E-Commerce is an important feature that provides Admins the capability to sell their training content to both internal and external Learners. E-Commerce provides a wide degree of flexibility in the various payment types (and Currencies) it can be configured to accept credit cards, checks, purchase orders, wire transfers, etc. 

If your LMS is not currently configured for E-Commerce, please contact your Client Success Manager or our Support team. 

Payment Gateway

If your organization accepts credit cards as a form of payment, you will first choose a Payment Gateway, an online service that processes credit card payments for E-Commerce sites and brick and mortar stores. Please review the list of Payment Gateways below to ensure your existing partner is supported by Absorb or to find a new Payment Gateway. 

Payment Gateways marked with an asterisk (*) are our client's most popular choices.

Payment Gateways marked as [Deprecated] may stop working suddenly, it is recommended that you switch to a currently supported Payment Gateway to reduce the risk of interruptions.

The list of supported Payment Gateways can be found here:

• Supported Payment Gateways

Configure and Test Your Payment Gateway

Testing your Payment Gateway is an important step in the process. To begin, you will need to enable your Payment Gateway directly with the vendor of choice and then you will set up a testing environment within your LMS. 

Please review our Payment Gateway Setup Guide article which provides step-by-step directions for configuring our most popular Payment Gateways. If your gateway isn't on the list, please reach out to our support team who can assist in getting you up and running.

Payment Gateway Important Notes

Please keep in mind, you will want to walk through the Configuring E-Commerce Settings section below to fully set up your E-Commerce Settings and configure a testing environment for credit card payments.

Most Payment Gateways have a Testing mode. Our E-Commerce settings allow you to test your setup (if supported) without having to use a live credit card. The rules for testing vary widely between vendors and we strongly recommend you read up on the rules specific to your gateway.

Once you have performed enough tests within the Test Payment Gateway, it is recommended that you perform at least one test purchase after the Live Payment Gateway is enabled. The easiest way to do this is to set a course to $1 and add self-enrollment rules that limit the audience to just yourself. Then you can be 100% sure that everything is ready for your launch.

If you experience any issues during testing, you will need to reach out to your Payment Gateway support resources. To reduce any runaround, it is important that you provide their support team with the specific terms or settings used so that they can assist you. You can find these details in the setup guide or you can contact the Absorb Support Team and they will provide you with the details you need.

Test Credit Card Numbers

The following is a list of test credit card numbers you may use to do a test transaction. These numbers should work for every gateway and pass validation on any test gateway. These numbers are for testing purposes only and cannot be used for testing in a live gateway.

Configure E-Commerce Settings

E-Commerce will need to be configured on your LMS before you can configure your Courses and begin selling them to your Users. 

If you are not seeing E-Commerce on the Client Settings page, please reach out to your Client Success Manager or the Absorb Support Team to have this feature enabled. 

The the following article outlines the configuration options available when configuring E-Commerce:

• Configuring E-Commerce

Transactions

Transactions provide extended post-sales information for LMS items that have been previously sold to Learners in Absorb. With this capability Admins can examine individual purchases in greater detail, create Transaction documentation and record refunds provided to customers.

This makes the Transaction tool in the LMS primarily a forensic reporting instrument and as such Admins will not necessarily be changing the data offered here, so much as working with what information is already available, in order to get other business tasks accomplished.

This matters because in most commercial scenarios, an organization's LMS sales will be processed by their Payment Gateway (if they have chosen to accept credit cards) and/or their accounting department. While both of these financial entities can provide historical purchase information, both sources will also limit an Admin to the types of data that they consider important for their own record keeping and reporting. That makes it essential to have a dedicated reporting resource built-in to LMS that can be accessed quickly, without the need to seek answers elsewhere.

Possible uses for Transactions include:

• Assisting E-Commerce customers with post-purchase needs.
• Satisfying financial reporting requirements (accounting, auditing, reconciliation, etc.).
• Monitoring Payment Gateway activity from the LMS side.
• Improving overall E-Commerce success by analyzing sales/use patterns.

Learn more about the Transactions Reports here.

Coupons

Coupons allow Admins to more effectively market their learning inventory to both new and existing customers by offering discounts on select LMS items. As a fully-customizable financial incentive, Coupons can be purpose-built to meet the needs of a multitude of E-Commerce scenarios. Simply by changing the value, timing, number of uses and item applicability that a Coupon has, an Admin can target specific audiences of Learners - and more effectively drive any interest shown in a learning item towards actual Enrollment.

The effective promotional value that Coupons bring to Absorb's E-Commerce suite really can help make a difference in creating a prosperous learning program. Combined with some of the social tools of the optional Absorb Engage module, the Admin is easily equipped to devise sophisticated marketing initiatives that can directly contribute to the LMS's financial success.

Possible uses for Coupons include:

• Boosting Enrollment numbers.
• Enhancing Learner engagement in the learning program.
• Increasing the LMS customer base with new Learners.

Use Case Examples

Here are some examples of how clients use E-Commerce in their LMS.

Deep Links 

• Buy now button from the client website that links to a Course within Absorb to buy it.
• Use an Enrollment Key to get a free course, if they pay for it directly on the client's website. 
• Buy now and it takes them to the Shopping Cart, where they can sign-up and then purchase a Course.
  • Please advise Deep Links should match the Enrollment Rules on the Course. For instance, if the Course is only available to a certain Department, the Deep Link must include the Dept GUID.

Extras

• Course pricing can be set at the individual Course level and can be made fully adaptable to different Learner audiences by tying pricing to Availability Rules and Departments.
  • Please advise that pricing set within a Curriculum will override any Course pricing.
    
• Similar to variable pricing is the ability to offer different sets of Course inventories to various audiences once again through the use of Departments.
• Multi-Seat Purchases of an individual Course, Course Bundle, or Curriculum can be made by a single Learner on behalf of other LMS students through the creation of an Enrollment Key, which the purchaser can then distribute to those select Learners in order to more easily coordinate the specific training they might require.
• E-Commerce access can be limited to registered customers only requiring that a Learner either be an existing customer in Absorb or be required to create an account as a new Learner in the LMS before they can buy. For added security and certainty, new customers can be required to verify their email addresses before they can make a purchase.
  • Please advise that in order to have a Course able for Public Purchase prior to signing in, both Public Purchase and Self-Enrollment, with no Enrollment Rules, must be enabled in the Course settings.
    
• Through the use of Coupons various marketing and promotional scenarios can be implemented by offering deals on the LMS inventory.
• Coupons can be further used to automatically assigned new customers to a particular Department which itself can be configured to control what LMS inventory options and prices new Learners have access to.
• Courses can be created with a fixed or open-ended completion time to provide customers flexibility in their training. Similarly, Instructor Led Courses can be configured to require that a Learner commit to a Session at the time of purchase or allow them to make that choice later on.
• Absorb's Transaction tool captures a considerable amount of customer purchase data that Admins can use to run customized reports for the purpose of monitoring and optimizing their LMS sales.
• Please note that past ILC Sessions cannot be purchased.