This could be a bit of a boring blog post for those not particularly interested in the internal workings of PayPal, however it has come to my attention that there are a significant number of new API calls that, although still undocumented, are ready for use in PayPal. If there are those people who don’t know what an API is, it’s a way of interacting with PayPal automatically from a third party website (like us) who can add functionality to their offering.

I think most people among developers are aware of the new ‘X’ platform, e.g. adaptive payments, micro payments, which will be great for those of us who are interested in taking small payments for items available online (without, hopefully, the inhibitive fees). There’s a good interview available about the X platform.

However, I have to think that that’s not all there is available in the new PayPal offering. There are a bunch of other API functions which haven’t been fully rolled out, which I have an (extensive!) list of below (some of these are currently available):

RefundTransaction
GetTransactionDetails
TransactionSearch
BillUser
MassPay
BillAgreementUpdate
Encrypted Website Payments
SetExpressCheckout
GetExpressCheckoutDetails
DoExpressCheckoutPayment
DoCapture
DoReauthorization
DoVoid
DoDirectPayment
DoNonReferencedCredit
GMCreatePayment
GMCompletePayment
GMUpdatePayment
GMGetBalance
GMGetAddresses
GMGetFundingSources
GMGetUserDetails
GMAddCard
GMCreateAccount
GMAuthenticatePreapproval
GMConfirmPreapproval
DoAuthorization
CancelPreapproval
ConvertCurrency
GetBalance
GetPalDetails
GMRequestMoney
GMManagePhoneActivation
CreateMobilePayment
GetMobileStatus
SetMobileCheckout
DoMobileCheckoutPayment
DoUATPAuthorization
DoUATPExpressCheckoutPayment
SetCustomerBillingAgreement
GetBillingAgreementCustomerDetails
CreateBillingAgreement
DoReferenceTransaction
CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile
ManagePendingTransactionStatus
CheckIsDisputeAllowed
CloseDispute
OpenDispute
EscalateToClaim
NegotiateRefund
AddTrackingInfo
UpdateDisputeItems
PostDisputeMessage
SetEbayMobileCheckout
SetDPRecurringPaymentFeatureStatus
GetRecurringPaymentsProfileDetails
ManageRecurringPaymentsProfileStatus
BillOutstandingAmount
UpdateRecurringPaymentsProfile
Pay
Preapproval
PaymentDetails
PreapprovalDetails
GetAccountDetails
BMManageButtonStatus
BMCreateButton
BMUpdateButton
BMSetInventory
BMGetInventory
BMButtonSearch
BMGetButtonDetails
Refund

You can of course check out the current API documentation to make sure that I’m not lying. Unfortunately my sources (ahem) weren’t available to provide the documentation on these calls, but they’re interesting nonetheless, especially to people like us at Scrobbld who have to wade through it.

The most ‘exciting’ new calls are definitely the dispute API options:

CheckIsDisputeAllowed
CloseDispute
OpenDispute
EscalateToClaim
NegotiateRefund

But I’ll certainly keep my eyes peeled for any changes Bring it on PayPal! Please let us know if any of these would be interesting in your businesses. One further challenge, if you can guess my sources, we may well also hand out a cigar, or banana.