AP Question Response - lookup external value by catalog id during checkout

[kevin_philpot]

For an App Portal question/response..

During the checkout process, is it possible to pass the current catalog ID to a custom web service?  

Here is an (hypothetical) example... 

• I have a custom variable on a catalog item called "Application_Sponsor"., during checkout process.
• I have a custom web service defined in the "Web Service Commands" area under Site Management.  This custom web service queries SQL to look up  the custom variable value based on passing the current in the checkout process...
• I would have the value returned in a question response, during the customer checkout process.

However, it does not appear that the ##PackageID## or similar variable(s) are resolved prior to checkout in order to perform the population of the App Sponsor value is not available to pass to the web service method for the lookup.... Of course these values are populated after checkout is completed, but is there any way to pass the catalog ID in this fashion (prior to checkout)?

, 

[jdempsey · Accepted solution]

If you find a way to do it, please let me know.  I needed that capability a couple months ago when I was developing a custom question/web service set for a customer.  I think the main issue is that when you're checking out and App Portal is displaying the questions, there may be multiple catalog items with question templates attached, and some questions from each template may be "shared" or "request-specific", while others apply to a specific catalog item ("item-specific").  In that scenario, if you have multiple catalog items all referencing the same question, which catalog item ID would you pass?