Day Pass

About Day Passes

A day pass is a low-cost, low-commitment alternative to a subscription, allowing access to the digital edition of a publication for a single day. Day passes are popular with casual readers who may not visit the publication website frequently, or read the print publication. Examples of day pass readers might be visitors to the area, researchers who need access to your content for a short period, and customers who occasionally read the publication but do not want to commit to a longer subscription. By offering a day pass plan, you can broaden your engagement with the community while earning extra revenue.

Day pass subscriptions are supported in Circulation. Unlike regular (term) subscriptions, day pass subscriptions do not have a start or stop. Instead, a day pass transaction is created containing one or more day passes.

Day passes transactions are typically interfaced via the Circulation API by the Digital Paymeter or a third party paywall. However, a day pass can be entered in Customer Service, in the case where the customer directly contacts the CSR.

Note that:

• Day passes only cover a single day (24-hour period). Multi-day or week passes are not supported. However, customers can purchase bundles of day passes (described below) which can be used on different individual days rather than a single time period.

• To purchase a day pass, a customer must have an e-mail and full address information. “Shadow” users and users with limited address information (e.g. only a ZIP Code) cannot purchase day passes.

• To purchase a day pass, a payment is required. Only credit card payments using the Hosted Payment Page can be made. Payments cannot be entered for day pass subscriptions outside of a day pass transaction, and transfers cannot be made to day pass subscribers.

• Day passes must be purchased in advance. Grace periods are not supported.

• Day passes cannot be auto renewed.

• Day passes have special rates with a subscriber type of “Day Pass” (see Subscription Rates in the Setup Manual). Day pass rates can have discounts defined for them, but cannot be reduced or promo rates.

• Day pass subscriptions are ignored by Publishing module options, most reports and utilities, and also by Targeted Marketing selection. However, campaigns can be set up to create day pass subscriptions, and day passes can be reported using the Day Pass Sales and Day Pass Usage reports.

• The Paymeter also uses iServices Authentication to determine whether the customer has an active day pass. Authentication is also called in order to record day pass usage (the subscriber actually accessing the digital edition) and digital access for AAM purposes. Alternately, day pass usage and digital access records can be imported via the Auth Import utility.

Business Rules and Setup

The following Business Rules govern day pass subscriptions:

• What is the delivery schedule used for day pass purchases? (Customer Services section).

  • Although day passes are valid on any day of the week, day pass subscriptions must have a delivery schedule for validation reasons. The delivery schedule specified for this Business Rule must be a delivery schedule set up with a subscriber type of “Day Pass”.

• When entering a make good day pass transaction, which subscription adjust code should be used? (Customer Services section).

  • If you will allow make goods for day pass subscriptions, the subscription adjustment code to use for the make good adjustment must be specified for this parameter.

• If a day pass is also valid for the next publishing day, should it count for both days in AAM history? (AAM section).

  • You can count a day pass as a single day (copy), but because it is a 24-hour period and readers can typically access the website on two different days, AAM allows a day pass to be counted as two copies.

• What is the default AAM price level for day pass draw? (AAM section).

  • If you use AAM price levels, the day pass will use the price level associated with the subscriber’s day pass rate. If no price level is specified at the rate level, this parameter determines the price level to use.

• What is the host name for Day Pass? and What is the URL path for Day Pass? (iServices & Mapping section).

  • The host name and URL to be used with the day pass e-mail template. The template is used to send e-mail to the subscriber after purchasing a day pass.

In addition to day pass rates, in order to offer day passes you must set Allow Day Pass to “y” in Publication setup and have at least one digital edition that allows day pass. The edition determines the AAM column for recording day pass draw, and the access window for a day pass subscription (24 hours or until the end of the next day).

You must also define at least one reason code with a transaction type of “DayPass”, and one “DayPassUsage” transaction type. (The day pass usage transaction is used to track the days used in a day pass bundle.)

Single Day Passes

A single day pass purchase uses a rate term of 1 day. The day pass begins as soon as the transaction is entered, and is active for 24 hours or until the end of the next day, based on Edition setup. Once the access period is over, the subscription is inactive. However, if the customer purchases another day pass for the same edition, the same subscription ID is used. This allows you to view all of a customer’s day pass history under one subscription.

