Advanced system-generated unique promotion codes

Advanced system-generated unique promotion codes are created by specifying an advanced pattern of characters.

Important: Using this method to create promotion codes is considered complex compared to using Simple system-generated unique promotion codes. Use this creation method when your specific business requirements cannot be fulfilled with simple system-generated unique promotion codes. The following inputs are required to generate advanced system-generated unique promotion codes:

Pattern

An advanced pattern that contains at least one set of generated characters, which are specified in brackets []. It can also contain fixed characters such as numeric, alphabetic, or alphanumeric characters.

Number of unique promotion codes to generate

The total number of generated promotion codes to create, based on your business needs.

Code generation status

The status of the system generation of the unique promotion codes for the promotion. When you activate the promotion, the promotion codes are generated.

Note: Your promotion codes can fail to generate in the following situations:

• The promotion codes are already populated in the store database.

• There is insufficient space available on your system for generating the number of codes specified.

If your promotion codes fail to generate and are not already populated in the store database, contact your system administrator.

The maximum number of possible unique promotion codes to generate is calculated and displayed for reference, based on the pattern input.

Each unique promotion code is stored in its own database table row. If the number of unique promotion codes to generate or populate is large, for instance over 100,000 codes, the database must be optimized to handle the processing of this data. Your database must have the required database space allocated to store the generated codes.

Pattern syntax

Advanced system-generated unique promotion codes specified in brackets [] can take on the following values:

Numeric characters

D represents numeric characters in the pattern.

Alphabetic characters

A represents uppercase alphabetic characters in the pattern.

a represents lowercase alphabetic characters in the pattern.

M represents mixed-case alphabetic characters in the pattern.

Alphanumeric characters

X represents uppercase alphanumeric characters in the pattern.

x represents lowercase alphanumeric characters in the pattern.

N represents mixed-case alphanumeric characters in the pattern.

Sequential characters

S represents a sequence of characters in the pattern with the following notation:

S+startingNumber/Increment.

Specifying a starting number and increment value is optional, with the following behavior:

• If both a starting number and increment are specified, the values are processed as a typical sequence.

  For example, [SSSS+100/20] represents a sequence that starts at 0100 and incrementing by 20.

• If no starting number or increment is specified, a starting number of 0 and an increment value of 1 is automatically assigned.

  For example, [SSSS] represents a sequence that starts at 0000 and incrementing by 1.

Sample output

Advanced system-generated unique promotion codes can contain any number of fixed characters, generated characters, and sequences. Where, for example, the unique promotion codes sample results:

Sample advanced system-generated unique promotion codes

Code generation pattern	Sample unique promotion codes
IBM[XXX]EVENT	IBM65BEVENT IBMJK7EVENT IBMXWTEVENT
SUMMER-[DDDAA]-SPECIAL	SUMMER-123AB-SPECIAL SUMMER-551LM-SPECIAL SUMMER-319PG-SPECIAL
WINTER2010[XX]-SALE	WINTER201055-SALE WINTER2010H9-SALE WINTER2010MC-SALE
IBM[DXSS]	IBM5G00 IBM8P01 IBM2502
IBM[SSSS+100/20]	IBM0100 IBM0120 IBM0140

Related concepts
Promotions

Related tasks
Importing promotion codes
Exporting promotion codes

Related reference
Simple system-generated unique promotion codes