AT Payment Connect User Guide

AT Payment Connect lets authors pay your journal’s publication fee (APC) online in Indian rupees, by UPI, card, net banking or wallet, straight into your journal’s own Razorpay or Cashfree account. Get it from the Altechmind Store. Questions? See the FAQ & Troubleshooting.

Introduction

AT Payment Connect is a payment plugin for Open Journal Systems (OJS) 3.5, developed by Altechmind Technologies (OPC) Pvt. Ltd. It works inside OJS’s own publication-fee workflow: when an editor requests the fee, the author pays online and OJS marks the fee paid automatically.

It is an integration, not a payment gateway. The money goes directly from the author to your Razorpay or Cashfree merchant account. Altechmind never receives, holds or settles funds and takes no commission. You pay only your payment provider’s usual fees.

Highlights

• Razorpay or Cashfree, with your own account and keys. One provider is active per journal.
• UPI, cards, net banking and wallets: whatever your merchant account has enabled.
• Paid only when confirmed. The fee is marked paid only after the provider confirms, server to server, that exactly the OJS amount was captured, and only once.
• Nothing lost if the browser closes. The provider notifies your site in the background and the payment still completes.
• Clear pages for authors: “Payment successful”, “Payment did not go through” with Try paying again, and “Not paid yet” with Pay now.
• Receipts: an email with a PDF receipt naming your journal as payee.
• Editors are told: an email to the submission’s editors and a line in the submission’s Activity Log.
• Payments log for journal managers, with CSV export and receipt re-send.
• Test mode with separate keys; no real money moves.
• Indexing untouched: article pages, citation tags, OAI and feeds stay exactly as they are.

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System Requirements

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Licence & Seats

• AT Payment Connect is licensed per journal. Each journal that switches the plugin on uses one seat. Buy 1, 3 or 5 journals.
• The licence key is entered once, in AT Gateway, by the site administrator. AT Gateway checks it with the store once a day.
• If the licence is not active, or AT Gateway is switched off, new online payments pause and authors see your own payment instructions or contact details. Payments that already started always complete.

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Installation

1. Download atPaymentConnect-<version>.tar.gz from My Account › Downloads in the store. Don’t unpack it.
2. If you don’t have it yet, install AT Gateway the same way (it’s free) and enable it.
3. Sign in to OJS as a site administrator and go to Administration › Site Settings › Plugins.
4. Click Upload a new plugin, choose the AT Payment Connect file and click Save.
5. In each journal that will take payments: Website › Plugins › Installed Plugins › Payment Plugins › tick AT Payment Connect.

Activate the Licence

1. Copy your licence key from My Account › Licenses in the store.
2. In OJS: Administration › Site Settings › Plugins › AT Gateway › Licences & updates.
3. Paste the key next to AT Payment Connect and click Save & activate. If AT Payment Connect is not listed yet, click Check now.

The store’s licence page then shows one seat per journal, e.g. yourdomain.org/journalpath.

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Set Up Payments in Your Journal

Everything is in Distribution › Payments (journal manager).

1. OJS payment settings

1. Tick Payments will be enabled.
2. Currency: choose INR (Indian Rupee).
3. Payment Plugins: choose AT Payment Connect.
4. Set the Article Processing Charge (publication fee) amount.

2. AT Payment Connect section

Keys are stored encrypted and are never shown again. To change a key, type the new one; leave the field empty to keep the saved key.

3. Check the status box

After saving, reload the page. The Status box shows a checklist: Licence, Currency, Payment method, Publication fee and Provider set-up. Every line must show a tick (✓). Any line with ✗ says what is still needed.

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Razorpay Webhook (Razorpay only)

The webhook lets Razorpay tell your site about a payment even if the author closes the browser. Cashfree needs no webhook set-up.

1. Copy the Razorpay webhook URL from the status box in Distribution › Payments.
2. Razorpay Dashboard › Account & Settings › Webhooks › Add New Webhook (set it up separately in Test mode and in Live mode).
3. Paste the URL, choose a long random secret, and tick the events order.paid, payment.captured and payment.failed.
4. Paste the same secret into Razorpay test webhook secret (or live) in OJS and save.

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Test, Then Go Live

1. Open Open the payments log (link in the status box) and click Test connection. You should see “Connection works”.
2. Make one test payment as an author (see How authors pay) using your provider’s test cards, test net banking or test UPI. No real money moves.
3. Check: “Payment successful”, the fee shows Paid, the receipt email arrives, and the payment appears in the log.
4. Enter your live keys (and the live webhook for Razorpay), switch Mode to Live, save, and click Test connection again.

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How Authors Pay

1. The editor accepts the submission and chooses Request payment in the decision. OJS emails the author a Payment Request Notification with the payment link.
2. The author opens the link and sees Confirm payment: amount, payee, fee, submission, provider, and your policy links. With Cashfree, a 10-digit mobile number is also asked (sent to Cashfree only, not saved).
3. The author clicks Pay ₹ … and pays on Razorpay’s or Cashfree’s secure window. Card, UPI and bank details are never entered on your site.
4. The author lands on Payment successful, with a receipt number and Download receipt (PDF). The receipt is also emailed.

If something goes wrong, the status page tells the author exactly what to do: