Update Passes

Updating Pass Information

After a user installs a pass, you can seamlessly update the pass as the user accrues loyalty points, uses some of their gift card balance, or event information changes, so that your users are always up to date.

By updating an already-installed pass, you help ensure that your customers never miss their gates, and that they take advantage of the loyalty programs that bring them back to your business.

When you update passes and adaptive links, you only need to provide the individual fields that you want to update.

PUT /v1/pass/12345/ HTTP/1.1
Authorization: Basic <authorization string>
Content-type: application/json

{
  "fields": {
    "points": {
      "value": "98765"
    }
  }
}

Update Passes After Updating a Template

If you change your template, you can “publish” an update to your template to update passes for all of your passholders. This makes it easy to update the look and feel of your passes with a single operation. You can also update fields on your template when you publish changes, but you should take care when updating fields that might be personalized. If you update a field that has already been personalized for individual passholders, you’ll erase passholders’ personalized information when you publish changes to your template.

Learn how to publish changes to templates.

Updating Flights and Events

You can manage flights and events independently of boarding passes and event tickets respectively, making it much easier to update passholders when their flights or events change.

You can also use passGroups to update a group of flights or events — e.g. for a flight with multiple stops.

Airship recommends using the FlightsAPI to perform updates to individual flights. The Update endpoint will update the flight and trigger the bulk pass update behavior if any details for the flight have changed. If flight details change frequently, Airship recommends batching these updates into periodic calls at regular, well-spaced intervals.

PUT /v1/flights/project/<projectId>/<flightId> HTTP/1.1
Authorization: Basic <authorization string>
Content-Type: application/json

{
    "fields": {
        "departureGate": {
            "value": "21"
        },
        "boardingTime": {
            "value": "2018-07-30T09:20:00"
        },
        "departureTime": {
            "value": "2018-07-30T09:45:00"
        },
        "arrivalTime": {
            "value": "2018-07-30T11:45:00"
        },
        "passGroups": [
            "sfo-pdx-20180730"
        ]
    }
}

Tags and Pass Organization

You can assign tags to passes, to organize groups of passes and passholders. You can target tags in the wallet API to change a group of passes.

PUT /v1/tag/tag-name/passes HTTP/1.1
Authorization: Basic <Base64 key>
Content-Type: application/json
Api-Revision: 1.2

{
    "fields": {
        "secondary1": {
            "value": "12/31/2013"
        },
        "primary1": {
            "value": "$2 Off"
        }
    }
}

Recommended Use

After users install your pass, update the pass with values and notifications relevant to where users are in the campaign’s lifecycle.

Pass Type: Loyalty

Scenario: Tier Upgrade

Pass Type: Coupon

Scenario: Sale offers

Pass Type: Event Ticket

Scenario: Event details: session content, address, resources, contest results

Airship recommends using the Events API to perform updates to individual events. The Update endpoint will update the event and trigger the bulk pass update behavior if any details for the event have changed. If event details change frequently, Airship recommends batching these updates into periodic calls at regular, well-spaced intervals.

Use Cases

Simple

• Loyalty: Upgraded tier
• Coupon: Sales offer
• Gift Card: Balance change
• Member Card: Renewal reminder
• Event Ticket: Seat assignment
• Boarding Pass: Gate change

Common

• Send alerts and additional information based on tags or location changes.
• Modify values, with or without an alert.
• Add generic locations or beacons to a pass via the UI (up to ten locations or beacons).

Complex

• Personalize with user-specific location or beacons tied to the pass (not supported by all passes).
• Add/remove segmentation properties for a pass.
• Change barcode type and/or value.

Considerations

Consider these three things for each update, and you’ll know your passholders are getting the right changes.

1. AUDIENCE: Make sure you are updating via the appropriate endpoint.
   • Update a single pass: /v1/pass/{id}.
   • Update a single pass with external ID: /v1/pass/id/{externalId}.
   • Update a pass with external ID for a single template: /v1/pass/template/{templateId}/id/{passExternalId}.
   • Update passes with a specific tag: /v1/tag/{tag}/passes, where tag is a specific tag.
   • Update passes by segment: /v1/segments/{projectId}/{segmentId}/passes.
   • Update all passes for a template (Bulk Update): v1/template/{templateId}/passes, where templateId is the template ID for which the bulk update is being done. You may alternatively supply an external ID for the passes, passExternalId. Bulk update via the API is essentially the same as using Publish in the dashboard, but the API has more options.
   • Update a pass with external ID that was created from an adaptive link: v1/links/adaptive/{adaptiveLinkId}/passes/id/{passExternalId}.
   • Update a pass with external ID that was created from an adaptive link in a specific project: v1/links/adaptive/project/id/{projectExternalId}/id/{adaptiveLinkExternalId}/passes/id/{passExternalId}.
2. GENERIC vs. PERSONALIZED
   • Are you updating a generic pass, where all passholders have the same content? Go for it.
   • Are you updating personalized passes? If so, make sure you aren’t replacing values for all passholders that are passholder-specific.
3. TEST: Use a test template and confirm the changes before updating your users' passes. Already confident with test templates? You may want to use a test tag instead.

See API: Passes: Update Pass for the full documentation.