Certificate of Merit

[Neill Cooper]

Matthew - I have given direct feedback about the CoM test to the ECF and it is up to them to respond.
Just to give you a few details - about 15 students from Wilson's took the level 1 test, 8 in a collective mode (displayed on interactive whiteboard) and 7 independently. Those doing it independently were year 7s from one form, one is in our 5th team others in no team (I had hoped for many more for this session but forgot to remind them in the morning). They first had a demo from team members, which helped them to understand en passant and some other questions. I think all passed the test and were keen to improve their results on a second try.

[John Upham]

Working with the guys in the ECF Office we are finalising the mechanism by which a PayPal payment is made via the ECF Shop for CoM credits.

We are attempting to get a PayPal IPN (Instant Payment Notification) to trigger an update to the MySQL database of the CoM application using the PHP function fsockopen()

If you have any experience with this functionality then I would appreciate any assistance you could offer.

Once this is cracked we are ready to rock!

I am on (07766) 775396 and [email protected]

[Alex Holowczak]

Will it just be CoM stuff you can buy online from the Shop, or can you buy other things on it such as membership, or grading printouts, or whatever? Or is that to come at a later date?

[Carl Hibbard]

Working with the guys in the ECF Office we are finalising the mechanism by which a PayPal payment is made via the ECF Shop for CoM credits.

Isn't that PayPal mechanism quite an expensive way to do it - what sort of percentage they want now?

[Alex Holowczak]

Working with the guys in the ECF Office we are finalising the mechanism by which a PayPal payment is made via the ECF Shop for CoM credits.

Isn't that PayPal mechanism quite an expensive way to do it - what sort of percentage they want now?

If you set up IBT, I can make transfers for free. Not sure how I managed it, but they don't charge me when I send other people money.

[Alasdair Kirk]

Working with the guys in the ECF Office we are finalising the mechanism by which a PayPal payment is made via the ECF Shop for CoM credits.

We are attempting to get a PayPal IPN (Instant Payment Notification) to trigger an update to the MySQL database of the CoM application using the PHP function fsockopen()

If you have any experience with this functionality then I would appreciate any assistance you could offer.

Once this is cracked we are ready to rock!

I am on (07766) 775396 and [email protected]

just out of interest - what is your thinking behind this approach?
there is the ability to send people back to a php page after payment which allows you to then run any code you want...
however, PayPal is one of the less reliable (from a code logic perspective) payment gateways we have integrated as their key approach is to get those paying to sign up for a paypal account if they don't have one yet...

we have found other's to be more logical -Sage Pay / ePDQ / etc.

Paypal can be a more expensive system but actually offers a number of approaches -most expensive per transaction when set up with no monthly charge, but if you know you will have more than a certain quantity of transactions then they offer a monthly charge / lower transaction fee approach.

Other gateways take a similar approach to the latter, with a monthly fee and transaction % but they often also have an intermediary such as streamline etc. as well... so may be no cheaper...

paypal therefore can be comparable in price - and is def. the cheapest introduction to online payments with low committment costs...

happy if you want to make contact - no guarantees, but we fo quite a lot of this type of work (I own a design company)

Alasdair

[John Upham]

This morning we managed to make a purchase on the ECF main site, the purchase was authorised and an IPN issued by PayPal back to a PHP script on the ECF main site.

This new script then parsed the IPN and then made a connection to the MySQL database on the CoM application.

This connection performed an insert into various tables of the CoM application.

Essentially, we have cracked a major obstacle that had been bugging me for some days.

Over the weekend I will add code to correlate the new records in the PayPal tables with the schools and student tables so that their number of CoM credits is updated.

I migrated the CoM content onto the live server last night.

Over the weekend I will add the sponsors content and tart up some look and feel things.

Yesterday I discovered that one reason for the IPN not working was that we could not establish a socket to port 443 on the ECF Shop.

