Manage Transactions (Chapter 5) 21D

Overview of Oracle Loyalty Transactions

Setting up loyalty transactions can be done only by a Loyalty Program Administrator or a Loyalty Program Manager. Transactions are any actions that accrue (earn) or debit (burn) points for a member. This chapter describes how to create different types of transactions.

Let's look at the three types of transactions you can use.

Transaction Type	Description
Accrual Transaction	This transaction occurs when the member performs some activity that earns points. Points are accrued by purchasing products from the host organization, from partners, or when an administrator credits points manually. Some examples are, accruing points for flying between specified cities, staying in a hotel chain, or purchasing certain products. Accrual transactions are also used for other activities, such as giving members enrollment bonuses and referral bonuses. You, or a member, can also manually create an accrual dispute transaction. There are two types of Accrual dispute transactions: an Incorrect Accrual for a processed transaction, or a Missing Accrual for a missing transaction.
Redemption Transaction	This transaction occurs when the member redeems or exchanges points with the host partner for a reward. Points are debited from the member's account when they're exchanged for a product, service, upgrade, or when an administrator debits points manually. If you use the Redemption REST API to set up member self-service, points are renewed through self-service.
Point Transfer Transaction	This transaction occurs when the member transfers points to, or receives points from, another member within the same loyalty program. You can only enter Point Transfer transactions using the Member page, and not the Transactions page.

Accrual Transaction

This transaction occurs when the member performs some activity that earns points.

Points are accrued by purchasing products from the host organization, from partners, or when an administrator credits points manually. Some examples are, accruing points for flying between specified cities, staying in a hotel chain, or purchasing certain products. Accrual transactions are also used for other activities, such as giving members enrollment bonuses and referral bonuses.

You, or a member, can also manually create an accrual dispute transaction. There are two types of Accrual dispute transactions: an Incorrect Accrual for a processed transaction, or a Missing Accrual for a missing transaction.

Redemption Transaction

This transaction occurs when the member redeems or exchanges points with the host partner for a reward.

Points are debited from the member's account when they're exchanged for a product, service, upgrade, or when an administrator debits points manually. If you use the Redemption REST API to set up member self-service, points are renewed through self-service.

Point Transfer Transaction

This transaction occurs when the member transfers points to, or receives points from, another member within the same loyalty program.

You can only enter Point Transfer transactions using the Member page, and not the Transactions page.

Integrated point-of-sales systems automatically create transactions. However, you can also manually create transactions directly within Oracle Loyalty. Batch jobs handle transactions by using their own criteria to search for all appropriate transactions with Queued status. These transactions are then processed one by one.

Note: If you need to expedite an individual transaction, you can do this by manually changing its status to Queued in the UI. But, you can only do this for transactions with In Progress status. The batch engine then picks up and processes these Queued transactions according to its next scheduled run and load setup. For details, see Expedite a Transaction.

Related Topics

Overview of Batch Processing

Create a Transaction

Integrated point-of-sales systems automatically create transactions. But you can also manually create transactions directly within Oracle Loyalty.

Open Transactions.
Click Create Transaction.
Complete the necessary fields.
Click Process and you're done.

View a Transaction

As you work in your loyalty program, you need to view transactions so that you can analyze customer activity, or so that you can answer customer questions. Even resolve complaints. You have the choice to view either all transactions, or just the transactions for a specific member.

Here's how you view transaction information:

Open Transactions.

Here, you can see all members' transactions. If you want, click the List menu to filter the transactions, for example, Transactions Created Today.
Click the transaction number to see the details of a specific transaction.

Let's look at how you view a specific member's transactions:

Open Loyalty Members, and then Edit Member page for your member.
Click Loyalty Transactions.

Here you can see all transactions for that member.
If you want to locate a transaction using specific search criteria, select each criterion from the Add menu.

Expedite a Transaction

You have the option to expedite a transaction. You can do this for any transaction with a status of In Progress. You just need to change the status to Queued. The next appropriate batch job then picks up this transaction along with other Queued transactions and processes it the same way.

Here's how you expedite a transaction.

Open Transactions, and select the In Progress transaction you want to expedite.
Change the status from In Progress to Queued.
Click Save.