Day Pass Bundles

Day pass bundles contain a predefined number of day passes paid for in advance; a bundle offers convenience to day pass customers who don't want to pay each time they wish to access your website.

In this case the day pass transaction has a term of greater than 1 day. The actual terms offered are defined in Rate Code setup—for example, your publication might offer day pass bundles of 3, 5, and 10 days.

When a customer purchases a day pass bundle, none of the day passes in the bundle are used initially. Days are used in a bundle based on digital access. If the customer logs in and there are no days currently active in the day pass bundle, iServices Authentication activates the next day pass usage transaction when it records digital access.

When a day pass is used, the value of the day will be subtracted from the subscriber’s balance, and they will have one less day pass remaining in the bundle. When the last day pass in a bundle is used, the subscription will become inactive.

How Day Passes are Valued

When a day pass subscription is purchased, the value of each day (or usage) is determined when the day pass transaction is entered, and this value does not change. For a single day pass there is only one usage, and the value is the one day rate term cost (including tax, if any). For day pass bundles, each day in the day pass has a value, which is used to determine the subscriber’s remaining balance and the amount earned during a period. The days are valued using the following method:

1. The total cost of the term is divided by the number of days to get the average day cost.

2. The average cost is truncated to two decimal places. For example, an average of .857 is truncated to .85.

3. Each day is assigned the truncated average.

4. The value of all the days is combined.

5. The combined value of the days is subtracted from the total cost of the term.

6. Any remainder is added to the first day.

Example: 7 days for 5.00

1. 5.00 / 7 = 0.714

2. 0.714 is truncated to 0.71

3. Days 1-7 are assigned a value of 0.71

4. 0.71 x 7 = 4.97

5. 5.00 - 4.97 = 0.03

6. Value of day 1 = 0.71 + 0.03 = 0.74

And so the days would have the following values:

Day 1 = 0.74 Day 2 = 0.71 Day 3 = 0.71 Day 4 = 0.71 Day 5 = 0.71 Day 6 = 0.71| Day 7 = 0.71 Total = 5.00

Entering a Day Pass Transaction

Follow the procedure below to enter a day pass transaction in Customer Service.

Enter a day pass in Customer Service

1. Find the occupant who is purchasing the day pass, or add the occupant to Circulation. Day passes can be entered for subscribers or non-subscribers, as long as the occupant has an address.

2. Click the Day Pass icon () to enter a day pass purchase for the occupant (this icon is only active if offsite credit card storage and Hosted Order Page settings have been configured). The day pass fields display on the Transaction tab.

   
3. Select the product, edition, rate and other details for the day pass, in the fields described in the table below.

   Field

   Type

   What to enter

   CAMPAIGN

   setup

   If this day pass subscription is part of a campaign, select the campaign ID here. The campaign may default other fields, such as Source, Reason and Rate.

   PRODUCT, EDITION

   setup

   Select the product and edition for the day pass. Only products and editions flagged to allow day passes or day pass bundles can be selected. Combos cannot be selected, as they are not currently supported for day pass subscriptions.

   START DATE

   date

   The day pass transaction will be processed as soon as it is entered, so today’s date displays as the start date. This cannot be changed.

   SOURCE

   setup

   Select a source code for this day pass, such as “Customer”.

   REASON

   setup

   Select a reason code for the day pass transaction. Day pass reason codes must be defined in advance.

   ZONE

   setup

   Select the AAM zone for this day pass subscriber.

   RATE

   setup

   Select a rate for the day pass subscription, or accept the rate that defaults. Day pass rates must be defined in advance (see Subscription Rates in the Setup Manual).

   REMARKS

   open (unlimited)

   Enter any remarks that pertain to the day pass.

   EMAIL

   open (60)

   Specify the e-mail address that will be used for the day pass access, or click the Find icon to the right of the field to select an e-mail. If a primary e-mail has already been entered for the customer, it will default. If a new e-mail is entered here, it will be added for the customer and display with the customer’s valid e-mail addresses on the Contact tab. Note: E-mails are not directly linked to a day pass. Customers with multiple e-mails defined can log in with any of their e-mails for day pass access.

