Integrating loyalty programs with an external order system

A loyalty program in Altcraft Platform can be used in two ways, depending on whether product and order data is transferred to the platform via the Market module.

Market allows you to transfer product and order data to the platform and use it in customer communications. Data can be transferred automatically — via API or product feed, or manually — by uploading a file.

The availability of data in Market determines which loyalty mechanisms are available to you:

• Without Market, you cannot automatically calculate discounts, accrue or redeem points during checkout. Point accrual and redemption operations are only available through trigger promotions and the Loyalty API.
• With Market, in addition to basic operations via trigger promotions, discount and points promotions become available. These allow you to automatically accrue and redeem points during checkout, apply discounts, and calculate all applied benefits according to the configured arbitration. The partner products functionality also becomes available — for individual products, you can configure special terms, such as increased cashback or an exclusive discount for program participants. Partner products are taken into account when calculating an order via preorder/preorder_commit just like regular promotions.

Loyalty with Market integration

This option is suitable for automatically accruing and redeeming points during checkout, as well as applying discounts through points and discount promotions. To make this work, you need to:

• Upload product data to Market. Data can be uploaded via API, product feed, or from a file.
• Create discount and points promotions — these will be automatically applied when calculating an order.

Order processing with calculation of applied benefits occurs through a two-stage API:

• At the first stage, the preorder method is called — it performs a preliminary calculation when the customer is building a cart. The request includes the order composition and participant data (email, phone, profile_id). The platform returns the final price with discounts, the amount of points accrued and redeemed, and a list of triggered promotions. The order is not created at this stage — it's just a calculation.
• At the second stage, after the order is placed or confirmed, the preorder_commit method is called. The platform creates the order, credits points to the participant's account, deducts used points, and records all applied promotions.

Please note

Automatic point accrual and redemption during checkout works only when using the two-stage API (preorder — preorder_commit).

If an order is created in any other way (for example, via import, direct addition in the interface, or custom logic), the loyalty mechanisms do not trigger. In such cases, point management must be implemented separately — through scenarios with trigger promotions or direct calls to the accrual and redemption API.

Loyalty without Market integration

In this scenario, points are accrued and redeemed for user actions: filling out forms, installing apps, achievements. Discount and points promotions and related functions (testing, benefit application calculation within arbitration) are unavailable.

Point management is based on using trigger promotions — they set the rules for accrual and redemption but are not tied to orders. The moment a promotion is executed is determined either in automation scenarios (via the "Loyalty points management" node) or through direct calls to the Loyalty API (accrual, redemption, member registration). The preorder and preorder_commit methods are not used in this scenario — they are only available when working with Market.

Examples of implementing this approach — accruing points for app installation, form submission, and notifying about point expiration — can be found in the article Basic loyalty program use cases.