Configure shopping cart

Your agency can provide a shopping cart feature to allow public users to group records or group other items in one location and pay for all items at the conclusion of the session. See Partial payment functionality for more payment information.

With the shopping cart functionality, public users can add and manage multiple record transactions. At check-out, the public user receives a message to select their payment method for the entire transaction, such as credit card, check, or trust account. Should the public user choose to end their session prior to checkout, the items remain in the shopping cart for future sessions. To remove the items from the shopping cart, public users must manually delete them or pay for the items in full. The shopping cart also removes items when they exceed the number of days allowed in the expiration settings.

Multiple agencies support this feature. When used in conjunction with a super agency serving multiple agencies, the shopping cart allows multiple transactions across multiple agencies to be added to and managed within the shopping cart. When the public user chooses to check out, they see a message for choosing one appropriate payment method (credit card/check/trust account) for the entire transaction. Agency's can split the transaction and each agency's merchant account processes the associated amount.

By default, a Citizen Access user can pay for any record across agencies in a single shopping cart transaction. The standard choice value ALLOW_CROSS_AGENCY_RECORDS_IN_CART (under the standard choice item ACA_CONFIGS) provides the ability to restrict the use of cross-agency records in a shopping cart. To restrict a Citizen Access user from adding records from multiple agencies into a shopping cart, disable the standard choice configuration ALLOW_CROSS_AGENCY_RECORDS_IN_CART.

By default, Citizen Access payment transactions are processed and submitted to agency-level merchant accounts. The standard choice ENABLE_MERCHANT_ACCOUNT_BY_MODULE provides the capability to assign a merchant account to a module, which allows payment transactions to use either agency-level or module-level merchant accounts.

To set up the shopping cart, administrators must configure the related standard choice ACA_PAGE_PICKER, and define cart settings on the global settings page. Administrators must also assign the URL to the Shopping cart button on the Select items to pay page, customize the related shopping cart web pages, and set component configurations in page flow.

For information about how to configure a standard choice, refer to the Accela Civic Platform Configuration Reference.

For more information about processing payments by module, see Civic Platform Administration Guide > Accounting > Module merchant accounts.

To set up the shopping cart

  1. Configure the related standard choice.

  2. Navigate to Civic Platform and select Admin tools.

  3. Select Agency profile > Standard choices.

  4. Configure ACA_PAGE_PICKER standard choice so you can pick a URL address from a list on the Fee estimate page in Citizen Accesssetup.

    Standard choices value

    Value desc
    Order number. For example, 1 or 2 to indicate order in the list. Page name and URL

  5. If your agency plans to disable cross-agency records in a shopping cart, add the ALLOW_CROSS_AGENCY_RECORDS_IN_CART value to the ACA_CONFIGS standard choice item, and set it to No.

    Standard choices value Value desc Description
    No -

    Disallows cross-agency records in a shopping cart. (Yes is the default value.) If a Citizen Access user has added cross-agency records in the shopping cart, Citizen Access returns the following message:

    The selected item(s) cannot be added to the Pay now section of the Shopping cart since the agency limits shopping cart transactions to items from a single department. Please arrange the Pay now section of the shopping cart so that all payment items are from a single agency department

  6. If your agency plans to use sub-agency or module-level merchant accounts, configure the ENABLE_MERCHANT_ACCOUNT_BY_MODULE standard choice.

Standard choice value Value desc Description
Yes -

Enables the usage of module merchant accounts. (No is the default value.)

If the ALLOW_CROSS_AGENCY_RECORDS_IN_CART value is set to Yes under the standard choice item ACA_CONFIGS, cross-agency records in a shopping cart are processed per module.

If the ALLOW_CROSS_AGENCY_RECORDS_IN_CART standard choice is disabled, only records from one agency will be allowed in the shopping cart. If a merchant account for a particular module has not been assigned, the agency-level merchant account is used.

For more information about processing payments by module, see Civic Platform Administration Guide > Accounting > Module Merchant Accounts.

Enable cart

Select the check box to enable shopping cart functionality.

Payment transaction settings

Use the menu to select the payment transaction settings which identifies receipt generation. Select one of the following:

Transaction per shopping cart Transaction per record type

Default setting which generates one receipt number for the entire shopping cart. You can choose this option if you agency supports online payments or API payments.

When your agency implements multiple agency functionality and you choose this default setting, then a receipt for each agency is generated per shopping cart. ACA can only support API payments in this environment.

Generated a receipt number for each record type in the shopping cart.

Set expiration days for selected items.

Enter a number to define the number of days items can remain in the shopping cart selected area. When the expiration day arrives, ACA removes the record from the selected items area.

Set expiration days for saved items.

Enter a number to define the number of days items can remain in the shopping cart saved area. When the expiration day arrives, ACA removes the record from the Saved Items area.

Define the URL for the continue shopping button on the select items to pay page

  1. Navigate to the General pages area.

  2. Select the Select items to pay page.

  3. Select the Continue shopping button to activate customization.

  4. Choose one of the available URL options from the URL value list.

  5. Select Save.

  6. Customize the content of shopping cart web pages.

    • Select Items to Pay page.

    • Pay Fee page

    • Receipt page

    • Save changes.

  7. If necessary, configure page flow components. You can define the ability to edit the related component section on the application-intake form and on the review page.

  8. Select a Module tab and navigate to the Page flow configuration page.

  9. Create a new or choose an existing page flow.

  10. Select a component on a page to activate the Component settings in the right panel.

  11. Select the Property tab and choose an option from the Editable value cell. You can choose true or false. True allows editing the section on the application-intake form and on the review page. False configures a read-only section on the application-intake form and on the review page. The default value is true.

  12. Select Save.