Hi @kinggrizzly,
Thanks for the message.
We hear the feedback about the onboarding process and the next plugin update 1.7.0 will make the process easier to follow. The onboarding screen selection will be improved and the documentation will be extended with detailed information about all plugin features.
For now, more information about the current onboarding logic can be found here: https://paypal.inpsyde.com/docs/connect-a-paypal-account/
When connecting with the Connect to PayPal button, PayPal will automatically initiate the sign-up process for advanced card payments, if connecting from a supported region. Advanced card payments haven’t been available in any previous integrations and require a one-time vetting process, which usually completes without major hurdles.
In some cases, PayPal may reject the application, but the expectation is that the PayPal account credentials should be transmitted to the plugin anyway.
You should be able to use all features of the plugin with the exception of the PayPal Card Processing.
If the credentials are not transmitted for some reason, then there is still the option to manually connect the REST API credentials, but shouldn’t usually be needed.
Avoiding the onboarding with the advanced card payments signup is currently not so intuitive as it requires changing the WooCommerce store location, but that’s why we are entirely revamping the onboarding section for the next update: https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce-paypal-payments/issues/443
The goal, originally, was to configure everything automatically, so every merchant in a supported region can immediately take advantage of the latest features without seeing disabled functionality in the plugin.
But we understand that this automation may not be the best approach for websites managed by third parties and especially if PayPal does not immediately approve the application.
The upcoming update should be out sometime next week if all goes well. But a pre-release version can also be tested with the latest packages on GitHub: https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce-paypal-payments/releases
Onboarding with “Basic credit and debit card processing” selected would skip the advanced card payments signup and connect your account as the checkout plugin did.
There will be more tweaks to this before the release though.
The overall plugin settings will also be revamped at a later stage as it may indeed seem a bit overwhelming. It’s actually not that much though when looking at the whole picture.
The section PayPal Checkout Settings contains all of the core plugin settings: Gateway title, capture modes, Vaulting, disabling funding sources, invoice prefix, etc. as the most generic plugin settings. The PayPal Card Processing acts as a separate payment gateway in WooCommerce and can be accessed from a quicklink below the tabs.
All settings below fall into two different categories:
PayPal Smart button settings for the following pages:
Checkout
Single Product Page
Cart
Mini Cart
And Pay Later messaging (advertisement banners) settings for the following pages:
Pay Later on Checkout
Pay Later on Single Product Page
Pay Later on Cart
These are all the same settings, just for individual pages where the buttons/messaging are available.
If some of these are enabled, it can clutter up the settings page and we hope to implement a more intuitive layout sometime soon as well. Improving the onboarding is our first priority though.
There is also a migration layer in PayPal Payments that will apply existing button layouts and configurations the way it was with the previous Checkout plugin.
To provide only a PayPal and credit card button on the checkout page, I suggest unchecking all of the boxes for the PayPal buttons and Pay Later messaging except for the button on the Checkout. The Disable funding sources setting allows you to disable other buttons such as Venmo, Pay Later, or other alternative payment methods if you don’t want to provide these either. But most of these were also available in the Checkout plugin.
I hope that makes it a bit more clear. Please let us know if there’s anything I did not cover adequately. We are investing plenty of resources to improve the user experience on every front, so your feedback is highly appreciated. Thanks!
Kind regards,
Niklas
