Start With A Plan

There are many, many ways to design and implement commuter incentives. This page deals with how to set up programs using the RideAmigos incentive tool, however, depending on the type of program you want to implement you might find that the Point Program tool may be better suited for your needs.

Before jumping right into setting up an incentive program, you might want to review our basic review of incentive and reward programs and this article on whether an incentive or point program is right for you.

How the Incentive Tool Works

Incentives give users a specific reward for completing a specific action. This action can be logging eligible-mode trips for a specified number of days or miles, or simply a certain number of trips.

Prior to participating in an incentive, the user must join the incentive manually or be auto-joined into the program according to the program’s eligibility settings.

Once the user has completed the action they can claim their reward. This reward is then distributed either manually by a program manager, or via an automated workflow using the RideAmigos Digital Inventory tool.

Additional features of the incentive tool also allow for advanced programs, such as percentage-based criteria, allowing users the ability to earn multiple rewards, or limiting users to participating in one out of a set of available programs.

Incentive Use Cases

• Short-term programs with a single prize.
• Long-term programs with a single prize.
• Programs allowing users to earn multiples of a single prize claimed at the end of the program.
• Providing multiple program options of which users can select only one.
• Programs based off miles or percentages.

Creating / Editing Incentives

Click New Incentive or the Edit button corresponding to the program you wish to modify. Alternatively, you can clone a program by clicking on the Copy symbol next to the Trashcan symbol. This will create a new program with all the same details of the program that you cloned.

Basic Information

Enter your program’s name, reward, and description.

Markdown Syntax can be used to add extra styling to the description. Note that certain Markdown tags will not display properly in the mobile app view. You can provide an alternate description for mobile users – otherwise, leave the Mobile Description field blank to use the same description everywhere.

Tags can be added for filtering and searching for programs in administrative views, or other advanced features.

Point of Contact information will be displayed to users who may require additional information about your program.

User Joining and Eligibility

In order to participate in an incentive, a user must join the incentive themselves or be auto-joined based on their network membership.

Important note: It is not possible to enable auto-join on incentives where all users & networks are eligible. 

For programs where only certain networks are eligible, users can be set to auto-join the incentive based on their membership in those networks.

Program editing and reporting privileges can be shared with other network managers, or limited only to System Administrators.

You may want to offer multiple incentive options where users can select which program they would like to join and are then limited to only participating in and claiming that program. If so, you can indicate that this program should be hidden if a user has joined other specific incentives.

Note that you may need to come back and change this setting after setting up the other incentives.

Trip Log Eligibility

Select the start and end dates for eligible trip logs. Only trips logged as having taken place on these days will be counted toward the incentive goal.

The Final Trip Log Entry Cutoff Date is the last day users will be allowed to enter eligible trips AND claim rewards.

The Join Cutoff Date is the last day users are allowed to join the challenge. The Join Cutoff defaults to the Final Trip Log Entry Cutoff but can be changed according to your program’s needs. Note that the Join Cutoff cannot be earlier than the start date for eligible trip logs.

The program will appear on eligible users’ Rewards pages as soon as it is created. Auto-join programs will appear in the Active area and programs that require users to join will appear in the Available area until the Join Cutoff date has passed.

Details

Auto-Claim: When auto-claim is enabled, participants will automatically be transitioned to the “Claimed” state when they complete the incentive criteria defined by the rest of this section. Note that not all Incentive settings are compatible with this feature - see our full article on Auto-Claim for more details.

Sources: You can restrict eligibility to only trips logged via specific sources, such as the web interface or any supported connected apps, such as Strava, Waze, or Scoop. This can be useful for only counting trips from higher-confidence tracking sources, or promoting 3rd-party integrations.

Values: Select trips, days, or distance as the metric for your incentive.

Count or Percentage: RideAmigos highly recommends using count-based incentives for most use cases. Such incentives are generally easier for both end users and administrators. For percentage-based incentives to work effectively requires users to log both alternative commutes and drive-alone days to work, which often requires additional enforcement and auditing.

Success Threshold: Specify the count or percentage of eligible days/trips/miles required to claim a reward.

Number of Rewards: By default, users can earn one reward in each program. Count-based programs can be set to allow users to earn multiple rewards, though the reward workflow changes slightly.

A Note on Reward Claim Workflow:

• For count-based incentives with a single reward, users may claim their reward as soon as they reach the success threshold.
• For incentives where multiple rewards can be accrued, if a user reaches the maximum number of rewards prior to the program End Date they may immediately claim their rewards. If they do not reach the maximum number of rewards, then they can claim between the program End Date and the Final Cutoff date.
• For percentage-based incentive, users can only claim their rewards between the program End Date and the Final Cutoff date.
• After an incentive has been claimed it moves to the Completed tab of the user Rewards area.

Modes: Select any modes you wish to earn points for this program. You can select multiple modes by holding down the ctrl or cmd button while clicking.

Display in CommuteTracker: By default, Incentives appear in both the web view and the CommuteTracker app.  If you wish for a program to only appear in the web view, disable this setting.

Redemption

Basic: The user is presented with a success screen confirming their item has been claimed.

Custom Language / Link: Customize the success message presented after claiming, with the option of adding a download link to the confirmation screen.

Digital Inventory Item: Any items that have been configured in your platform’s Digital Inventory system and available to you can be linked to incentive redemption. Digital Inventory workflows can include additional forms, distribution of unique redemption codes, customized PDF content, and even custom reward states with separate workflow actions.. 

Require Submission to Supervisor: If enabled, users will be required to enter their supervisor’s contact information. The supervisor will receive a notification email showing the user’s eligible trips and the option to approve or deny their request.