How to add points through an automation

A Loyalty transaction action credits points to a contact as part of an automation. That way a contact who submits a form, reaches a tier or redeems a voucher gets points for it automatically.

An automation reacts to something a contact does. To give a group of contacts points on a date you pick instead, for example everyone in a tier every month, use a points issuance under Loyalty → Points issuances. See Issuing points to a group of contacts, once or on a schedule.

Set it up

1. Click Automation in the top menu, then New automation.
2. Choose Empty automation and click Next.
3. Choose Event, pick the event that should award the points from the Events list and click Submit. Only the events in that list can start an automation: Automation triggers: every event that can start an automation has them all. The editor opens straight away, and the automation is named after the event. You can rename it later on its Information page.
4. Click the Start step and add filters if the points should only go to some of the contacts the event fires for.
5. Click the plus sign in the flow and add a Loyalty transaction action.
6. Choose how the number is decided:
   • Directly set points: you type the number of points yourself in Number of points. Use this when everyone should get the same amount.
   • Calculate using Loyalty Rules: you fill in Number of points and a Unit, and your earn rules work out the points from them. Use this when the award should follow the rules you already set up for purchases.
7. Pick the Business profile the transaction is recorded against.
8. Optionally, open Custom attributes to store extra values with the transaction.
9. Click Update to save the action.
10. Click Activate at the top right, check the summary and confirm with Activate.

Things worth knowing

A negative number takes points away. The same action does both. See How to remove loyalty points after a period of inactivity for the full recipe.

Loyalty transaction is the only action that adds or removes a number of points you choose. The other action that changes a balance is Reward reception: it claims a reward for the contact and takes the reward's points cost off their balance, and it fails when the contact doesn't have enough points. The Set contact attribute action writes custom attributes, not loyalty ones. Points, tier and total purchase amount are results of transactions, so a transaction is what moves them.

Check re-enrollment before you activate. Under Settings → Re-enrollment, Allow re-enrollment is off by default for most events. Off means a contact gets the points once and never again, which is right for a one-off bonus and wrong for anything that should repeat. Switch it on and click Submit if the award should happen every time. Automations started by a reward reception are the exception: re-enrollment starts out on for those.

Every award is visible. The transaction shows up in the contact's history like any other, so you can always answer where a contact's points came from.