A client asked me if I could create a comprehensive document that would present - as a unified whole - the 'external to internal and back to external' result code translation that we use in our jPOS implementations. I thought it was a great request - it would aid troubleshooting and every day support tasks. More importantly, it could help the team get their arms around what is an often unwieldy subject. It's also something near and dear to me - I've posted here a couple of times about the importance of establishing result code infrastructure.
I created a series of three MS Excel worksheets to bring this all together. [For those you without Excel, or where the spreadsheet looks goofy when you pull it up, I put an image of the main page of the left so you can get the general idea of the final product.] I'm posting the Excel so you can see the formulas that tie everything together - nothing fancy, just extensive use of the 'VLOOKUP' function (a really neat little function...as long as you figure out that all the lookup values have to be in strictly ascending order; else, all hell breaks loose!)
The three worksheets are explained here (not presented here in tab order):
- IRCs Explained: This is our OLS.Switch (what we call our jPOS implementation) Result Code slate. I've blogged about this before. A prettier (PDF) list is available here.
- Device Displays: These are what we pass back to the transaction's origination point. For this particular client, we're sticking that text into a Visa Gen II ('VG2') response. It's what the customer sees. Note that we have a display related to each possible internal result code ('IRC').
- RRC --> IRC --> Display: Reads like it's written - how Remote Response Codes (i.e., those received from an authorizer like AMEX, GreenDot, FDR, etc. - typically, but not always, in ISO Field 39) are translated into one of our IRCs, and then in turn into a message for display at the point-of-sale. You can see that columns 'D' and 'E' use the VLOOKUP to pull in the appropriate content from the other two worksheets.
We do our best to try to keep this document up-to-date. It's proven helpful to various application specialists and users at our client sites.
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