   PAYMENT TYPE

   predefined

   Only credit card payments can currently be selected for day pass subscriptions, so select “Credit Card” here. This will pop up the Hosted Order Page, as described below, where credit card information is entered.

   DAYS

   setup

   If subscribing to a day pass bundle, select the number of days being purchased. If purchasing just a single day pass, leave this field set to “1”. Only a number of days defined as a term for the selected rate can be chosen here. For example, if the selected rate is for a day pass bundle and has 2-, 5- and 10-day terms, only “2”, “5” and “10” would be available for selection here.

   PAYMENT AMOUNT

   display

   The price of the day pass or day pass bundle displays here.

   DATE

   display

   The payment date displays here. This will always be the current date.

   BATCH

   display

   The payment batch in which the day pass payment is included displays here. Note: As soon as the day pass transaction is accepted, the payment is processed. The payment does not need to be processed by Payment Processing.

4. Once “Credit Card” is selected in the Payment Type field, the Hosted Order Page displays for credit card information. This is the same process as entering a regular credit card payment using the HOP.

5. Back on the Transaction tab, click OK to accept the day pass. This will create a processed day pass transaction (Transaction Processing does not need to be run to process the transaction). Payment, AAM and GL records will also be created. The payment will be placed in a batch named “DPYYMMDDxx”, where “YYMMDD” are the year, month and day respectively, and “xx” is a sequence number. This batch will already be flagged as accepted, and the payment will be marked as processed, so there are no further steps required to create the payment.

6. If this is a new e-mail address (or the New Password button was clicked), an e-mail message will be sent to the customer, including the password and links to the login screen for digital access (e.g. the Digital Paymeter login page) and iServices.

   

Viewing Day Pass Transactions

To view the activation window for an active day pass, or the number of days left in a day pass bundle, simply view the day pass transaction. If the Days is “1”, the subscription is for a single day pass, and the usage will display in the Usage Information area. If the transaction is for a day pass bundle, the number of days displays in the Days field, and one usage will display for each day used so far in the Usage Information area. The unused days and remaining balance in the bundle will also display, above the Usage area.

When viewing or entering a day pass transaction, you can click the New Password button if the customer needs a new password (for example, they forgot their password or did not receive one). This works the same way as the New Password button on the Occupant tab. It changes the password for all of the customer’s e-mails.

Entering a Make Good for a Day Pass

If a subscriber complains that they had an issue using their day pass (for example, the publication website was down, or they could not log in), you can issue them a new day pass without a payment. This is known as a “make good”. It is not recorded as a complaint in Circulation, but creates a payment adjustment for the value of the day pass.

In order to enter make goods, the Business Rule—When entering a make good day pass transaction, which subscription adjust code should be used? must be answered with a valid payment adjustment code, and you must have security permissions for the “DayPassMakeGood” item in Transaction Security.

Enter a day pass make good

1. In Customer Service, find the day pass subscriber.

2. Click the Day Pass icon and enter the fields in the same way as for a normal day pass, with the exception of the Payment Type field. Select “Make Good” in Payment Type.

3. Click OK to create the make good day pass. A new day pass transaction will be created for a single day, with an adjustment-only payment that equals the value of the day (there will be no tax). The GL transaction for the day pass will debit/credit the GL account specified with the payment adjustment code.

4. The subscriber will be e-mailed access info for the day pass, as with a normal day pass purchase. In the case of a make good, there will be no initial usage. The usage transaction will be created when the subscriber accesses the website, as with a day pass bundle.

Refunding a Day Pass Bundle

Subscribers with unused days in a day pass bundle can request a refund, if for some reason they will not use all of their days. Refunds for day pass bundles can be entered using the normal Refund transaction. In the case of a day pass refund:

• The refund amount will be the value of the remaining (unused) day passes in the subscription, and cannot be changed.

• If the subscriber has multiple day pass bundles with unused days in the subscription, all days will be combined for the refund.

• As with other refunds entered in Customer Service, the day pass refund will be placed in the active Customer Service refund batch, or in a new batch if none is active.

• Once the refund is entered, the day pass subscription will be inactive.