The purpose of the certification process is to verify that your transaction submissions meet the requirements of our online API. Certification testing is a required phase of integrating with our processing platform, and certification testing must be completed and verified prior to production processing.
Once you have reached the point where you are comfortable with the SDKs and testing sandbox, you can obtain an account on the official pre-live certification environment by going to https://www.testlitle.com/sandbox/. This is the official test environment that you will ultimately use to perform and complete all required certification testing. You will be able to run through all of the standard test cases, including the standard certification test cases that are listed out in section 2.4 of the Vantiv eCommerce XML Reference Guide. Each transaction type has specific test scenarios that use specific data sets simulating real transactions. The pre-live certification environment responds to each submission with a response, allowing you to verify that you have correctly coded to read the response and store the transaction data returned to you. While all certification test cases are available for your use, you are only required to certify for those transactions that you will be processing in Production. Additional test cases, which you are free to use at any time, are provided within section 2.5 of the Vantiv eCommerce XML Reference Guide. The test account will support basic payment processing functionality, but will not currently support any of the eCommerce platform’s value-added services (VAS).
Once an official relationship has been established with Vantiv (either as a merchant or processing partner), this integration project will be added to the eCommerce on-boarding work queue. The next available Vantiv Implementation Consultant will be assigned to the project, and will work directly with you in support of your certification testing efforts. The consultant will be your primary point of contact going forward during the certification testing, so if you have any questions or concerns, you have a direct point of contact to leverage. The consultant will work with you to have the account properly configured, so if you are interested in leveraging any available VAS, your Implementation Consultant will work with you at this time to support the inclusion within your processing integration. Once you have submitted the required certification test cases, the Implementation Consultant will review the cases for completeness and accuracy. If any issues are found, the consultant will provide assistance, and work with you to address. Upon successful completion of certification testing, the Implementation Consultant will provide you with an official certification email specifying details as to what has been certified, i.e. transaction types, connectivity, communication protocols, etc.
The successful completion of certification testing signifies the integration’s technical readiness to transition to Production processing with us. There are, however, many other factors that need to be addressed and finalized prior to the commencement of Production processing, including contract finalization, merchant account development, fulfillment of PCI compliance requirements, etc. Your Implementation Consultant will be able to provide direction with regards to next steps towards Production processing.
