POS Integration | Rest API Reports for API Redemption & Transaction Failures
Rest API Reports
POS Integration is awesome! It's fast, so it saves you time at the register. It handles a lot of the important stuff for you, so there is far less human error to worry about. Nine times out of ten you can count on it to be accurate. But what about those times where an import fails and your integration was unable to deliver the details of your customer's purchase to Astro, or worse yet, the details of their free good redemption. Yikes! That's not good. But never fear! This is why we have developed a report just for you that will help you stay on top of situations such as these so you can fix them the same day.
Accessing the Report
If you are reading this, you most likely have your integration enabled on your account and are currently using it, but if you are brand new to Astro you need to Submit a Ticket to our Support Staff to let us know what POS System you are using and request that we turn on your Rest API Integration
Once you have your Rest API turned on you will need to log into Astro directly as an Admin User. This will give you access to your Reports menu which is where you will find the RestAPI Reports.
Selecting that report option will bring you to the following screen.
This report is separated into two sections, Redemption Failures and Transaction Failures. In this example the retailer has failures for both. These reports will show you the failures that occurred within the last 30 days, so make sure you are checking them regularly so you can make your corrections promptly.
We strongly recommend that you take a couple of moments to check this report at the end of every day while you are performing the rest of your closing routine and closing out your drawer.
API Redemption Failures
These guys are the most important to check since Redemptions coincide with your Reporting. If a card was not redeemed properly then your distributor will not know that you gave away a free good, therefore you will not get credit for that free good.
This report will show you several key pieces of information such as the Customer name, the Reward ID assigned to the attempted redemption, the Date and time of that attempted redemption, the name of the Program that attempted redemption occurred in, and most importantly- the Reason the redemption failed. Then once you have successfully finalized the redemption on the customer's Petowner account you can Hide the failure notification.
In this example the customer's name is John Demo. You will notice that the customer's name is in the form of a Link. Clicking that link will bring you to their Checkout Screen. From here you will be able to find the redemption that did not take and redeem the card manually. You will find your redemption in one of two places - either under Checkout as an Unredeemed Reward or under History as an Incomplete Redemption.
Unredeemed Reward
To redeem the Unredeemed Reward click where it says Checkout and follow the prompts. Astro will tell you if a Mailing Address or Email Address is required and provide you with the fields necessary to record this information.
Once you have this information filled in you will see the Reward Redemption Pop-Up. If you are familiar with how Astro functions without any integration this is the actual process for Redeeming a Free Good.
First you will select the item the customer redeemed from the drop-down menu, then you will select Redeem Selected Items to complete the redemption.
Once the redemption is locked in you will see it recorded under Rewards Earned/Redeemed This Visit.
Then select where it says Finished to the left of the screen to close out of the customer's Petowner Account.
What if you do not see the free good the customer took home listed as a redeemable option? This means that the item you gave away today did not qualify as a 100% Free Good. Don't panic though, you can still redeem the card for the Lowest Valued Item the customer purchased. This will at least get you reimbursement credit for that item. Refer back to the examples of the Redemption Pop-up I gave earlier. See where it says, Lowest Valued Item on Card: Astro Cat Food? This is telling you that this is the least valued item that this customer purchased, so that is the highest valued item that you can get credit for, so select that same item from the drop-down menu provided and redeem the card.
Incomplete Redemption
If you do not see an Unredeemed Reward alert on the customer's Petowner Account click where it says History at the bottom left of the Checkout Screen.
Now is where knowing the Reward ID comes into play. All redeemed and partially redeemed cards will show this Reward ID when you Expand their Details. In this example we know that the Reward ID is 1990367. When we clicked Expand Details on this card we see that same Reward ID listed below the Item Description of the redeemed item.
To fix this redemption click where it says Undo Redemption. This will generate a pop-up where you can select Remove and Reselect.
If the program requires the customer's Home or Email Address you will get a pop-up that will allow you to add this information. In this case we know this particular redemption did not go through because the customer's Email Address was missing, so we can add it now.
