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Redirecting a link to a specific sales page in the Web Services

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It is straightforward to redirect a link from your main web site to a specific web page on the Theatre Manager web listeners if you construct a link using the following syntax (generally with a target="_blank")

https:// tickets. yourvenue. org [/TheatreManager/1/login[?action=0|number][&lang=XX][&tmsource=YYY]]

The meaning of the parts of the above syntax is:

  • https:// tickets. yourserver. com is the direct link to the Theatre Manager web server. It is the only part that is mandatory.
  • /TheatreManager/1/login - if supplied, is used by the apache server to direct the user to the theatre manager web listeners and begin the sales process. The '1' is replaced by your outlet number in a multi-outlet site. In most cases, it is '1' corresponding to the '1' folder within the standard 'WebPages' web page structure.
  • ?action=0|number - 'action=' is replaced by one of the specific words as shown in the sections that follow (eg action might be 'event' or 'pass' or 'donation'). If you use 0 as the parameter, the user will be able to start at the selection process for 'action'. If you use a specific number as the parameter, then the user will be placed directly at the start of the sales process for the 'action'. For ticket sales web page access, there are some other options as described below.
  • &lang=XX - if you build a multi language web site, you can direct the user to begin using a language you specify. &lang=EN is the default. There must be a WebPagesXX folder for each language you want to support
  • &tmsource=yyy - which is an optional parameter that can be used to detect the web site referrer and attach it to a shopping cart. The idea with this is that you might tie the source to an eblast, another web site, your own site, some tourism source, etc. The value 'yyy' is attached to a shopping cart and once a value is in the cart, it cannot be changed. This means that the first source (or referrer) is used. Note: the source can also be set using a cookie if you want instead of a command line argument. For additional steps on setting up source references, click here.

Note that parameters in a URL are case sensitive.

Most keyword parameters are lower case unless they refer to an actual database variable. The documentation attempts to show examples in the appropriate case.

It is possible to write an interface to extract the event information and upload it your main marketing web site. For example: you can use the extracted information to publish data from TM into a custom calendar object and create 'buy now' links using the patterns above.

You can only use 'GET' style links on web pages in normal format or behind pictures of buttons.

You cannot simulate these links with 'posts' due to PCI compliance requirements to use form-tokens in each post per OWASP requirements to prevent cross-site scripting

We recommend always adding a [&tmsource=YYY] to external links to identify where the patron first entered the web sales process. Carts are tagged with the source code and it provides the most direct correlation between:
  • Where the patron started at this external web site, responded to a specific eblast, or clicked a button in facebook offer for a specific show etc -and-
  • if they actually created a cart, whether completed or not.