Using the Credit Card Purge Utility

All credit card numbers are stored within the PaymentInformation table within the Aptify database. To purge credit card numbers from Aptify, a DBA would only need to target this table to clear this data. Removing the data within this table may affect your ability to further process the credit card payment, so it is important that all payments have been captured or voided prior to the removal of the credit card number.

Aptify provides a Credit Card Purge Utility for a convenient way to handle this task. It allows administrative users to remove credit card account numbers based on a specific criterion. The partial credit card number, which can only be used for reference purposes, is not removed by this utility.

The Credit Card Purge Utility includes the following from top to bottom (and left to right):

• Tool Description and Help: This section includes a summary of the tool and available options. Selecting the [MORE] option will display additional help information for the tool.
• Purge Type Options: Determines the type of purge to perform. See the “Purge Options” below for more details.
• Purge Saved Payments: Optional selection to include Saved Payment Methods records for both persons and companies. See the “Purge Options” below for more details.
• Purge Standing Orders: Optional selection to include Standing Orders records. See the “Purge Options” below for more details.
• Date Control: The Month, Day and Year Date Control drop-down boxes are available when applicable, depending on the purge type selected.
• Purge Records: After an administrator has determined the proper purge criteria, selecting this button, begins the purging process. 

Purge Options

There are four choices for removing credit card numbers:

1. Purge all credit card numbers with an access date less than or equal to the specified date.
2. Purge all credit card numbers which have an expiration less than or equal to the specified date.
3. Purge all expired credit card numbers.
4. Purge all credit card numbers.

Optionally, you may include saved credit card payments and standing orders for companies or persons with all removal types. Below is a more detailed description of each option:

Note Concerning Authorized and Refund Payments: Payment Information records which are still marked as ‘Authorized’, with the exception of refund payments, cannot be purged. These records must be captured or voided to be cleansed. Refund payments, though marks as ‘Authorized’ are cleansed.

Option 1: Purge all credit card numbers with an access date less than or equal to the specified date.

The first option will delete all card numbers which have not been used or accessed since a date specified by the user of the utility. In Aptify 5.0 SP2, all Payment information records have a date updated field which records the last time the payment information record was modified, or the card was used. The specific conditions for when this field is updated are:

1. The record is updated whenever the Payment Information record is modified, for example, when updating the credit card number or expiration date.
2. The record is updated whenever the credit card is used in a transaction through the ePayments module or from a standing order.
3. The record is not updated if an order is processed using a Saved Payment Method. However, the Purge Utility will not delete credit card numbers from any Payment Information records that are referenced by an active saved payment method with an End Date greater or equal to today (the date the utility is run). If the “Purge Saved Payments” and “Purge Standing Orders” options are checked, the expiration date will be determined as the last access date. System administrators may choose to expire additional saved payment methods/standing orders (or set them to inactive), if they wish for those card numbers to be candidates for deletion when the optional saved payment/standing order options are checked.

The utility will compare the date specified in the purge tool with the updated date field in Aptify and delete any records with a Date Updated date equal to or less than the date specified.

Option 2: Purge all credit card numbers which have an expiration less than or equal to the specified date.

The second option will delete all records that contain credit card numbers with expiration dates which are equal to or less than the month and year provided by the user. This would provide the user the ability to delete all credit card numbers for cards that have expired several months ago, but to keep recently expired ones. If the “Purged Saved Payments” option is selected, the credit card numbers within a person’s Saved Payment Methods records and a company’s Saved Payment

Methods records will also be checked if it is not marked as active or if it is past the active date for that record (determined by the payment method’s End Date field). If the “Purged Standing Orders” option is selected, the credit card numbers associated with standing orders will also be checked if the Standing Orders record has a Status of Inactive or if the Standing Orders record is past the active date for that record (determined by the standing order’s Date Expires field).

Option 3: Purge all expired credit card numbers.

The third option will allow the user to purge all expired credit card numbers from the payments. All credit card numbers with expiration dates of less than this month will be removed. If the “Purged Saved Payments” option is selected, expired cards linked to persons and companies Saved Payment Methods records, which are not active or have an end date less than the present day, will also be expunged. If the “Purge Standing Orders” option is selected, expired cards linked to inactive standing orders or standing orders that have an expired date less than the present day, will also be expunged.

Option 4: Purge all credit card numbers.

The last option will delete all payment credit card numbers from the Payment Information table not marked as ‘Authorized’ and all save payment/standing orders records which are not active (i.e.

marked as inactive and having an end date/expired date in the past) automatically without having to select the Purge Saved Payments/Purge Standing Orders options. With this purge type, selecting the Purge Saved Payments and/or Purge Standing Orders options clears the credit card account numbers of all active saved payments and/or standing orders as well.

Running the Credit Card Purge Tool

Follow the steps below to run Aptify’s Credit Card Purge Utility:

It is highly recommended that a secure backup is made prior to running this utility and that a memory cleanup tool, such as Eraser (http://eraser.heidi.ie/) is used after running the tool.  Also note that Payment Information records which are still marked as ‘Authorized’ cannot be purged. These records must be captured or voided to be cleansed.

1. Launch the Credit Card Purge Tool from the Payments service.
   
   
   • The purge utility is associated with the Payments service within Aptify’s Order Entry application and is available for users belonging to the administrators group.
   • The Credit Card Purge Tool icon appears in the service toolbar or view toolbar for the Payments service.
     
     
     
2. Select the appropriate Purge Type option based on the desired removal criteria.
   
   
   • See the Purge Options for more details about the available options.
   • Selecting the [MORE] option in the description section of the utility will display additional help information for the tool.
     
     
3. If you also want to purge Saved Payment Methods record, select the Purge Saved Payments option.
   
   
   • Note that the “Purge all credit card numbers.” option (the last option) deletes credit card numbers associated with inactive saved payments automatically without having to select the saved payments option. With this purge type, selecting the Purge Saved Payments option clears the credit card account numbers of all active saved payments as well.
   • See the Purge Options on 21 for more information about purging credit card numbers associated with saved payment methods, depending on the purge type specified.
     
     
4. If you also want to purge the credit card numbers associated with Standing Orders, select the Purge Standing Orders option.
   
   
   • Note that the “Purge all credit card numbers.” option (the last option) deletes credit card numbers associated with expired Standing Orders automatically without having to select the standing orders option. With this purge type, selecting the Purge Standing option clears the credit card account numbers of all active standing orders as well.
   • See the Purge Options for more details about purging credit card numbers associated withstanding orders, depending on the purge type specified.
     
     
5. Select the appropriate Month, Day and Year (when applicable) in the date control fields.
   
   
   • The Month and Year date controls are only available for the first two purge types and the Day date control is only available for the first purge type.
     
     
6. Once the appropriate purge options have been selected and the appropriate date specified, select the Purge Records button to begin the purge process.