Then you will see your Reward Redemption Pop-up where you can re-select or select the item that was redeemed by the customer.
Once you have your redemption saved under Rewards Earned / Redeemed This Visit you can select Finished to exit the Checkout screen.
Then you can return to your RestAPI Report and Hide that particular Redemption Failure alert so you know it has been handled.
API Transaction Failures
These are instances when a transaction is imported by your POS and for whatever reason it does not take in Astro. This can be for reasons such as No Item Found or Transaction ID Already Exists. More often than not these will be valid reasons for preventing the transaction from being recorded in Astro.
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No Item Found
In many cases No Item Found pops up because the item imported is not a part of a Frequent Buyer Program. If you confirm that is the case you can go ahead and Hide the alert.
Missing Enrollment
A common reason that you will see a No Item Found error is that you are not actually enrolled in the Frequent Buyer Program that item is housed in. If you were ringing up that item in Astro manually (without the integration) you would see a pop-up suggesting that you enroll in the program that item is housed in.
So the best way to determine why you received this error is to first copy/paste the UPC for that transaction onto your clipboard. Then click the Customer Name to enter their Checkout screen. Once here you will see a toggle switch just above the search bar called Scanner / Keystroke Capture, you want to set that toggle switch to Off. This will allow you to paste your UPC onto the search bar.
Now that you have your UPC placed on the search bar you can hit Enter on your keypad, or click where it says Add Item. If this item is part of a Frequent Buyer Program that you are not enrolled in you will see a pop-up similar to this one...
Read over the program description to make sure this is the program you wish to participate in, then select Enroll in Program.
Now you will see a pop-up where you can Select your Distributor and add your Distributor assigned Account Number. If you have enrolled with this distributor before your account number should auto-populate for you.
Many distributors now require that you enter your account number when enrolling, and you will not be able to finalize the enrollment without entering a number onto that provided field. If you enter the number incorrectly your credits will be denied. So take your time and make sure you enter it correctly. You can find your account number on any invoices you've been sent by the distributor or you can contact your distributor to find out what it is.
Once you have finished entering the required information you can select I Agree. Then you will have the option to select Rerun Scanned Item. Go ahead and do so.
This will rerun that item and add it to both a new Frequent Buyer Card and it will list it under Today's Purchases.
You will notice that the green checkmark on the card is a darker green than any existing punches, this helps you differentiate between what items were just added to cards Today and items that were added to cards previously.
Once you are satisfied that the item was added to the Petowner account correctly you can click where it says Checkout at the bottom left of the page, then click Finished on the next page. This will exit the customer's Petowner account and you can return to your report to Hide the transaction you just remedied.
If you have any other customers who had a No Item Found reason for that same SKU, or for an item that is also included in the Frequent Buyer Program you just enrolled in all you need to do is return to your report, find another affected customer, copy/paste the UPC that failed to import, then click on their name to access their Petowner account, paste the UPC onto the search bar, hit Enter or click Add Item, then since you are already enrolled the item will be added to a card on their account straightaway.
New Item / SKU
There is also a chance that a No Item Found reason could be because the item is new and should in fact be added to your program as a qualifying item. If you find this to be true click the Customer name to access their Checkout Screen.
If you are doing this the same day the Transaction Failure occurred you may see where it says Unknown Item beside the item that was attempted to be imported below Today's Purchases. Beside that item you will see where it says Add Exception in the form of a red button. Click that button. To add the Exception, select first the program you wish to add the item to from the drop-down provided.
Then select Next which will bring you to the full Exception Pop-up.
- Start with the first drop-down menu and select an item from that program that most closely resembles (either in formula or price) the item you are adding to that program as an exception.
- Now type the name, as detailed as possible, of the item you are adding as an exception. Be sure to include the weight of the item.
- Then type in the UPC code of the new item.
- And finally select the reason from the last drop-down menu that represents why you are adding this item as an exception.
- Now select Add Item.