Redemptions

When members have accumulated a certain number of points, it makes sense to exchange these points for products offered by the program host or by partners. Some redemptions offered might be airline flights, hotel bookings, car rental, or upgrades to first class on existing travel tickets. An example of redemption pricing could be 50,000 points for a day's car rental in Palo Alto, or 70,000 points for an overnight hotel stay in Pleasanton.

It can happen that a member wants to redeem a product, but can't because there are insufficient points to complete the redemption. If you want, you can allow negative points on the membership program. Select the Allow Negative Points check box in the Edit Program screen, and it's done. This way, the member doesn't miss out on the redemption, and the next accrual activity pays back the negative points.

Here are some types of redeemable products.

Redemption for a tangible product. A member redeems points in exchange for an item available in online stores, or redeems a gift voucher in a retail store. In the case of an online store, the member adds the product to the shopping cart and the online retailer offers a quotation in points. If the member accepts, Oracle Loyalty debits the points from the member's account.
Redemption for a service. A member redeems points in exchange for an award certificate or voucher for complimentary use of a service at a later date, like a hotel stay, or a car rental. The member receives the voucher or award certificate from the loyalty program, and uses it at any future date before the voucher expiry date.
Redemption for a flight. A member redeems points in exchange for airline tickets to specific destinations. If you want to define pricing for flight redemptions, you must create a separate product for the originating and destination city. You also need to separately define the redemption pricing in points for each of those products.

Related Topics

Voucher Redemptions

Let's break down how customers use vouchers, and go over how they're used in Oracle Loyalty.

Vouchers are used to redeem services, such as staying at a hotel, renting a car, or for the exchange of retail products. Vouchers can also offer a percentage discount or an absolute monetary value toward product purchases. Keep in mind that you must use a point-of-sales system to redeem vouchers. So if your business model requires vouchers, then you must integrate Oracle Loyalty with your point-of-sales system.

Suppose you have a member who has a voucher for a hotel chain and wants to redeem it for an overnight stay. The member checks in, presents the voucher, and the hotel validates the voucher number in Oracle Loyalty. When the member checks out, the hotel updates the voucher status to Used.

If you intend to use vouchers, you must define a voucher redemption promotion for each voucher product you grant. For details, see Set Up a Voucher Redemption Promotion.

Voucher Expiry

Every voucher has an expiry date, which is determined during set up when you create the voucher product.

To validate a voucher, Oracle Loyalty checks the date of activity against the expiry date of the voucher. If the date of the activity occurs after the expiry date, it rejects the voucher.

It's possible that a member could use a voucher before its expiration date, but this information isn't sent to Oracle Loyalty until after the voucher's expiration date. What happens then? To handle this, Oracle Loyalty extends the expiration period, allowing the voucher to completely expire the revenue against the voucher to be recognized. This is the amount of time after the expiration date when the voucher can still be used. If the voucher isn't used within this time period, then the voucher's status changes to Expired, and the revenue is recognized. After a voucher is used, it can't be expired for revenue recognition.

Voucher Status

Here are statuses your vouchers can have.

Available. Oracle Loyalty issues the voucher to the member.
Canceled. The member returns the voucher to the loyalty program operations to invalidate it.
Used. The member presents the voucher for the partner product or service. For a voucher to be considered used, the partner must confirm the voucher's availability.
Expired. The revenue of a voucher is recognized for a defined time period from the expiry date.
Closed. The voucher is closed and can't be used.
Reissued. A voucher is reissued when another voucher is issued in its place. A voucher can be reissued only if has Available or Reserved status. Let's say voucher V1 goes into Reissued status, and a second voucher, V2, is issued in its place. When this is completed, the status of V1 is Reissued, and the V2 status is either Available or Reserved. Voucher V2 contains a reference to the original voucher, V1.

Household Transactions

Household transactions use the total points earned by individual members of a household.

Let's say you assign an individual member to a household, and you select the Accrue to Household option. Here are the transaction scenarios that can occur:

The individual member earns points. The roll-up to the household creates a Redemption-Auto Accrual transaction for the individual member, and a corresponding Accrual-Auto Accrual transaction for the household.
An accrual transaction is canceled for an individual member. The roll-up to the household is also canceled, and both qualifying and non-qualifying points are redeemed from the household balance.
Any attributes and vouchers also roll back on the individual. Vouchers and attributes don't roll up to the household.
If the individual is associated with both a company and a household, then the points the individual earns from company transactions also roll up to the household.

