Which payment programs does Tacit integrate with?

Overview

Tacit Student/Corporate Payment Program Integrations

• Atrium
• Blackboard (Transact)
• CBORD (Transact)
• ITC Systems
• MM Hayes (Transact)
• Touchnet 
• Volanté On Account

Locations need to get an agreement from Blackboard in order to integrate. For each plan you can have payment card rules. Tacit processes meal plans as a form of gift cards. Each program may or may not have multiple payment plan options configured. 

This article includes a detailed list of the types of student payment plans supported by Tacit, as well as information about different SSO flows, integration requirements, and options for encrypting personal and payment information.

Types of Student Payment Plans 

Payment Plan Types

• Inclining Balance
  • Payment does not need to be split.
  • These cards hold a dollar amount that can be used for payments even when the balance goes under $0.
• Declining Balance
  • These cards hold a dollar amount that can be used for payments until they reach a $0 balance.
  • Supports splits payments.
  • User will be automatically pay additional amount with credit card or will be prompted to add credit if their balance does not cover order total.
• Meal Plans
  • Uses meals credits only; the unit of measure is 1 meal and not a dollar amount.
  • Split payments are not supported.
• Loyalty Points
  • Dollar amounts can be paid for by redeeming loyalty points.
  • Split payments are available.

User Authentication Flow

The user authentication flow is the way in which users will be able to sign in an access their payment plan. Student and payroll deduct cards can be added by Single Sign-On or by authenticating cardholder profile fields. We have 3 authentication flow options:

1. SSO (Single Sign-On)
   • Shibboleth
   • OpenID
   • Azure Active Directory
     • Integration with Azure Active Directory requires a setup of metadata, containing the user attributes which will be passed through authentication (e.g. card number, first name, last name, email, phone number).
2. Email and Password
3. First name, Last name, Card number
   • This is considered the least secure option. The majority of available integrations prefer to use SSO.

Single Sign-On Flows 

Shibboleth SSO Flow

OpenID Authentication Flow

Requirements for the integration:

• Student card number format

• Key to decrypt the JWT token

• Web URL (University's authentication page)

• RedirectURL (upon successful authentication)

• Sandbox environment (to test integration)

Data Encryption options:

There are 2 options for how the data can be passed:

1. Directly, without any encryption
2. Encrypted with a JWT token
   • This way, the data is encrypted on the school’s side, then passed to Tacit server as a token, where it is decrypted and stored on Tacit server
   • For this method, the user doesn’t see the full card number. Only first or last 4 digits of it are displayed

For data security purposes, the encryption option is preferred. The key to decrypt the token will be required from the school. Phone numbers will not be passed within a token, but will be collected from a user on the registration step. 

The below field exemplifies the set of metadata and the JSON structure to be used (but this is subject to change based on the actual set of data per integration). 

{"FirstName":"John", 

"LastName":"Smith", 

"Email":"[e-mail]", 

"CardNum":"12345678" }

In case the card balances can’t be retrieved (ie. the card is lost/stolen or there is a network outage), the user will receive an error message, prompting them to register the student card again or select an alternative payment method.

Alternatively, the school may opt-in to link the student card number with a student ID. In this case, if the balances can’t be retrieved, the user will see a “Retrieve card balance” button without having the need to re-register. This option is more complex and would require additional API’s to be provided by the school to associate the student ID and the card balances, and thus would be an additional development effort.

Setting up discounts

Many student and employee payment plans provide customers with discounts when they use their plans. These discounts may also include tax exemptions on payments. Tacit will need to know what type of discounts will apply to each payment tender (payment method) so they can be configured.

UI/UX Requirements

1. Digital asset for the student card display on the app
   • Format: jpeg, png, or original file
   • Size: 276x174 px 
   • See How do I control digital assets? for more information
2. Verbiage for error messages in case of lost card ornetwork issues

Program Specification Checklist

Payment Integration	Atrium Blackboard (Transact) CBORD (Transact) ITC Systems MM Hayes (Transact) Touchnet  Volanté On Account
Payment Plan Types	Inclining balance Declining balance Split payments Meal plans Loyalty points
Authentication Flow	SSO Shibboleth OpenID Azure Active Directory Email & Password First name, Last name, Card number
Encryption Options	Directly, without any encryption Encrypted with the JWT token Discounts
Discounts	No Discounts Discount Tax Exemptions