About adaptive links

After you create a pass template, you then generate URLs for the pass (create pass links) that you distribute to your users. When your audience clicks or taps the link, a viewable pass is generated from the template, and the user can then install it on their device.

An adaptive link is a vendor-agnostic, shortened mobile wallet pass link that supports templates for both Google Wallet and Apple Wallet. When a user taps the link, Airship determines the user’s platform and generates the right pass for that platform.

Adaptive links are the preferred pass distribution method. To deliver appropriate passes to your audience, you can distribute a single adaptive link to each recipient instead of needing separate pass URLs for Apple Wallet and Google Wallet.

An adaptive link can optionally redirect your users to a landing page if they attempt to install a pass on an unsupported platform. A landing page is a self-hosted, branded web page you provide with instructions on how to successfully install the pass. Examples of unsupported platforms include: a browser on a desktop computer, an Android device if you choose to support iOS passes only, or an iOS device if you choose to support Android passes only.

Adaptive links also support:

• URL-encoded pass personalization — Add query parameters to the adaptive link to personalize the passes that your users install. This can help you leverage your CRM data to populate passes without performing additional API calls.

• Location detection — Upload locations to your project. Passes your users install from adaptive links will detect the 10 nearest locations and associate them with Apple Wallet passes. (Apple Wallet limits passes to 10 locations each.)

You can create adaptive links using the API or the dashboard. Adaptive links creating using the API cannot be modified in the dashboard. For event tickets and boarding passes, you must use the API.

You can also create pass links using CSV upload, but that method does not generate adaptive links.

Adaptive Link Expiration

By default, adaptive links automatically expire after a period that begins upon creation and ends after a duration determined by the associated pass type:

• Boarding pass: 30 days
• Event ticket: 30 days
• Coupon: 365 days
• Generic: 730 days
• Gift card: 730 days
• Loyalty: 730 days
• Member card: 730 days

This automatic expiration period is known as its time-to-live (TTL). Once the TTL for an adaptive link has elapsed, it is considered expired. An expired adaptive link will no longer generate new passes. After a 90-day grace period the expired adaptive link will be deleted permanently.

Creating a pass from an adaptive link or updating any characteristics of the adaptive link itself automatically resets its TTL to the same number of days as the initial TTL. A TTL may be reset this way indefinitely.

For example, an adaptive link for a Coupon pass created on June 1st will have an initial TTL of 365 days. A new pass is first created from this adaptive link on June 22nd, and the TTL is reset from 344 days to 365 days. After nearly a year without any passes having been created from the adaptive link, on May 1st the customer updates the payload on that adaptive link using an API call. The TTL is once again reset, this time from 21 days to 365 days.

You can also configure a custom expiration date for adaptive links, either from the Wallet Dashboard or using the Wallet API. An adaptive link configured with a custom expiration date will expire on that date regardless of its remaining TTL. This is useful if you want to guarantee an adaptive link will not generate any new passes after a certain date.