Adding a note to transaction - paypal

I am trying to add a Note to the transaction, so when I receive the payment email I see something in the Notes/Message section. Does anyone know what object it should get attached to?

Both the API and HTML systems support the CUSTOM field. This value is accepted and passed back to you in the same fashion you sent. So if you need a message that is the field to use.

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Is there some way to use Zapier code to transform data from a trigger before it passes to an action?

There are several instances where the values from a Zapier trigger need to be parsed or cleaned up before they can be used by a Zapier action. I can get halfway there by using Zapier code as an action but I don't see a way to turn around and have it also behave as a trigger.
As an example, say that I have a GMail trigger that I want to feed into my CRM system. The fields needed for the CRM system are contained in the body of the email. In this case I would want to send the email body to a Zapier code action to parse the values I need from the email body and add them as field to the output object. Next I need some way for the output to trigger the CRM action.
Does anyone know of a way to accomplish this?
Since asking this question, Zapier has released Multi-Step Zaps. This enables you to chain actions together. This is critical as they also provide a "Code" Zap that enables the developer to create javascript code that will take as input any of the fields of the previous zaps in the flow and can output virtually anything you want using Javascript.

Does paypal changes the order of POST fields in every IPN notification?

I read that I need to send a confirmation to paypal with the fields in the same order plus the cmd=_notify-validate field. I know that for certains event the fields will be different, but for example for a notification of paid using paypal buttons, will the params will always be in the same order?
Due some limitations I can't get the whole POST fields array (I can only get them by explicitely calling the key) so an option is to set each field in the confirmation request to paypal.
Whether it's always the same order is irrelevant. You're supposed to send them back in the same order they arrived in, whatever that was.
BUT I don't believe that observing the same order in the validation request is necessary, and in some languages, e.g. Java, it isn't even possible, as the order isn't preserved. I've been running IPN for several years without observing this constraint, and I've only ever had one validation failure, from Turkey, which remains unexplained but could have been say a character set issue.
Note that PayPal provide sample code for Java somewhere which therefore doesn't observe the constraint either. One assumes it was tested and passed a review ...

Paypal Notify_url with custom param

As all we know there is a custom param that allow us to retrieve custom data when an ipn notification come from paypal.
But also, I am using a couple of params in the notify_url, and those params sometimes get lost, and when paypal send to me the ipn notification, it comes without one of those params. The strange thing is that one of the param come correctly.
So, first question is: Can I use custom params in the notify_url like:
notify_url = "www.mydomain.com/paypal/ipn/?param1=one&param2=two"
I suppose that I can do it, because it fails 1 in 20 times on my application, so I do not know if it is because it is not supported by some browsers or something like that, or maybe it is a bad habit I should quit.
And sometimes paypal send the ipn notification to:
notify_url = "www.mydomain.com/paypal/ipn/?param1=one"
Without the second param...
And if I can do it, do you have any clue about what it is happening here...
Thanks!
I always avoid sending data to IPN as URL parameters. There are various reasons it may not come through, which means there's no guarantee it'll work correctly every single time.
Instead, use the CUSTOM parameter like you said. If you need to pass more than a single value you can send it as an NVP string just like you would on your URL. Then just parse those values back out of the CUSTOM value within your IPN script.
Alternatively, you could save all of the data you're going to need in your database and then send the record ID in the CUSTOM parameter over to PayPal. Or you could use the INVNUM parameter if that makes sense for you.
Then in your IPN script you pull that data back out of the database based on that record ID. This way you're always sure you'll have it available and won't have to worry about losing URL params along the way.

PayPal callback API NO_SHIPPING_OPTION_DETAILS ignored

I'm using the callback API to prevent someone selecting a non-UK shipping address. I've supplied a callback url, I've set CALLBACKVERSION to 61.0.
When I go into the sandbox and choose an address I know the callback page is being called as I've added code to email me the values submitted to it and the value returned to PayPal. For anything with a SHIPTOCOUNTRY that isn't GB the response is
METHOD=CallbackResponse&NO_SHIPPING_OPTION_DETAILS=1
I've also tried setting a fuller response in case it doesn't like some required field to be missing
METHOD=CallbackResponse&CURRENCYCODE=GBP&L_SHIPPINGOPTIONNAME0=Standard&L_SHIPPINGALABEL0=Standard&L_SHIPPINGAMOUNT0=2.95&L_SHIPPINGOPTIONISDEFAULT0=true&L_SHIPPINGOPTIONNAME1=Express&L_SHIPPINGALABEL1=Express&L_SHIPPINGAMOUNT1=5.95&L_SHIPPINGOPTIONISDEFAULT1=false&NO_SHIPPING_OPTION_DETAILS=1
But it's still allowing non-UK addresses and just using the shipping options set during the initial set up request.
Any suggestions on where I'm going wrong?
After opening a ticket as suggested by PayPal_Patrick the problem was that I was adding the callbackversion in the wrong place. The full response to reject a shipping address on callback is:
METHOD=CallbackResponse&NO_SHIPPING_OPTION_DETAILS=1&CALLBACKVERSION=61
There are different transaction ID's for Buyer and Seller accounts.
I think this might be an issue caused by the country associated with the buyer account being used. I'm going to reach out to the product team for Express Checkout and see if it is intended functionality or not - I don't believe it would be.
If you want to stay updated on the issue I would recommend creating a ticket to PayPal.com/mts, give me the ticket number, I'll grab it and keep you involved.

How do you log PayPal IPN messages?

From PayPal's documentation:
"PayPal returns related variables for each kind of IPN message. Not all variables are returned for each type of transaction."
I was initially planning to create a table in the database with the message fields but now after I read this it doesn't seem like a good a idea anymore (esp. that I see a lot of fields in their IPN documentation).
I have a few ideas (e.g. using tabs and new lines character separate fields and values. Or, saving the the whole thing in XML in the database) but just wondering how you handle logging IPN messages?
What I do is save it to a database table with columns for information that is important to me along with a "raw" column. I take the form parameters collection and serialize it like a query string and push it in. That way all of the original information is available if I should need it but my database schema remains simple and reflects the information that is important to me.
I'd agree with the previous comment. IPN messages can be quite variable, and can be about 40-50 fields per submission. Just pull the few fields you need for your application (amount, customer info, etc) and drop the rest into an XML or TEXT field just in case you need it later.
I faced the same challenges when I integrate PayPal adaptive Payment. The fastest way I did is to store the IPN details (when PayPal calls the IPN handler that I did) to static variable so that the values can be shown regardless of browsers I used.