Introduction

Points earned by your customers are a liability in your accounting books. To manage this liability effectively, it is considered good practice to implement an expiration date for earned points. This not only serves to mitigate the ongoing liability but also serves as an incentive for customers to return and engage in further purchases. By encouraging timely redemption, you not only maintain control over your financial obligations but also foster continued customer engagement and loyalty.

To understand the point expiration setting and its configuration, follow this document.

What are global settings for points expiration?

To locate Point Expiration, log in to the admin console and navigate to Program Settings >> Points Expiration. From here, you can configure the point expiration setting globally. The system will adhere to global settings unless they are overridden. To learn how to override the global settings for point expiration, click here.

Let's understand the global settings first. In the admin console, you have four point expiration options, which are detailed below:

Never

Choose this option if you do not wish to set an expiration date for the points. When "never" is selected, points will never expire for the member.

On Fixed Date

In this, the year will be divided into points earning cycles. For each cycle, points will expire on a fixed date every year.

If the expiration cycle is quarterly, the year will be divided into four earning cycles, and you can set the expiry date for each cycle.

For example:

If you want your members earning points earned in the cycle of January to March to expire on April 15th. You can set up "On Fixed Date" point expiry on a quarterly basis and so on.

Whereas, if the expiration cycle is yearly, you can set the start date of the annual earning cycle and the expiration date for points earned in that cycle.

For example:

For the points earned during the yearly cycle, which runs from January to December, you can set the expiration date as 30th January of the following year. So, all points earned during this cycle will expire on the given expiration date.

After a fixed duration

You can expire points in X days after they were awarded.

For example:

You can set the point expiration date to 15 days. The points earned by the member will expire 15 days after they are approved.

After a certain period of inactivity

After a certain period of inactivity, whenever a qualifying activity (activity/ activities which keep your account active) is performed, the expiration date of all active transactions or activities will be extended.

For example, if you've selected 'purchase on website' as a qualifying activity, then the expiration date for all activities will be extended based on the specified duration. As shown in the provided screenshot, upon performing the 'purchase on website' activity, the expiration date for all other activities will be extended to 12 months.

The admin console offers an override option, enabling modification of the expiration date. Additional information about this override functionality is provided later in the documentation.

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Please Note:

• Point expiration for the 'After a fixed duration' and 'On Fixed Date' expiration options will be calculated from the moment points are approved.
• Any changes made to the expiration settings will be applied only to points awarded after the changes are made and will not affect any existing expiration dates.

How do I configure global expiration settings?

To set up point expiration at global level, go to Program Settings >> Point Expiration.

Select Expiry Options: Choose the point expiry options from the drop-down menu.

Text Configuration: Customize the email text using text configuration. You can select a language, craft an attention-grabbing subject line, and compose the body content.

Reminder Notifications: Schedule an email to be sent and a webhook to be triggered to notify your members about the expiration of their points.

You can configure the expiration reminder email to listen to the webhook event or can configure a CRM event from the admin console. For this, navigate to Notifications >> Email Notifications>> Award Notification>> Default Points Earned Email.

For detailed instructions on email configuration, refer to this document.

Save Your Configuration: Once you have completed all configurations, click on the Save button to apply the changes.

How can global expiration settings be overridden?

By default, each award action will adopt the global expiration setting. However, an admin can override the global settings for specific transactions.

There are different ways of overriding the global settings:

Activities

Transactions for a specific activity can have a different expiry setting. To override the global settings for point expiration of an activity, navigate to Program Settings >> Activities.

a. To enable the override setting, toggle on the “Enable Expiry Override” option.

b. Select the expiring period from the “Expiry Override Settings” dropdown.

• Never: If selected, the points will never expire for this activity.
• After a fixed duration: If selected, the admin can define the fixed duration in days when the points will expire.

Once you're done with the override setting, remember to save the configuration.

Campaign

Points awarded through campaigns can have their own expiration setting. When you select either the "Set Bonus Multiplier" or "Add Bonus Points" action in campaign configuration, you have the option to override the global settings of point expiration.

To do this, simply enable the "Enable Expiry Override" setting and select the expiration period.

Batch Upload

Expiration date can be overridden not just at the activity level but also at a transaction level. The date passed in the "points_expiration_date" field in daily transactions as well as custom activity files will override the global settings of point expiration. This date will also override any expiration date configured at the activity level.

Award API

You can also override the global settings of point expiration through the Award API. Any value passed in "point_expiration_date" parameter in the format "MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS" will override the expiration date set globally as well as any override set at an activity level.

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Please Note:

In point expiration, precedence is given to the date provided in the API and batch file. The override setting in Activity takes precedence in its absence. If you provide neither, the global settings will govern the point expiration calculation.

How does a member see the points expiration schedule?

1. A member can view the available points on the homepage.

2. By clicking on the arrow, the member will be redirected to the points expiration schedule page.

3. The member can redeem the available points by clicking on the 'Redeem Now' button.