Gift Card Rewards External Module

This module will automate the dispersement of gift cards for use in projects offering incentive rewards.

This module requires two REDCap projects: 1) the project where study data is stored (study project), and 2) a gift card library repository project where gift cards are loaded for dispersement (library project). These two projects work in tandem to disperse gift cards at the proper time as specified by logic in the configuration file. The gift card library project can be used for more than one gift card study project.

The module must be enabled for the study project (not the gift card library).

Background

Many research studies offer incentives to participants, in the form of gift cards, at different time points. Tracking and distribution of the gift cards can be a very time-consuming task, especially with remote participants. To help alleviate the burden of tracking eligible participants and facilitate distribution of the gift cards, this External Module was created. This module also helps with gift card reporting for study administration.

Overview

This EM allows multiple configurations (e.g. instances) to be setup to enable more than one different gift card event in a given project. Each configuration uses a logical expression to determine when a participant is eligible combined with the type and amount of the gift card to be sent.

There are several types of configurations which are supported as described below:

1. When a participant is determined to be eligible for a reward, they will be sent a customizable email to let them know they received an award. The email contains a link which they must click through to view the gift card information (and redeem the gift). There is an option to send the actual giftcard information to an email address (either the one used for verification or another email).
2. Gift cards can be filtered by Brands. Each participant may select the type of gift card they would like. In order to use this feature, the brand field needs to be specified in the EM config file. This would be used if you want to allow the participant to select, for example, from a target or an amazon gift card.
3. Sending out gift cards normally happens in realtime when the logic determines a record to be eligible. However, if you would like, you can instead use a batch mode where the gift cards are sent in batch at a later time. In this mode, gift cards will NOT be sent when a record is saved, instead an EM webpage is provided so display the records that are eligible for an award. You are allowed to select which records you want to send gift cards to.
4. Normally the eligibility logic is determined when the record is saved. There may be some situations where you need to evaluate the logic without a save event (such as when logic includes datediff or after a bulk import). You can evaluate logic against all records using a cron-task on a daily basis. For instance, this mode may useful when sending gift cards on birthdays. In the eligibility logic, you can set up a datediff to determine if today is the participant's birthday and if so, send out a gift card.
5. The last mode can be used to support anonymous surveys. Since the email address of a participant is not known or desired to be saved in the project, you can select to have the URL to the gift card saved in the project and displayed to users after completing an anonymous survey.

How does it work?

This module is designed to evaluate configuration specific logic (based on REDCap field values) when a record is saved. When the logic becomes true, a reward is processed for the participant. The reward processing consists of looking for an available gift card in the library project, reserving that gift card in the library project and notifying the participant via email that they were awarded a gift card. The gift card library record gift card status will be set to 'Reserved' with a timestamp.

The configuration file specifies a gift card denomination to give for each timepoint and gift cards can be filtered by brand. The brand filter is performed by creating a radio button or drop down field in the study project to hold the brands available for distribution. The description of each radio selection must match the brand entered in the library project. The denomination amount entered in the External Module module configuration should only include the dollar amount and not the dollar sign (20 and not $20.00) in order to match the library project entry.

A few items of information are saved in the library project when a reward is distributed, such as, the name of the reward (which is specified in the study project External Module configuration), and the project id (in case more than 1 study project uses the same gift card library), record in the study project that is being awarded the reward and the email address where the gift card codes were sent.

The study project will save the 'Reserved' status of the gift card and the record of the library project which contains the reward being sent to this participant. Enough information is saved in the library and study projects to easily maneuver back and forth between the two projects.

Participant View

Once a participant reaches a reward milestone, they will receive an email with customizable text. At the bottom of the email a link to a webpage that will display their reward is inserted. This email text is specified in the External Module configuration file and can use piping for personalization.

Once the participant clicks on the email link, a webpage will be launched that contains their reward code. From this webpage, participants will be able to email that reward code to themselves (or someone else) so they have a copy of the code. The email address that is sent a copy of the reward code will be stored in the library project.

Features

This module is able to send multiple rewards per project. For instance, if your study grants a reward after filling out a Baseline Questionnaire, after Week 3 and at the end of the study, each of these reward timeframes can be setup in the gift card External Module configuration. There are no limits to the number of rewards one study project can gift. Each reward configuration must use the same library project.

Unless a project opts out, there is a daily summary that is sent to the Alert Email address which summarizes the status of the gift card dispersement for the previous day. If more than one configuration is setup for a study project, one email will be sent summarizing all configuration setups.

