages look, test the functionality of different buttons on the pages, and trigger all customer notifications (including emails, download links, license codes, etc.) as well as notifications to you, the seller. Both modes do not support test credit card numbers because it opens up some security risks, nor do they support other payment methods, including check or money order, bank transfer, PayPal, or purchase orders.
?mode=test: This test mode will display all products, offers, styles, and custom fields that are set to Test Status or Active Status.?mode=active.test: This test mode is for those clients that would like something similar to a staging environment. It is precisely like your live order pages with the addition of the Test Payment payment method. For this reason, this test mode will only display products, offers, styles, and custom fields that are set to Active Status.
Important: You must close all browser windows and start with a fresh browsing session to clear any session caching.
Testing PayPal
PayPal is not available for testing, but the PayPal process is essentially exactly the same as the test order process, with the exception of the two pages that take place on the PayPal side (where customers sign into PayPal with their username and password, and where they review their shipping address and PayPal payment information, as shown below). These PayPal pages cannot be customized. Next, the customers click Continue and are taken back to your FastSpring order page to Complete the Order.
Testing Check, Money Order, Bank Transfers and Purchase Orders
Although selecting any of the payment methods listed above during test modes will not allow you to complete an order, you can get a sense of what this process will look like to a customer and to you, in SpringBoard, by Creating a Custom Order. When customers place an order with any of these Payment Methods, the order stays in Pending Payment status until FastSpring receives payment.
Once you use Order Creator, enter in customer details (with your email address), add products to the order, check Send Customer Payment Instruction Email, and Confirm the order, you should receive the same email that a customer will get when choosing any of these payment methods. This email will include a URL to print or view the payment instructions, and provide the customer with the opportunity to change the Payment Method to credit card for immediate access to your products. In SpringBoard, you can view details of the pending order and cancel the order.
A Few Notes about Testing Payment Methods
By default, your FastSpring store will display the following Payment Methods: credit card, PayPal, check or money order. To change these settings, or to enable other Payment Methods, such as bank transfers or purchase orders, go to SpringBoard's Store Home » Store Settings and click on the Payment Methods tab. For additional details about Payment Methods, see Types of Payment FastSpring Accepts.
Note: Even if you have enabled check and money order in your store settings, FastSpring does not accept checks or money orders from outside of the United States, so if you are testing from outside of the United States, you will not see these Payment Methods appear.
Note: Bank transfers are available for every country that has a currency that FastSpring supports and take approximately 3 to 5 business days to process. To enable bank transfers in countries other than the United States, you must define non-USD prices. For example, if you were primarily interested in western European bank transfers, you would want to set prices in EUR, GBP, and CHF. For more information, see Currency Settings. Even if you enabled bank transfers in your store settings, if you are outside of the United States and have not defined non-USD prices, you will not see this Payment Method appear.
Testing with Real Orders
If desired, you can complete real orders (not in test mode) and then refund the orders. Please see our Order Refund Policy. Again, your store must be activated to test real orders.
Testing a Failed Credit Card
If you want to see what happens when an order fails due to a problem with payment, you can test a failed credit card order. When trying to complete a real order, fill in the customer details and select Credit Card as the Payment Method. Enter in the credit card number 4200000000000000, select a Card Expiration date. enter in a three-digit Card Security Code, and click Complete Order. You will see what gets displayed to a customer when an order fails due to an error in the credit card number, the expiration date, or the security code. Depending on the error, customers may be able to click Retry Credit Card to re-enter in the credit card details or they can may be able to click Contact US, which will cancel their order, but take them to a contact form (that will be sent directly to FastSpring) to fill out to describe their issue. FastSpring will then contact them directly in an effort to complete the order.
You can also see how this canceled order appears in your SpringBoard account. Go to SpringBoard Store Home » Reports. Scroll to the bottom and select Orders under Issues.
You can now see the canceled order. Click on the canceled order to see more details.
We're Here to Help
If you have completed store testing within SpringBoard and completed all of the test methods outside of SpringBoard listed above, you have now tested the order pages, the thank you for ordering page, any Fulfillment Actions (emails,download links, license codes, etc.) for the product, all notifications sent to you or the customer, and you have triggered a failed order. Although our motto is you can never test enough, you have completed all of the testing functionality located within and outside of SpringBoard.
Although the FastSpring support team cannot guarantee your store setup, if you would like us to assist you in the testing or answer questions about the process, please open a support ticket.