Lifetime and qualifying point balances display at the individual member level.

Company Transactions

Company transactions use the points earned by companies who join programs as members. When company employees make purchases as program members, they earn points for only themselves. Alternatively, they can choose to share a portion of their earnings with the company. This supports business-to-business promotions.

A company member in a loyalty program can select these accrual types:

Individual Only. Employee retains all the earnings.
Both. Both employees and the company distribute points between themselves based on the promotion.

Here are a few things to keep in mind. Depending on the information referenced in an individual member's data, you can't create certain transactions. For example, let's say an individual loyalty member is associated with a company member and the accrual type for the company member is Individual Only. If the individual member's transactions are of type Accrual and Subtype Product, and if the individual member has a company reference provided in the transaction, the loyalty engine won't create a company transaction.

However, you can create this transaction if the individual loyalty member is associated with a company member and the accrual type for the company member is Both. In this scenario, you set the Type field for this transaction to Accrual, and the Subtype field to Company.

If you want to award points to both the employee (the individual member) and the company, then you need to create promotions with these criteria:

Set the Type field for the Promotion to Accrual, and the Subtype field to Product. This assigns points to the individual member.
Set the Type field for the Promotion to Accrual, and the Subtype field to Company. This assigns points to the company member.
In the Company Reference field in the Transaction Attribute view, name the company that accrues points in addition to the loyalty member.

This creates two separate transactions, one for the individual member and one for the company member.

Create a Redemption Transaction

Use a redemption transaction when you redeem points in exchange for products or services. Keep in mind that you carry out these transactions on your selected member profile page, and not on the Transaction page. On the member profile page you can select a suitable product for the member's available points, and you can create redemptions for customers on the phone, or for those you're talking to in person.

Here's how you create a redemption:

Open Loyalty Members, and then the Edit Member page for your member.
Click Profile and then Redeem Points.
Complete the necessary fields.
Click Process and you're done.

Create a Point Transfer Transaction

Suppose a loyalty program member wants to transfer non-qualifying points to, or to receive non-qualifying points from, another member of the same program. In this scenario you use a point transfer transaction. Keep in mind that you can only transfer non-qualifying points, and these are transferred using only the Transaction page. Qualifying points are non-transferable and must be earned by each program member.

Here's how we create a points transfer transaction.

Open Loyalty Members, and then the Edit Member page for your member.
Click Profile and then Transfer Points.
Select the member who will receive the points transfer, as well as selecting the point type, and the number of points to transfer. If you want, you can add a comment.
Click Process and you're done.

Note: Another way to do to this is by using a REST API. You can transfer points by providing the correct transaction type, subtype, and receiver member detail. For more information, see REST API for Oracle Loyalty.

Transaction Cancellations

It's likely that you might need to cancel a processed transaction that's no longer needed. It's a good idea to identify and configure the reversal actions that occur after you cancel a processed transaction. Keep in mind that:

When you cancel an accrual transaction, this results in a redemption transaction.
When you cancel a redemption transaction, this results in an accrual transaction.

Oracle Loyalty uses the transaction subtype Cancellation on all reversal (cancellation) transactions.

When you set up your loyalty program, you must create a promotion for each type of cancellation transaction. This sets up the particular reversal actions your loyalty program must take. You can name these promotions Accrual Cancellation and Redemption Cancellation, for example. The promotion rule criteria look for the Reversal Transaction type and Cancellation subtype attributes (which you must define), and then apply the actions you choose.

For your Accrual Cancellation promotion, keep these promotion actions in mind when creating the promotion rule.

Cancel Attribute. If you use an attribute to track a member's spending for an upgrade, then you can specify whether to reduce the attribute amount by the amount of the original transaction.
Cancel Points. If the original transaction assigned points, you can specify whether to subtract (redeem) the points from the member's point balance.
Cancel Voucher. If the original transaction granted vouchers, you can specify whether to cancel the vouchers.