Some projects may want the ability to time limit the availability of the rewards. For instance, you can make the award valid for 7 days. After the time has elapsed, you can reset the reward so the participant loses the ability to see the reward information. This scenario can be accomplished when using gift codes (not links to gift codes) by resetting awards that are in 'Reserved' status back to 'Ready' status.

Setup

Gift Card Library Setup

The gift card library project must have the following fields:

There is an xml and csv template in Github which should be used for the library project. The gift card information, which is dispersed to participants, can be imported into the project from a csv file.

The gift card library project supports several statuses for each gift card record. When the information is entered into the library but is not yet ready to be sent, the status of 'Not Ready' can be used. When the gift cards are available to be used for the project, they are set in 'Ready' status. When a participant becomes eligible for a reward and is sent a reward email with a link to the reward, the status becomes 'Reserved'. When the link in the email is selected and the reward is displayed on a webpage, the status is 'Claimed'. In this case, the status of Claimed does not mean it was redeemed, it just means that the participant has the information to redeem the gift card.

The gift card library project supports sending participants the actual reward code so they can redeem the reward. It also supports entering a link to a third party website where they can redeem the reward. If the value entered in the [egift_number] field starts with 'http', then the value of the field will be setup as a link in the email so participants can click on the link to retrieve their reward from the 3rd party site. When using links, the redemption of the reward is outside of Redcap so the status of the reward will stay at 'Reserved' and will not change to 'Claimed'.

When the reward is an alphanumeric string, then Redcap will track when the user clicks on the link in the email and turns the status to 'Claimed'.

If a gift card was erroneously sent out, the gift card record can be reset to 'Ready' and the record can be re-used. The gift card can only be redeemed with a valid token so if the token is deleted, that gift card can no longer be 'Claimed'.

Uploading gift card rewards to the Library

To upload gift card rewards to the Library in bulk, the REDCap Data Import Tool can be used by following the steps below. Create a .csv file with the following headers: reward_id, brand, egift_number, challenge_code, amount, status

• The reward_id is the record number
• The brand is the company name for the gift card. If using brand filtering, this name must exactly match the coded value brand label in the gift card project.
• The egift_number is either the gift card number used to redeem the gift card or it can be an URL to a 3rd party supplier provided gift card link.
• The challenge_code is an optional field which can be used if the gift card requires a PIN or secondary value in order to redeem the card.
• The amount is the dollar amount that the gift card is worth. The value should be entered as number with no dollar sign (i.e. 20 for a $20 gift amount).
• The status field should be set to 0 if the gift cards are not ready to be or 1 if the gift cards are ready to be sent. ` Once the .csv file is complete, use the Data Import Tool to load the data into your Gift Card Library project,

Project Configuration File

Once the module is enabled for the gift card project, the External Module configuration file must be filled out.

To setup a gift card configuration for a project, there are 4 main sections, described below.

Reward Library for all configurations

The Reward Library section requires you to enter information on the location of the library project. This project can be used for more than one gift card project but the same library project must be used for each reward configuration in the study project. Here is a brief overview of the settings:

• GCR Project ID - This is the pid of the Gift Card Library project
• GCR Event ID - If the Gift Card Library project has multiple events, this value is required, otherwise it can be left blank.
• Alert Email - This is an email address which will be used to send a message when the gift card library project is getting on inventory.
• CC Email - This is an email address that will be cc'd on each email that goes out to participants when the cc option is selected for a configuration.

Display Styling for Gift Card Reward Display for all configurations

The Display Styling section allows you to customize the page used to display the gift card codes used to redeem the card. You can change the header/footer colors, add a background image, add a logo or change the background text color of the box containing the reward codes. Here is a brief overview of the settings:

• Header and Footer Color - Hex value or color name which will be used for the display header and footer
• Reward Logo - URL to a logo which will be placed on the left hand side of the header
• Background Image - URL to an image which will be placed in the background around the reward information box
• Table Color - Background color of the reward text box which displays the redeem codes

Reward Settings (section for each configuration)

There may be many configurations created if there are multiple rewards dispersed by this project. Each configuration requires information about the specific award. Here is a brief overview of the settings:

