Expiring Links

Cleverbridge generates links that are invalid after a set amount of time. These expiring links make it difficult for third-party tools to fetch and collect personally identifiable information (PII) or paymentClosed Exchange of money for goods and services in an acceptable amount to the customer where the payment amount has been agreed upon in advance. The customer can only pay with an accepted payment method. Each payment has an individual payment cost. data from your customers. They also ensure that your online storefront, email communication, and self-service pages are GDPR-compliant.

Note

Since June 2021 all new client accounts automatically receive the new and improved expiring link structure. If you have been using the Cleverbridge platform longer than that and would like to use this new link structure as well, contact Client Experience.

Getting Started

To start using expiring links, complete the following steps:

  1. Contact Client Experience and inform them that you would like to start using expiring links instead of the default static links that were set up for your account. In this communication, you should clarify how long you would like the links to be valid if they are to be generated by Cleverbridge.
  2. Note

    The expiring links generated by Cleverbridge are valid for 30 days from the creation date. The validity of links in notifications is 30 days upon dispatch of the notification.

  3. Generate links for your hosted self-services pages and other online resources. When you generate expiring links, you must keep in mind that they cannot remain valid longer than the value of MaxLinkLifeTime specified in the Cleverbridge system. The MaxLinkLifeTime value is set to 99 days from the starttime defined during link generation.

    Apart from that, you must use the following parameters:

    &s=<start time>

    ParameterData TypeDescription
    <starttime>integer

    Unix timestamp corresponding with the date and time in which the link should activate. For more information, see Unix time.

    Note

    The &s parameter is mandatory. If the &s parameter is missing, the URL won't work.

    Example

    &s=1592309816

    &e=<endtime>

    ParameterData TypeDescription
    <endtime>integer

    Unix timestamp corresponding with the date and time in which the link should expire. For more information, see Unix time.

    Note

    The &e parameter is mandatory. If the &e parameter is missing or expired, the URL will not work.

    Example

    &e=1607865416

    &c=<HMAC-SHA1 checksum>

    ParameterData TypeDescription
    <HMAC-SHA1 checksum>string

    The checksum for link protection is an HMAC-SHA1 hash based on the following string:

    id:starttime-endtime

    In this string, the id corresponds to the purchaseId, subscriptionId, invoice number, etc. of the object being tracked.

    For the subscription ID only the numerical value is accepted, without the initial letter "S". For example, for subscriptionId=S12345678, include only the numbers "12345678" into the calculation to obtain a correct checksum: 12345678:1683635441-1684585841

    For the purchaseClosed An order made by a customer and the records associated with it. ID and invoice number no modifications are needed.

    To calculate the checksum, you must encrypt the string with SHA1 using the Seed for static URL protection:

    SHA1(id:starttime-endtime, SEED)

    You can find this seed in Commerce Assistant under Setup > Account Setup > Additional Details.

    Note

    The &c parameter is mandatory. If any of the parameters used for the HMAC calculation are altered in the URL, the URL will not work.

    Example

    &c=9d1f3806b94ceeac401d98fcb8ad9777caf0f2005dc630039e21d1d45dd547b5

    Note

    This is only for document links. For purchase/subscription-related links, you can use the purchase ID or subscription ID instead of the invoice number:

    SHA1(<invoice number>:<start time>-<end time>, <seed>)

The following examples present links that use the expiration logic:

Change Subscription Payment (SCP)

Use the following link to allow a customerClosed An individual or business purchasing your product or service by placing an order through Cleverbridge. The customer is the end user of this product, as they are not allowed to resell the purchased products or services. ​ A customer is unique per client. If a customer purchases products or services from two different clients, there are 2 separate records of said customer.​ to update, change, or manage their payment methodClosed Describes the actual payment method used by the customer to complete the purchase, for example, Visa, wire transfer, or SEPA Direct Debit. preferences for a subscription.

Confirmation Page

Use the following link to allow a customer to see the details of their purchase after completing a transaction.

Invoice

Use the following link to give customers access to their invoice.

All document links follow the same recipe:

https://www.cleverbridge.com/invoice/<Invoice number>.pdf?s=<start time>&e=<end time>&c=<hash/checksum>&documentid=<Document ID>

Note

For test orders, the invoice number is generally the same as the purchase ID. For actual orders, the invoice number has the following format (Letters-Numbers):
ABC-123456789

Update a Subscription (USI)

Use the following link to allow a customer to expand the subscription by using one of the available upgrade options.

Update Recurring Billing (URB)

Use the following link to allow a customer to update their recurring billing.

