I’m using WooCommerce and WordPress. I have a custom license key generator, and I’d like it to generate a license key when someone successfully purchases my plugin through WooCommerce.
It seems pretty straight-forward:
- User completes checkout on my site
- User is re-directed to Paypal, where they enter their payment credentials
- Paypal tells my site that the payment is complete
- I hook in to some sort of “payment complete” or “order_complete” WooCommerce action and generate the license.
Here’s the problem: I’m really not sure what hook would work well for this. Woocommerce has their entire collection of hooks listed on their site, but virtually no documentation about which is good for what.
Based on just the hook names, I’d think that woocommerce_payment_complete
would be a good action to use. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be fired at all; some places I’ve read say that it isn’t ever fired.
I’ve also read something about Paypal IPN, but I don’t understand how I could hook in to the notification from that (does that connect to a Woocommerce hook?)
In short, I’d like to generate the license key as soon as the payment has been verified. What do I hook in to in order to achieve this?
Okay, I’ve come up with a couple possible solutions.
DEALING WITH PAYMENT VERIFICATION
WooCommerce’s Paypal Standard gateway actually has support for Paypal’s IPN service built right in to it. You’ll want to use that regardless of the ‘hook’ route you choose.
HOW TO SET UP PAYPAL IPN
Paypal IPN is connected to whichever account is the receiver of the money. For example, if you’re getting paid at myemail@gmail.com, then you need to set up IPN with that account. All IPN is, is Paypal sending out a “Payment Complete!” (of sorts) notification to the URL of your choice. In order to choose the url that you want Paypal to send the notice to, you need to do these steps:
Your WooCommerce installation will now hear from Paypal when the payment is complete. Oh, and by the way, make sure that:
NOW LET’S GET TO WORK ON THE HOOKS
OPTION 1: Auto-complete orders that have completed payment and hook in to
woocommerce_order_status_completed
for your special actions/functionsIn order to get your products to auto-complete upon verified payment, you can simply install Mirko Grewing’s fabulous WooCommerce Autocomplete Order plugin. Be sure to set the correct settings (which will appear under the “Woo Extra Options” tab in your WooCommerce settings).
Now that your orders are being autocompleted when the payments are verified, you can simply hook in to your completion hook, `woocommerce_order_status_completed, for your special functionality.
The benefit to that method is that if allows you to hook in any order that is completed–regardless of whether or not you manually completed it or it was automatically completed. In other words, it’s pretty versatile.
OPTION 2: Hook in to the
woocommerce_payment_complete_order_status
filter, which denotes a successful payment.I guess that one is pretty self-explanatory. The benefit to this method is that it’s pretty much the first step in the whole process, and takes place prior to the completion hook above (if you have your priorities set appropriately).
I don’t know if one is better than the other, but they both seem to accomplish my goal: perform an action AFTER payment has been verified.
woocommerce_payment_complete_order_status
also fires when the payment has been canceled. I’ve just tested using Paypal as a gateway on Woocommerce 3.1.2.The action
woocommerce_payment_complete
seems to fire only when the payment has been successful.The
woocommerce_payment_complete
hook is activated only for orders that have one of the following statuses:HOOK: woocommerce_valid_order_statuses_for_payment_complete
If you change the order status (with a custom order status) before the payment is completed (e.g. using the
woocommerce_new_order
hook, after the order has been created but before it has been paid for) you should add the new status via thewoocommerce_valid_order_statuses_for_payment_complete
hook.For example:
HOOK: woocommerce_pre_payment_complete
Alternatively, you could use the
woocommerce_pre_payment_complete
hook which is activated when the payment has been completed but before the order is saved (unlikewoocommerce_payment_complete
which is activated after saving the order).