• Reward Title - This is just a text title that will be used to distinguish between different awards. This name is saved in the library project.
• Reward Event ID - This is the event where the reward information is located
• Reward Logic - Logic to determine when the record is ready for an award
• Reward ID Field - Field where the EM will save the library record number
• Reward ID Status Field - Field where the EM will save the award status
• Reward ID URL Field - Field where the EM will save the URL to the reward display
• Reward Amount - Dollar amount only (20 for $20). This value will be matched with the gift card library amount
• Brand - If brand filtering is used, this is the field where the brand value will be stored. This field must be a dropdown or radio button field type.
• Inhibit Emails - When checked, emails will not be sent but rewards will be processed
• Reward Email Address - Field which holds the participant's email address where the emails will be sent
• Reward Email From - The email address that will be used in the From address
• Batch Processing - When checked, emails will not be sent when the reward logic is true. Instead, the Batch Processing EM page must be used to select records to send rewards to.
• Fields to Display for Batch Processing - A comma separated list of field names which will be displayed on the Batch Processing EM page. This information can be used to determine which records to send a gift card to.

Email Settings (section for each configuration)

The Email Settings section specifies what text will be used to send the emails to participants. Here is a brief overview of the settings:

• Reward Notification Email Subject - The subject line for the email when the initial email is sent to alert the participant that they have received a reward
• Reward Notification Email Body - The body of the email when the initial email is sent to alert the participant that they have received a reward. The URL to the reward display page will be added below this text.
• CC Reward Notification Email - When checked, each notification sent will be cc'd to the cc email address entered above.
• Reward Code Email Subject - The subject line for the email when the participant sends the reward code to an email address
• Reward Code Email Body - The body of the email when the participant sends the reward code to an email address
• CC Reward Email - When checked, each reward code email will be cc'd to the cc email address entered above.

Notification Settings (section for each configuration)

The Notification Settings allow configuration control over when emails are sent. Here is a brief overview of the settings:

• Opt-Out Low Balance Notification - By default, low balance notifications will be sent to the Alert Email Address entered above unless this checkbox is selected. This notification sends alerts when the gift card inventory in the gift card library gets low
• Low Balance Threshold - This value is the threshold value of when notification alerts get sent. When their are more gift cards than the threshold value, no notifications will go out. If the number of available gift cards fall below the threshold, an email will be sent to the alert email
• Opt-Out Daily Summary - By default, a Daily Summary will be sent to the Alert Email address daily. If the daily summaries are not desired, selecting this checkbox will inhibit the email.
• Allow Multiple Rewards - By default, an email address is only allowed one reward per configuration. Check this box to allow the same email address to receive more than one reward for the same configuration
• Enable 9am cron job to check logic - Select this checkbox to allow the cron job to evaluate the logic and send the reward. This option should only be chosen if there is a date difference in the reward logic.

Reward Processing

Each time a record is saved in the Gift Card Project, a check will be performed to see if the participant is eligible for a reward. Once a participant is found eligible, the following steps will be performed:

• An unused reward record meeting the monetary (and brand) requirement(s) in the Gift Card Library, will be placed in Reserved status for this card entry.
• The participant will receive an email with a link included to their reward gift card
• Once the participant clicks on the link, the reward will be display on a webpage
• The Gift Card Library project record will update the status of the record to Claimed with a timestamp
• The Gift Card Project record will update the reward status to Claimed

Once the participant clicks on the link received in the rewards email, the reward display appears as follows:

Participants have the option to send themselves or someone else a copy of the reward number for future reference.

Cron Processing

There are 2 cron jobs running daily:

Gift Card Summary

The Summary cron job will send a daily update at 6am to the Alert Email address specified in the configuration file. The nightly summary displays the following data:

Logic Checker

The Logic Checker cron job will run at 9am each morning and look for the configurations who have the "Enable 9am cron job to check logic" checkbox enabled. Configurations should enable this cron logic checker only when they have a date component to their reward logic. This cron will ensure the reward is sent on the appropriate date even if the record is not saved on the day it is eligible.

Batch Processing

The Batch Processing webpage will display all records that are ready for a reward for each configuration that has selected batch processing. The user will be able to select the records that should receive the reward for each configuration.

Internationalization

This module uses the Internationalization framework. There is an English.ini file which includes phrases used for displays.

NOTES:

• This External Module uses the emLogger External Module developed at Stanford to log processing messages.
• This External Module uses the DB functions GET_LOCK and RELEASE_LOCK when reserving a gift card from the gift card library so more than one record cannot reserve the same gift card.

Future Enhancements

- Add the ability for projects to download a standard Gift Card Library Template automatically