The purchase of an ECF SSL certificate has now been authorised by Andrew Farthing but will take 8 working days to implement. Anyone who knows about the granting of SSL will understand this time is not technical time.

We will test credit purchasing on port 80 this week and then finally test on port 443.

We are finalising the live domain to be used. The one originally suggested is not a good choice and I have offered one of mine as a much better solution : I've offered http://www.certificateofmerit.org.uk/

After many months of delays and stumbling blocks we are about to go live with CoM.

Wilsons School students received their certificates via the application back office this time.

I'm going out for fresh air after being locked away on this for the past three days.

I'd like to thank Andrew Walker, Kirstie Lapworth and Andrew Farthing for their team work in making this happen

John

[Michele Clack]

I hope it all works really well. Congratulations to all involved for all the effort put in.

[John Upham]

Just to keep everyone in the loop :

I have done what needs to be done to allow the live launch of CoM.

Behind the scenes there is debate over which domain name to use : I've offered certificateofmerit.org.uk whereas the current one (not chosen by myself) has hyphens(!) in it and relates to Chess For Schools which some see as undesirable. It would be sensible for CoM to be stand-alone for reasons that should not need further explanation.

The ECF shop is off-line pending the decision to go live.

I have left all of this in the hands of the CEO, the Deputy CEO and the DoM to make a decision.

I will need a day or so to expedite the domain transfer should the decision be made.

I suspect the board meeting on Saturday will feature some soul searching about CfS.

Difficult questions need to be both asked and honestly answered about the level of production of sets from HP : I suspect the watershed has at long last been reached.

No blame should be apportioned to the ECF Office in this respect : much hard work has gone on behind the scenes to keep CfS alive : without CfS we would not have had the schools database from which we can market CoM.

[John Upham]

I'm pleased to reveal that the board unanimously agreed to switch to my suggested certificateofmerit.org.uk domain.

I will set the wheels in motion for this on Monday afternoon following a 9am City interview....

It was slightly disturbing that no-one present at the meeting knew how many sets had been distributed so far. You'd imagine that these figures would be constantly under review.

[Carl Hibbard]

It was slightly disturbing that no-one present at the meeting knew how many sets had been distributed so far. You'd imagine that these figures would be constantly under review.

It does appear that people are 'distancing' themselves from the project does it not?

[John Upham]

It was slightly disturbing that no-one present at the meeting knew how many sets had been distributed so far. You'd imagine that these figures would be constantly under review.

It does appear that people are 'distancing' themselves from the project does it not?

I suspect that the April Council meeting will provide the full stop to this episode.

The great shame is that by bringing it to an end we have limited the number of schools that we can market CoM to.

It would be a challenge to market CoM to schools who have asked for free sets as much as two years ago and still not received them.

I suppose that there is not much more to lose by trying. Maybe most of the schools have forgotten that they asked for them?

[John Upham]

Hi John. As you know I support all you do for the COM project but want to make this observation; to approach schools who were expecting to get free chess but have not got them would have all the appearance of a 'del boy' con. '

I totally agree and I believe that the marketing strategy will be to approach the 436 schools who have been lucky enough to receive their sets.

I have given the all clear to announce CoM officially and we await the official launch statement which is being fine tuned by a team of directors this weekend.

The ball is no longer in my court.

[Carl Hibbard]

I have given the all clear to announce CoM officially and we await the official launch statement which is being fine tuned by a team of directors this weekend.

This going live on your Birthday then John or what is the plan with this one?

[John Upham]

I have given the all clear to announce CoM officially and we await the official launch statement which is being fine tuned by a team of directors this weekend.

This going live on your Birthday then John or what is the plan with this one?

I have been observing (over the last few days) email traffic between some members of the board finalising the launch statement.

As far as I know, this week the CEO is Chris Majer and therefore is it down to CEM to give final sign-off to CoM being launched.

Hopefully, sign-off will take place in the next few days.