For your Redemption Cancellation promotion, keep these promotion actions in mind when creating the promotion rule.

Cancel Attribute. If you were using an attribute to track a member's redeemed points, you can specify whether to reduce the points redeemed from the tracker.
Cancel Points. If the original transaction redeemed points, you can specify whether to restore the points to the member's point balance.
Cancel Voucher. If the original transaction used an earned voucher, you can specify whether to restore the voucher to the member.

You might be wondering what happens to loyalty points in transaction cancellations. Canceling a transaction doesn't impact the expiration date for points. If a member cancels a redemption, then some points might have expired since the member redeemed them. If so, then these points are no longer available if the redemption is canceled. These points are added back to the member's account, but the points have expired and can't be used. It's necessary to expire these points otherwise members could perform transactions and then cancel them in order to avoid expiration dates. Canceling a transaction that qualifies a member for applying a frequency or tier promotion doesn't impact the promotion's resulting actions. For example, you process a transaction and it triggers a frequency or a tier promotion, and the triggered promotion causes a points assignment (if it's a frequency promotion) or causes a tier upgrade (if it's a tier promotion). If you cancel this qualifying transaction, the resulting actions can't be reverted. That is, any points assigned in a resulting frequency promotion, or any tier upgrade in a resulting tier promotion, remain valid.

Set Up a Transaction Cancellation

Let's see how to set up a transaction cancellation for a program.

First of all, let's create the required program-level attributes.
1. Open Loyalty Programs, and then the Edit Program page for your program.
2. Click Program Level Attributes, and then expand the Transaction Attributes section.
3. Click Add next to the transaction attributes.
4. Enter a name, such as Transaction Type, and from the Field list, select Transaction Type.
5. Click Add.
6. Enter a name, such as Transaction Sub Type, and from the Field list select Transaction Sub Type.
7. For each attribute you created, select the Active check box.
  
  When you create the promotion rules for the program, these attributes are now available.
Next, let's create the promotion for accrual transaction cancellations.
1. Open Promotions, and click Create Promotion.
2. Complete the necessary fields.
  
  For example, in the Name field enter Accrual Cancellation. Select the program name from the Program menu, and from the Type menu, select Redemption. For the Subtype, select Cancellation.
3. Click Save and Continue.
4. Click Manage Rules, then Create New Rule, and enter a name for your new rule.
5. Click New Condition.
6. Create an IF condition where the attribute Transaction Type is equal to Redemption.
7. Click And, and create a condition where the attribute Transaction Sub Type is equal to Cancellation.
8. In the DO section of the rule, select the attributes you want to reverse the accrual transaction, such as Cancel Points.
9. Click Save and Close.
You're nearly done. Next, create the promotion for redemption transaction cancellations.
1. Open Promotions, and click Create Promotion.
2. Complete the necessary fields.
  
  For example, in the Name field enter Redemption Cancellation. Select the program name from the Program menu, and from the Type menu, select Accrual . For the Subtype, select Cancellation. .
3. Click Save and Continue.
4. Click Manage Rules, then Create New Rule, and enter a name for your new rule.
5. Click New Condition.
6. Create an IF condition where the attribute Transaction Type is equal to Accrual.
7. Click And, and create a condition where the attribute Transaction Sub Type is equal to Cancellation.
8. In the DO section of the rule, select the attributes you want to reverse the redemption transaction, such as Assign Points or Assign Voucher.
9. Click Save and Close.

Suppose you want to set a specific cancellation action for individual promotion-level attributes. This lets you override the program-level actions you're configuring here, and gives you more control over what happens to canceled transactions involving particular attributes.

Here's how you specify the cancellation action for an individual promotion-specific attribute:

Open the required promotion, and if it's active, deactivate it.
Click Promotion Attribute.
Select the promotion specific attribute you want to edit, and deactivate it.
Select an option from the Cancel Action list:
- Cancel change. Cancels the recent action.
- Leave as is. Leaves the action unchanged.
- Revert. Restores the attribute to its previous value.
Reactivate the attribute.

Related Topics

Create Promotion-Level Attributes

Debit Points Manually as a Transaction

Let's say a penalty is imposed on the member, or a payment is required for service recovery. You can create a transaction to manually deduct or debit points from a member's point balance.

