Overview

Tokens are randomly generated sequences of characters that can be either letters or numbers and are used as a way of identifying an account and its rules within AIR. As a customer, it will be the token you see printed on a physical coupon or in an email. Tokens can also be referred to as codes, coupons, voucher codes or discount codes. For example, ABC123DEF.

These tokens are configurable by setting a 'Token Format' and 'Code Provider' within the AIR platform and can be used by a Campaign or Programme that generates tokens.

Token Format

Token formats define the structure of the code to be created. For example, how many characters it should be, will it have a prefix, will it be letters, numbers, or both, will the code have a checksum digit added to the end? This token format will be configured as part of the onboarding process.

This token is what the customer sees and is what gets scanned or input into the POS to apply the discount.

There are pre-defined character groups within AIR:

• Digits 0-9
• Upper case letters
• Upper case letters that exclude I and O
• Lowercase letters
• Hyphens

There is a limit of 100 token formats on a unit but we recommend keeping them to a minimum to make the jobs of the people creating offers simple and avoid confusion.

• When we generate a token, we check they are unique across the whole of the AIR platform
• We will never generate sequential token values to avoid people guessing at other code values based on their own token and getting rewards to which they are not entitled
• It’s impossible to generate a duplicate token
• Tokens cannot be between 13 - 19 digits in length. This prevents BIN number clashes which are used for "Banking Identifier Number" ranged codes. An expired or cancelled token remains in AIR so it cannot be re-generated.

All these limitations exist to prevent any fraudulent use of token values by people guessing a code or by using a code that has already been used once again.

Token Code Provider

A code provider is a component in the AIR platform that holds the logic around how a code is generated. Generally our standard code provider is enough for most token uses, however we have an array of different code providers that can generate codes in different ways or even use external resources to obtain codes.

When configuring a new campaign that generates tokens, you will need to select a code provider. This is used in conjunction with a token format to tell AIR how to configure the token.

Code providers are the rules that determine how a token will be created. This can be as simple as following the rules set in the token format, or you may want to use additional data from your campaign/programme as a suffix or prefix. This could be a BIN number or scheme id for plastic gift cards or a way of adding a promotion ID to your tokens.

*Code provider details will be setup against your units during your onboarding process by your Delivery Team.

Example Token

There is an example shown below based on the rules defined in this guide. The gift card token format is set to generate the 7 numbers in Purple randomly. It’s the code provider that generates the BIN number in Red, the Scheme number in Green, and the single digit checksum at the end.