WhoCash can be purchased online
by Miranda Neubauer
Senior Writer
News | 4/29/08
Posted online at 3:16 AM EST on 4/29/08
Since Monday April 14, all members of the Brandeis community have had the option of adding WhoCash to their student ID cards online from the Campus Card Office Web site with credit or debit cards, said Anne Livermore, assistant director for student technical services in Library and Technology Services said.
Before the online software was implemented, it was necessary to go to the Campus Card Office and add value by cash or check.
In December, Livermore told the Justice that LTS hoped to have the system online close to the time when WhoCash became available for printing and copying after February break.
Livermore explained that the delay in the online system was due to the interaction of the new software's allowing for online addition with two financial services, a credit card processing company, and a Campus Card Office Brandeis bank account that stores all WhoCash. The software accounts for the allocation of WhoCash balances to individual students, she said.
The new software allowing for the online addition, comes from C-Board, a company that provides the Campus Card software involved in printing ID Cards and storing all ID card information in a database called CS Gold, Livermore explained. The new software is a plugin, or module, for that database called Netcardmanager allowing for the new online functionality, she said. "It communicates the three ways between CS Gold, the credit card processing companies and the bank."
LTS and the treasury had to work on finding a common method of communication between those instances, she explained. "The information sent by the credit card-processing companies to the bank has to match the type and format of information that the bank expects," she said. "And both the credit card company and the bank need to be speaking on the same terms as the software."
During the last week of March, "the software was accurately adding WhoCash to students accounts," she said. "But getting it to charge the credit card and put money in Brandeis' bank account took a little longer because there are many different types of bank accounts," she explained. She said that LTS worked with the treasurer's office through trial and error to find the right type of bank account, an e-commerce bank account, that could receive information from the software. A similar issue existed with regard to establishing the right kind of connection between the software and the credit card processing company.
Before the online software was implemented, it was necessary to go to the Campus Card Office and add value by cash or check.
In December, Livermore told the Justice that LTS hoped to have the system online close to the time when WhoCash became available for printing and copying after February break.
Livermore explained that the delay in the online system was due to the interaction of the new software's allowing for online addition with two financial services, a credit card processing company, and a Campus Card Office Brandeis bank account that stores all WhoCash. The software accounts for the allocation of WhoCash balances to individual students, she said.
The new software allowing for the online addition, comes from C-Board, a company that provides the Campus Card software involved in printing ID Cards and storing all ID card information in a database called CS Gold, Livermore explained. The new software is a plugin, or module, for that database called Netcardmanager allowing for the new online functionality, she said. "It communicates the three ways between CS Gold, the credit card processing companies and the bank."
LTS and the treasury had to work on finding a common method of communication between those instances, she explained. "The information sent by the credit card-processing companies to the bank has to match the type and format of information that the bank expects," she said. "And both the credit card company and the bank need to be speaking on the same terms as the software."
During the last week of March, "the software was accurately adding WhoCash to students accounts," she said. "But getting it to charge the credit card and put money in Brandeis' bank account took a little longer because there are many different types of bank accounts," she explained. She said that LTS worked with the treasurer's office through trial and error to find the right type of bank account, an e-commerce bank account, that could receive information from the software. A similar issue existed with regard to establishing the right kind of connection between the software and the credit card processing company.
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Dani B.
posted 4/29/08 @ 10:52 AM EST
I was pretty sure that the credit card companies have a strict policy about not allowing merchants to charge a fee to someone for using a credit card over other payment methods. (Continued…)
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