Cancel Recurring Billing (CRB)

Use the following link (available only on Subscription Management 1.0) to allow a customer to cancel their recurring billing. The customer needs to turn off the automatic extension using the toggle button.

If a subscription self-service is activated, any access through CRB, CSI, and RSI links gets automatically redirected to the self-service page. In such a case, within the link, the page identifier is changed to "s".

Change Quote (CQ)

Use the following link to allow a customer to see the details of their quote-related purchase and download orderClosed An agreement between a seller and a buyer to exchange goods and/or services for money. An order can: - contain multiple products and quantities; - have multiple financial transactions. A preorder authorization is considered an order. documents.

Customer Change Payment (CCP)

Use the following link to allow a customer to change the payment optionClosed Set of payment choices displayed to the customer on the checkout page. Available payment options are based on the customer's GeoIP location and include different payment methods and types, for example: a Purchase order (PO) is a payment option we offer our B2B customers. POs are usually paid via the payment method of wire transfer..

New Cart from Purchase (LCP)

Use the following link to allow a customer to request a quote from a purchase or to go directly to the express payment.

Within the LCP link, the purchase item running number is optional/situational.

Redo the Purchase (REDOP)

Use the following link to allow a customer to redo the purchase by either requesting a quote or going directly to the payment.

Delivery Confirmation (PD)

Use the following link to allow a customer to view the confirmation of their purchase.

What to keep in mind

When generating expiring links, you can choose any start and end time (as long as it doesn't expire in the past) and calculate the hash based on those times. The two following examples show two expiring links to the same refund document. One link is valid for a year from today, the other for 10 years.

A Link Valid for 1 Year

Start time 1668514748
End time 1700050748
Invoice number 366334488R8644019
Hash 219032fd5373d70a04aaf873d8519a9497a8da60
Document ID 223681701
Link https://www.cleverbridge.com/invoice/366334488R8644019.pdf?s=1668514748&e=1700050748&c=219032fd5373d70a04aaf873
d8519a9497a8da60&documentid=223681701

A Link Valid for 1 Year

Start time 1668514748
End time 1984137692
Invoice number 366334488R8644019
Hash 879958eb637ed6fad9d0dc24fea7beea68e426d0
Document ID 223681701
Link https://www.cleverbridge.com/invoice/366334488R8644019.pdf?s=1668514748&e=1984137692&c=879958eb637ed6fad9d0dc24
fea7beea68e426d0&documentid=223681701

Keeping Purchase Document History

Important

Every API response or notification contains these four links:

  • CustomerConfirmationPageUrl
  • CustomerPdfDocumentUrl
  • CancellationUrl
  • ChangePaymentSubscriptionUrl

The confirmation/cancellation/change payment links are the same in every Get Purchase API response per purchase. However, the PDF link in the API responses only shows the latest invoice type (purchase, partial refund, etc.).

To create links for the full document history, you need to activate the following notifications:

For further details on how to set up notifications in the Cleverbridge platform, see Set Up Notifications for Subscriptions.

The description of the invoice type is in the notification, for instance in the Status and StatusID tags:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<cbt:Status>Partial Refunded</cbt:Status>
<cbt:StatusId>PPR</cbt:StatusId>

From the available timestamps in the notifications, use the ones that best suit your case, depending on how much granularity you need.

Example of a PaidOrderNotification:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<cbt:CreationTime>2022-11-16T12:37:41.429317Z</cbt:CreationTime>
<cbt:PaymentArriveTime>2022-11-16T12:37:41.666145Z</cbt:PaymentArriveTime>
<cbt:LastModificationTime>2022-11-16T12:37:42.081264Z</cbt:LastModificationTime>

Example of a PartialRefundNotification:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<cbt:CreationTime>2022-11-16T12:37:41.429317Z</cbt:CreationTime>
<cbt:PaymentArriveTime>2022-11-16T12:37:41.666145Z</cbt:PaymentArriveTime>
<cbt:ReimbursementTime>2022-11-16T12:46:06.349784Z</cbt:ReimbursementTime>
<cbt:LastModificationTime>2022-11-16T12:46:06.417129Z</cbt:LastModificationTime>

The relevant subscription ID and purchase ID will be under the following tags:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<cbt:RecurringBilling cbt:SubscriptionId="S49694473" cbt:SubscriptionItemRunningNo="1">
<cbt:OriginalPurchaseId>366332011</cbt:OriginalPurchaseId>

Parse the following data from CustomerPdfDocumentUrl you get with every notification:

  • Invoice number: found between '/invoice/' and '.pdf' in the link
  • Document ID: found at the end after 'documentid='