Configuring dgCharge Tutorial

dgCharge makes extensive use of a database to provide it's reporting capability as well as to maintain a comprehensive transaction and settlement history for each merchant account. The installation includes a configuration utility that takes all of the guesswork out of setting up dgCharge. This tutorial will explain the features of this configuration utility and demonstrate how easy it is to get up and running with dgCharge.

When the installation of dgCharge is finished, the configuration utility will automatically load and you will see the following screen:

The first thing you need to do is to select the database type. SQL Server (7.x or 2000) is the default type but dgCharge can also use any ANSI-SQL compliant database. After selecting the database type you need to supply the database details. Enter the name of the machine that the database resides on into the 'Server' box and then enter the user id and password. If no password is required, just leave this blank. Then enter the database name. The following image shows the configuration utility with the required information entered:

Now simply click the 'Verify and Save' button. This causes the dgCharge configuration utility to test the connection to the specified database and confirms that the user id and password are valid. If successful, you will see the following prompt:

Selecting 'Yes' in this dialog will save the connection string for your database to the Windows registry where dgCharge can access it. You can run the configuration utility again at any time if you need to change the database details. You will find a link to it in your 'Start' menu under 'Products/DevGuru/dgCharge'.

The final part of the configuration process relates to the encryption key. dgCharge uses the advanced data encryption technology of dgEncrypt to securely store credit card numbers in the transaction database and merchant account information. Upon running the configuration utility, an encryption key is automatically created and stored in the registry and this key will be used to encrypt all credit card numbers and CVV2 data in the database. It is important to realize that if, for whatever reason, the registry becomes corrupted and this key is lost, all the encrypted data in your database will be unreadable. Therefore, although this is an unlikely scenario, we have included the ability to save the encryption key to disk. We highly recommend that you make at least one backup of this file and keep it somewhere secure (preferably off-site).

To save the encryption key to disk, simply click the 'Export to File' button and you will be presented with a standard file browser. Select where you want to save the file, give it a suitable name and then click the 'Save' button. You will see the following message:

The other reason for this feature is in case you have (licenses permitting) dgCharge installed on multiple machines but want them to access the same database. In this case you will need to use the 'Import from File' feature. Simply click this button and select the file that you exported from your other dgCharge installation and click the 'Open' button. You would also use this feature if you are restoring an encryption key in the event of a corrupt Windows registry. Upon importing, you will see the following message:

That's all there is to it! In most cases you will only need to configure dgCharge upon installation although you can come back at any time to make any necessary changes.

If you would like more information or if you have questions about dgCharge, please contact DevGuru.