Quick Debugging with Sale Requests Log

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Since version 5.4.43.2 of Post Affiliate Pro, we have added a useful new option, which you can find in your merchant panel under Tools → Sale Requests Log. The screenshot below provides an example of how this feature works and demonstrates its usefulness.

How does it work?

Every time a sale tracking code is executed using one of the following methods:

a request is sent to PAP, which then attempts to create a commission based on the request parameters and your PAP settings. Thanks to this feature, all received requests are saved in PAP. Previously, sale tracking requests were saved only in Tools → Event Logs and only if logging for Sales was enabled in Configuration → Event Logging.

Main Advantages of Continuous Tracking Request Saving

There are three main advantages provided by the continuous saving of all tracking requests:

  1. You can easily verify if your sale tracking integration is able to notify your PAP. If it is functioning correctly, you will see the requests in the table. If not, no requests will appear, indicating a potential issue with your code.
  2. You can readily determine why a commission for a particular order was not saved. The reason is stored in the Message field, assisting you in debugging your settings and tracking issues without needing to inspect the Event Logs in detail.
  3. You can restart a request. Previously, customers who had misconfigured settings—for example, setting a campaign as private without inviting affiliates—would lose commissions for affected affiliates. With this feature, you can simply correct your configuration and then restart unsaved tracking requests to have the commissions recorded.

How does it help with debugging?

In a word—immensely. If you are unsure whether the software is tracking properly, if no commissions are saved for your test orders, or if a particular order was not tracked, here’s how to debug:

Keep in mind that if your installation runs with a cron job, it may take 2-3 cron job runs before a commission is saved. For hosted accounts, it typically takes 5-15 minutes for the commission to appear after an order is placed. It will take the same amount of time for the Sale Requests Log to display the request. You can speed this up by forcing the processing of requests.

  1. Check Tools → Sale Requests Log and look for a log entry for your test order. The order ID can be found in the Sale Params column after the "o":. You can also use the search function.
    1. If your order appears in the list, proceed to step 2.
    2. If your order does not appear, check if there are other orders in the list.
      1. If no other orders appear in the list and you are certain you have already integrated your website, your sale tracking integration is not functioning. It cannot communicate with your PAP, so you need to investigate the code. For this, continue by debugging the sale tracking code.
      2. If other orders are present but your specific order is not, consider the following possibilities:
        1. The Post Affiliate Pro server was temporarily unavailable to receive the request.
        2. The customer who placed the order was using AdBlock or a similar tool that blocked execution of the script.
        3. The order was placed using a different payment method that bypasses the usual process, so the tracking script was not executed.
          For example, if your integration relies on a thank you page visit, the thank you page might not have been accessed. This can happen if you use PayPal Standard or another payment processor that redirects the customer outside your shopping cart without automatically and immediately returning them to the thank you page.
  2. If the Status column shows Processed, the commission was saved and should appear in the Transactions → Commissions screen. If it shows Unprocessed, it was not processed; check the Message column for details. The message is usually self-explanatory, but you can also consult the list of most common error messages. You can also click the Group ID to display the Event Logs for this particular sale request to review how it was processed.

Description of columns

  • ID – Incremental ID assigned to the request when saved in this log.
  • Visit date – Date and time of the request.
  • Status – Indicates whether the commission was saved.
  • Sale params – The received request; abbreviations are explained here.
  • Message – Success or failure message.
  • Retry number – Number of times the request has been executed; increments with each Restart action.
  • Last retry – Timestamp of the last restart.
  • Log group – ID of the log group, allowing you to find all logs for this particular request in Tools → Event Logs (only if logging for Sales was enabled in Configuration → Event Logging).
  • Actions – Options to restart or delete a request (neither the commission nor event logs are deleted).

Additional columns:

  • Account ID – ID of the Network account.
  • Visitor ID – ID of the visitor/customer.
  • URL – URL where the sale tracking code was executed.
  • Referrer – HTTP_REFERRER; indicates where the customer arrived from before reaching the thank you page.
  • IP – IP address of the machine that triggered the request.
  • User agent – User agent string of the machine that triggered the request.
  • Track method – Method used to obtain the Visitor ID.
Updated:

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