PayPal Transaction Pages aren't Linkable ⛓

I spent some time this week trying to create a link directly to a PayPal Merchant transaction show page. This is the page you'd see as a merchant when somebody has paid you via PayPal.

These pages use the transaction's ID as a lookup, so I'd need the know that ID in order to dynamically create the link. After some Googling, reading GitHub issues, and finally the source code of my PayPal SDK of choice, I'd like to report: PayPal does not expose this ID in the normal course of business.

To quote my PayPal caseworker:

"While there are ways of retrieving the Transaction ID... you will not be able to link directly to the PayPal transaction details page, for security. The only way that your buyers can view the transaction details page is by accessing PayPal themselves, logging in with their credentials, and navigating to the Activity."

I hope this spares another developer from the same rabbit-hole I just emerged from. Sometimes things with technology don't work. 🤷‍♀️

Edit: we figured it out!

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