Open Transactions, click Create Transaction.
Complete the required fields.

For example, in the Transaction Type menu, select Redemption and in the Transaction Sub Type menu, select Manual Debit. For the Point Type and Base Points fields, select the type of points and enter the number of points to debit respectively.
Click Process and you're done.

Related Topics

Debit Points Manually as a Promotion

Let's say a penalty is imposed on the member, or a payment is required for service recovery. You can create a promotion to manually deduct or debit points from a member's point balance as a transaction.

Open Loyalty Programs, and open the program you want.
Click Program Level Attributes, and expand the Transaction Attributes section.
Ensure that the Transaction Sub Type, Base Points and Point Type attributes are defined on the transaction fields.
Click Save and Close.
Open Promotions, and click Create Promotion.
Fill in the fields. For the Type, select Redemption. For the Sub Type, select Manual Debit.
Click Save and Continue.
In the Edit Promotion view, click Manage Rules.
In the promotion rule criteria, ensure that the Transaction Sub Type is equal to Manual Credit.
In Actions, make sure Point Type and Points have these two values:
- Point Type = Transaction.Point Type
- Points = Transaction Point
Click Save and Close.

Related Topics

Credit Points Manually as a Transaction

Let's say you want to compensate or reimburse a member, or simply give a gift to a member. You can manually add or credit points to a member's point balance as a transaction.

On the Transactions page, click Create Transaction.
Fill in the fields.

For the Transaction Type, select Accrual. For the Transaction Sub Type, select Manual Credit. For the Point Type and Base Points fields, select the type of points and enter the number of points to credit respectively.
Click Process.

Related Topics

Credit Points Manually as a Promotion

Let's say you want to compensate or reimburse a member, or simply give a gift to a member. You can create a promotion to manually add or credit points to a member's point balance as a transaction.

On the Programs page, open the program you want.
Click Program Level Attributes, and expand the Transaction Attributes section.
Ensure that the Transaction Sub Type, Base Points and Point Type attributes are defined on the transaction fields.
Click Save and Close.
Open the Loyalty Promotions page, and click Create Promotion.
Fill in the fields.

For the Type field, select Accrual. For the Sub Type field, select Manual Credit.
Click Save and Continue.
In the Edit Promotion view, click Manage Rules.
In the promotion rule criteria, ensure that Transaction Sub Type is equal to Manual Credit.
In Actions, ensure that Point Type = Transaction.Point Type, and that Points = Transaction Points.
Click Save and Close.

Related Topics

Cancel a Transaction

Most integrated point-of-sales systems cancel transactions automatically, but you can also manually cancel processed transactions.

You can use this procedure to cancel transactions, but keep in mind you can only cancel processed transactions.

On the Transactions page, open the transaction you want to cancel.
Click Actions and select Cancel.
If you're certain you want to cancel the transaction, click OK in the warning message.

This changes the transaction status from Processed to Canceled, and it creates a reversal transaction. If you want to see the details, click the reversal transaction.

Dispute a Transaction

Let's say you need to update a member program after a member disagrees how the program transactions are accrued.

When this happens, you typically create a dispute accrual transaction, and it's usually for:

A missing accrual transaction. A member claims that an accrual transaction doesn't appear on his statement.
An incorrect accrual. A member claims that points received for an accrual transaction aren't correct.

Once the administration approvals are received, you change the dispute transaction status to Accrual Dispute Approval and submit the dispute transaction.

Here's how you create a dispute on an accrual transaction:

On the Members page, click the member name you need.
In the member overview page, click Loyalty Transactions and make these changes:
- If you want to dispute an accrual transaction:
  1. Click the down arrow button next to the transaction and select Initiate Dispute.
  2. Click Save and Continue.
  3. On the transaction summary page, complete the necessary fields.
  4. Click Save.
- If you want to report a missing accrual:
  1. Click Create Missing Accrual.
  2. On the Create Transaction page, complete the necessary fields.
  3. Click Save and Close.
When the dispute is resolved and you have the necessary approvals, change the transaction status to Accrual Dispute Approved.
Click Process.