If the Smart Dispute for Issuers application evaluates that the Ethoca network should be contacted for dispute processing, the ExecuteThirdPartyResNetwork activity is called polymorphically. This in turn calls the IdentifyEthocaMerchantStatus activity, which performs the check for merchant eligibility.

The properties that are required to determine merchant eligibility are set in the DetermineMerchantFilterCriteria activity of the PegaCard-Interface-ThirdParty-Ethoca class. Once set, two methods can then be used to determine if the merchant of the disputed transaction is eligible for the Ethoca system:

• Call the Ethoca Merchant Lookup service by passing the Merchant descriptor and other properties
• Check the local PCD_ETHOCA_MERCHANTLIST database table for the selected Merchant descriptor

Merchant eligibility through the Lookup API

The check for merchant eligibility through the Ethoca Merchant Lookup service is called if the EnableEthocaMerchantLookupAPI dynamic system setting is set to true. During this process, a DetermineMerchantEligibilityByAPI activity is called in which the Ethoca Merchant Lookup service is called through a GetEthocaMerchantAPI data transform. This data transform invokes a D_GetEthocaMerchantAPI data page, which communicates with the Ethoca system through the GetEthocaMerchantAPI REST service.

The Ethoca system responds with either trueor false based on whether the merchant descriptor is present in their system. If the Ethoca system returns true, then the IsThirdPartyResNetworkEligible property is set to true. This property decides whether to post the transaction to Ethoca.

Merchant eligibility through a local database check

If the Ethoca Merchant Lookup service is enabled and an issue occurs while contacting the Ethoca system, or if the Ethoca Merchant Lookup service is disabled, then the local Ethoca Merchant database is checked for merchant eligibility.

The local PCD_ETHOCA_MERCHANTLIST table stores the data that Ethoca provides through a .CSV file that is stored in a mutually agreed upon location. A ReadEthocaMerchantList file listener listens to this file on the specified location, and if the Merchant .CSV file is updated, then the existing data is cleaned and the latest data is stored in to the PCD_ETHOCA_MERCHANTLIST table.

The system queries the PCD_ETHOCA_MERCHANTLIST table with the selected merchant name. If a corresponding match is found in the table, then the IsThirdPartyResNetworkEligible property is set to true, which decides whether the transaction is posted to Ethoca.

Once the check for merchant eligibility is performed through either of the two methods, the corresponding output is mapped to IsThirdPartyResNetworkEligible and it is displayed in the Overview tab after creating the dispute.

If the merchant is eligible for the Ethoca system and the case is processed until the Choose reason code assignmentstep, the CallThirdPartyResolutionNetwork flow is invoked, which further calls the corresponding CallEthocaDisputeResolutionNetwork third-party flow.