How to test a Uniprint Billing Gateway for a single user.

Question:

How can I test Balance calls through the Pharos system to the External Billing Gateway system for a singel user to see what the response is?

Answer:

Terms used throughtout this article:
External Billing Gateway: External billing system that runs on a server not controlled by Pharos nor configured by our software. this is the system that our gateway will comminucate TO.
Pharos Billing Gateway: An application developed by Pharos to communuicate to an "External Billing Gateway", receive a response and provide this data back to the Uniprint system. They typically consist of two components. The Gateway application itself and the Plug-In.

The Gateway is an application which communicates to the External Billing Gateway and the Plug-In communicates to the Pharos Billing Gateway.

The majority of the Pharos Billing Gateways, from the Pharos Blackboard TIA to the ones used by our CSGold Gateway application use one of two applications (a Pharos Plug-In)to send a Balance request to the external billing gateway. The two main Plug-Ins are the IpBilExt.exe or BillPlug.exe.

The default location of these two Plug-Ins once they are installed on a Pharos Print server are shown below.
1. IpBilExt.exe: C:\Program Files (x86)\Pharos\bin
2. BillPlug.exe: C:\Program Files (x86)\Pharos\Bin\Gateway\Plug-in

In each of the directories above for the Plug-Ins is a Windows batch file called "balance.bat". It contains the commands as seen below.

@echo =====balance  for testing only=====
@Echo off
Rem Commandline parameters are:
Rem Output File       StdIO is directed to this file
Rem Balance           Billing transaction type verb
Rem Account           The account that will be checked (CardID)
Rem ExternalID        The name of the Pharos Station ID
Rem
Rem Command Format: billplug <Output File> <Balance> <Account> <ExternalID>
Rem
billplug out.txt balance 1234 1
type out.txt
echo.
pause

The Plug-Ins take 4 variables as outlined in the REM statements above. To use the batch file simply edit it with the necessary <Account> and <ExternalID> values.

<Account> Will be the user information that you normally expect to send to the External Billing Gateway.

<ExternalID> Will be the value from the Pharos Administrator that is used for a "Release Station" called the "External Name".

When you run the batch file you should see the output of the balance call to the External Billing Gateway and this should help determine if the problem is on the Pharos side or the External Billing Gateway side. You may see responses like 'card not found' or other errors related to the card itself. When the External Billing Gateway returns this type of a response the user will see an insufficient funds message when trying to login.