Tutorial: Events

The Portal uses events to perform tasks that only occur under special circumstances. For example, if you wanted members to earn double points on their birthday you would use an event to accomplish this. In this tutorial we will describe how events can be used by studying the creation of a new event in detail.

Start by navigating to the Loyalty Navigation Menu by selecting Menus, Customer, Services and Loyalty. Under General Maintenance, select Edit Events to open the Loyalty Events Report screen.

The Loyalty Events Report screen lists each of the events that have been saved in the Portal and there is a link to Create New Loyalty Event.

Click on the link to create a new event and a popup menu appears. Select the Create New Loyalty Event option from the popup menu to open the Loyalty Event Maintenance screen.

An Event ID will be automatically assigned to the event by the Portal. Enter the following details in the supplied fields:

• Description, the name of the event.

• Points Multiplier, multiplies the points earned for a transaction by this number for certain event types.

• Bonus Points, applies an amount of points to a transaction as a bonus for certain event types.

• Event Type, the type of event. Choices for Event Type are:

• Self Update, used to reward members for updating their incomplete details in the Portal. This event type is used in the situation where only basic details are taken from the member when issuing a card and they are asked to log into the Portal to update their details.

• Transactions, used to have all transactions during the event earn bonus points and use the points multiplier entered above. The transactions earning these bonuses might be limited according to the minimum and maximum trigger counts specified below.

• Enquiry, used to reward a member during an enquiry to the Portal. This is most useful in situations such as having a card swipe to allow door access to a site or area and awarding some bonus points for a visit. An enquiry is sent to the Portal to check if they are a member and the event is triggered.

• Welcome SMS / Email, used to send an SMS message or email to a member that joins the specified group. If a member that joins the group has selected to Opt In SMS, they will be sent a text message; otherwise if they have selected to Opt In Email they will be sent an email. If they have selected to Opt In both SMS and Email they will be sent an SMS message only and they will not be sent a message at all if they have selected to Opt Out of both SMS and Email.

• Activation, used to reward members when they activate their card for the first time. This event type makes use of the Site setting below.

• Birthday, applies the reward settings to a member for transactions that occur during their birth month.

• On Birthday, applies the reward settings to a member for transactions that occur on their birthday. Note that if a Birthday event type is also set up then both events could be triggered if the day happens to be the member's birthday.

• Group, indicates the Member Group that this event applies to, or select all groups if desired.

• Start Date, specifies the date that the event begins on.

• Expiry Date, specifies the date that the event finishes on.

• Start Hour, specifies the time of day that the event starts at. For example, if 1 AM is chosen, then the event will begin at 1:00 am.

• End Hour, specifies the time of day that the event finishes at, but note that it finishes at 59 minutes past the selected hour. For example, if 1 AM is chosen, the event will finish at 1:59 am. Therefore if an event runs all day regardless of the time, it should start at midnight and the end hour should be selected as 11 PM.

• How Often, specifies how many times the event can occur for each member - either once during the event period or once per day for the event period.

• Minimum Trigger Count, the minimum number of transactions that must be accepted before the event triggers. This allows you to start an event based upon a number of transactions.

• Maximum Trigger Count, the maximum number of transactions that are allowed for the event. This allows you to switch the event off based on the number of transactions.

• Day, allows you to specify a particular day of the week or month for the event to be active on. The default setting is for every day.

• Month, allows you to specify a particular month of the year for the event to be active on. The default setting is for every month.

• Year, allows you to specify a particular year for the event to be active for. The default setting is for every year, but selecting a particular year allows you to have an expiry date for the event set to the end of the selected year.

• Enabled, specifies whether the event is currently active, allowing you to manually disable an event without deleting it from the Portal.

• Site, allows you to limit the event to a specific site if desired. This is particularly used in the Activation event type where the Portal rewards members for activating their card at a specific site.

• SMS Message, the SMS message that is sent in the Welcome SMS / Email event type.

• Return Email Address, the email address for return emails to be displayed on the email sent for a Welcome SMS / Email event type.

• Email Subject, the subject line of the email that is sent for a Welcome SMS / Email event type.

• Email Message, the body of the email that is sent for a Welcome SMS / Email event type.

As an example, we will create an event to wish members a happy birthday by awarding them double points for their first transaction on their birthday. Enter the name of the event in the Description field, Happy Birthday. Enter a 2 in the Points Multiplier field to specify double points. The Event Type will be On Birthday to specify that the transaction must occur on the member's birthday. Select a start and end date and set the start hour as midnight and end hour as 11 PM so that it runs all day. The Minimum Trigger Count should be set to 0 and the Maximum Trigger Count should be set to 1 - this means that the event will occur on the first transaction. The other settings can remain as their defaults.

The Save button is used to save changes made to an event and the Reset button can be pressed to revert changes to the last save. Pressing the History button opens the Loyalty Event History Report screen for the event. This screen reports on the cards that have had the event apply to them during the selected date range. Obviously the report is blank for a new event, but when editing an existing event the history screen can be useful.

In the Loyalty Events Report screen, if you click on an event name link, a popup menu appears with two options:

• Edit Loyalty Event, opens the Loyalty Event Maintenance screen, allowing the user to edit the event details.

• Display Members Events Loyalty Event, opens the history report that is also accessed by pressing the History button in the Loyalty Event Maintenance screen.

Select Edit Loyalty Event to open the Happy Birthday event that we just created. The Loyalty Event Maintenance screen is loaded with the details of the event. You can edit any field and press the Save button to save the changes that you have made. From this screen it is possible to create a New event or Delete the loaded event from the Portal.

In this tutorial we have discussed how events are used by the Portal to reward or notify members when something specific occurs. Events can be used to welcome members into a Member Group, wish them a happy birthday or reward them for visiting the venue on a Sunday, for example. Using events will increase your members' interest in your Company and the example demonstrated in this tutorial is merely the beginning!