# Quick Start Guide
source: https://developer.mastercard.com/commercial-event-notifications/documentation/quick-start-guide/index.md

## Overview {#overview}

The Commercial Event Notifications service provides a set of APIs that allow you to receive timely, secure, and structured notifications for key commercial transaction events. This section walks you through the onboarding process and shows you how to integrate and begin consuming event data seamlessly.

### What you will accomplish {#what-you-will-accomplish}

By the end of this guide, you will have:

* ✅ A Mastercard Developers account and Commercial Event Notifications project
* ✅ Sandbox credentials (OAuth + encryption keys)
* ✅ Ready to test API calls in sandbox
* ✅ Production access setup (ready for approval)

**⏱️ Estimated Time**: 15 minutes

## Accessing the API {#accessing-the-api}

1. Navigate to [Mastercard Developers](https://developer.mastercard.com/) and click sign-up and create an account.
2. Activate your account by opening the link sent to your email address, and log in.
3. Request access to the API if needed. APIs with a 'lock icon' require permission to view their documentation and create a project. To gain access to these services, you need to submit an access request form. Once submitted, you will receive an email confirmation approving or denying your access.

## Generate Your Credentials {#generate-your-credentials}

To generate your Sandbox and Production credentials, you must create a new Mastercard Developers project. Generating Sandbox credentials will give you access to our Sandbox, which has rich, mocked data, that will help you understand the API.

1. Create a project on your [My Projects](https://developer.mastercard.com/dashboard) page.
2. Name your project.   
3. Indicate whether you are creating a project on behalf of a client. Note: Check "yes" if you are creating an API integration project for a customer. For example, you could be an integrator, a processor, or a service provider and the customer could be a merchant, issuer, or acquirer.
4. Provide the client company name and client company address (if applicable). Tip: If you are creating a project on-behalf of a client, the Commercial countries represent where your client is doing business.
5. Select **Commercial Event Notifications** for API service.   
   ![Project](https://static.developer.mastercard.com/content/commercial-event-notifications/uploads/project-details.png)
6. Download, and keep safe, your PKCS#12 (.p12) keystore file.
7. In **Project Credentials** window, scroll down and create a key alias and keystore password, **take note of these** .  
   ![Oauth](https://static.developer.mastercard.com/content/commercial-event-notifications/uploads/project-cred.png)
8. Click **Create Project** . **Creating your project** window displays. ![create-project](https://static.developer.mastercard.com/content/commercial-event-notifications/uploads/download-key-file.png)
9. Download your OAuth \& encryption keys, **store them in a safe place**.
10. Click **Open project** . **Summary** page displays.
11. Click **Get Started** to Provide commercial countries for your project. ![Summary](https://static.developer.mastercard.com/content/commercial-event-notifications/uploads/commercia-country.png)
12. Once you complete this flow you will land on the Project page. From the Project page take note of your:  
    a. Sandbox and Production status (**Ready** / **Not Requested** /**Under Review** ).  
    b. Sandbox and Production credentials: authentication consumer key and client encryption key fingerprint.

Warning: **Key Expiry:** Commercial Event Notifications API Sandbox and Production Keys will expire after one year. You will have to generate a new set of keys after they expire.

## Integrate {#integrate}

### Onboard to the Commercial Event Notifications Service {#onboard-to-the-commercial-event-notifications-service}

Contact your Mastercard representative so that Mastercard can onboard you to the Commercial Event Notifications service.

If you do not have a contact at Mastercard, click "Get Help" on the [Support](https://developer.mastercard.com/commercial-event-notifications/documentation/support/index.md) page to request that someone contact you to discuss the onboarding process.

Provide the following information for the onboarding to proceed:

* Your Smart Data and ICCP or Business Payment Controls details.
* The consumer key that you obtained from Mastercard Developers.
* The URL to which push notifications should be sent.
* Details of the TLS (SSL) certificate that your server uses when accepting connections from Mastercard. This is a standard TLS server certificate, which you must procure, and is not related to the credentials you obtain from Mastercard Developers.

Once you have obtained your credentials, and gathered the above information, provide it to your Mastercard representative to allow onboarding to proceed.
Allow three weeks for Mastercard to complete the onboarding process and notify you.

### Deploy a Server to Process Push Notifications {#deploy-a-server-to-process-push-notifications}

The Event Notifications service pushes notifications to you using HTTP POST messages over a secure Mutual TLS connection.
To receive these notifications:

* Deploy a server at the URL that you registered with us.
* Your server must be able to accept TLS connections from Mastercard.
* During connection negotiation, your server must supply a TLS certificate signed by a Certificate Authority that is registered with Mastercard's API Gateway.
* Also during connection negotiation, you should check the TLS client certificate on the incoming connection to validate that the connection is from Mastercard.

### Develop your Application and Connect to the API {#develop-your-application-and-connect-to-the-api}

Develop your application as described in the [Use Cases](https://developer.mastercard.com/commercial-event-notifications/documentation/use_cases/index.md) section
or by using our Java [reference application](https://developer.mastercard.com/commercial-event-notifications/documentation/reference_application_tutorial/index.md).
The Commercial Event Notifications reference application is a fully functional application written in Java
that contains sample API calls and implements an end-to-end flow to create and manage your subscriptions.
It also contains a sample server to process the notifications you receive.

Once you have a confirmation from your Mastercard representative, you can proceed to connect to the API's sandbox environment and test your application.
Once you have completed the development of your application and fully tested its integration to the Commercial Event Notifications API in the sandbox,
you can click `Request Production Access` in your Mastercard Developers project to begin the process of moving your application to production.

## Go-Live {#go-live}

After you have tested your implementation in our Sandbox environments, it is time to **Move to Production**.

### Steps to Moving to Production {#steps-to-moving-to-production}

1. Within your project, select **Request Production Access** . ![summary](https://static.developer.mastercard.com/content/commercial-event-notifications/uploads/summary-1.png)
2. Enter your Production key alias and keystore password for Project credentials. ![Project-cred](https://static.developer.mastercard.com/content/commercial-event-notifications/uploads/prod-project-cred.png)
3. Save your key alias and keystore password for future reference.
4. Confirm and download your Production keys.
5. Production Credentials are generated instantaneously, but they still need to be approved for Production environment access before you can go live. Once your Production access request has been reviewed, you will receive a notification confirming your access has been approved or denied. Note: When promoting your project from Sandbox to Production, ensure that at least one project admin account uses a group email address.

## Next Steps {#next-steps}

Now that you have access to the service, you can begin testing, proceed to the [Use Cases](https://developer.mastercard.com/commercial-event-notifications/documentation/use_cases/index.md) section to learn about the different use cases of the service.