This item will now be added to the customer's card as a purchase, and it will show up on that card as a purchase credit for whichever item you selected in the top drop-down. So in this case it would be on the card as "Astro Dog Food". But then when that checkmark is moused over it will show the details of that exception. Here are more details on the Exception Process and how it works.
What if the Transaction Failure occurred prior to today and the item is question is not listed under Today's Purchases as an Unknown Item? The exception can still be added to the card. To do so click on the Frequent Buyer Card directly (you can click anywhere on the card). This will generate a pop-up. On this pop-up there will be a checkbox beside Product Exception, check that box. When you do so it will turn into the same pop-up featured above and you can select the proper representational item and fill in the proper fields.
What if the customer doesn't already have a card generated for that program? Go to the search bar at the top of your screen. If the search bar is grey you can start typing the UPC in question then hit Enter when you are done. Or, if you want to be able to copy/paste the UPC on the search bar find the toggle switch beside where it says Scanner / Keystroke Capture and set it to OFF.
Once you have attempted to add the item to the account this way you will see where it says Add Exception below an error that says No Items Found just above Checkout. Click Add Exception. Then you can select the program you want to add the item to and then continue to fill out the exception card as described in the exampled above.
TransactionID Already Exists
More often than not a transaction showing this reason probably should not have been added to that customer's Astro Petowner account, but it is still a good idea to check and make sure of this.
First let's go over how items are imported to Astro. Every time your POS System delivers a transaction to Astro via the API it identifies that line of communication with the Transaction ID associated with your Sale in the POS. Let's say you are using a form of integration that requires you to click a button to transmit info to Astro. If this is a button that is not directly in tune with the sale, like a button that is there purely to import, it is possible the cashier could make a mistake and click that button twice. This would create a duplicate transaction ID.
Now, in Pinogy's case, the act of you accepting payment for a sale is what triggers an import to Astro. Directly tying the command to import with a crucial piece of the transaction process (collect payment) most likely will prevent these kinds of failed transactions from occurring. For instance, if you start to collect payment for a Credit Card, then the customer realizes they forgot something, so you exit out of Collect Payment to ring up the extra item, this should cancel the pending import (you have to finalize payment in order to fully commit to the import). However, in the great unlikelihood that this built in failsafe fails and the integration thinks it already delivered a transaction to Astro, we have an extra failsafe in place that will bring your attention to any possible failed transaction imports so you can investigate.
So what are you looking for? How do you know if the transaction was a duplicate?
You are looking for a couple of things. Let's say we have a failed transaction for a bag of Huxley Chicken Delight Dry Dog Food.
- First determine how many of a particular item the customer purchased. You can check their POS Account for this info if you are not sure.
- What day/time did they purchase that item/s? You can find this info on the failed transaction.
- Did they actually purchase this item, or did they redeem it as a free good? If they redeemed it then it should not be recorded as a purchase.
Now you are going to click on the customer's name to access their Petowner account.
Once here, see if you can find the Frequent Buyer Card that matches the item/s you know the customer purchased. Click where it says Expand Details on that card. First find the Date of the transaction you are looking for, is it there? If you found it, does the item associated with it on the card match the item you know the customer purchased? Are there enough of those items listed?
If you answered "No" to any of these questions click on the card directly (anywhere works) then find the item that should have been added to the card and select it from the drop-down. Then add it to the card. Repeat however many times this is needed. Now click where it says Edit Card Notes below the card and record the original Date the customer purchased this item or items.
Once you are finished click Checkout at the bottom left of your screen.
If you added more than one item to the same card you will see a Multi-Purchase Pop-up. From the drop-down menu on that pop-up select the reason "Other" then in the text field below explain what just happened. Ex. "Purchase failed to import from my POS, items originally purchased on [date]."
When you reach the second screen review the changes you made, then click Finished. Now you can return to your report and select Hide on the failed transaction you just remedied.
If you found that the transaction was already recorded on the card properly, and this failed transaction was in fact a duplicate, you can also select Hide to remove the failure alert.
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