What to set up before your first member can join

The Setup page has six parts, in this order.

Four steps carry the tag To go live: two-step verification and the three in Go live. The page counts them at the top, in the form "2 of 4 needed to go live", and says: "Customers can join once the steps marked “To go live” are done." When they are, the count reads "Customers can join" and, in the page's words, "The join button appears on your business page and new members receive the card."

Nothing else stops a customer joining. A step that does not apply to you, such as a POS connection, can be marked Not for us and stops counting. You can stop at any point: "Saved as you go. Leave whenever you like: Setup stays in the sidebar until it is done."

Until customers can join, pages such as Customers and Notifications show the next setup step in place of their content.

Only the first four stand between you and a customer joining. The fifth gives members something to earn towards.

Your own count may be higher. Each further outlet is reviewed. So is a change to an outlet's details, which includes giving your first outlet its address. So are a web address in your business's name and each question of your own on the join form. As an example, a bakery with two outlets and a question about dietary needs waits on eight things: the five above, plus the second outlet, the first outlet's address and the question. Its counter sign is not one of them: the QR codes are ready as soon as the program is live. New wording for a notification is checked too, once there are members to send it to.

The first wait stands alone, because nothing else can be sent until the business is open. The page says: "Nothing more is needed from you for now. Come back to this page to see when your business opens." If the business is not approved, the same page says so and gives an address to write to.

A review can also come back with changes to make: a program with "native.cards asked for changes", a card design with Changes needed and the reviewer's note, an outlet with Changes asked. Each round is another wait, so send finished work.

Sent one after another, the three Go live steps make three waits in a row. Sent on the same day, the waits can run side by side.

The Setup page does not lead you there. Publish your Wallet Card stays closed on that page until the card program is live: it reads After an earlier step and "This opens after the steps before it." You can still build and send the card while you wait. The screen that follows Submit for review on a program offers Design its Wallet Card and says: "While it is reviewed, design the card members will add to Apple Wallet and Google Wallet." Card Designs is also in the menu, under Wallet Card.

So on the day the business opens:

1. The owner opens Turn on Apple and Google Wallet. It is one request with one confirmation, that the brand on the card is yours to use, and native.cards then connects each Wallet. You do not need Apple or Google developer accounts.
2. The owner or an admin creates the card program and submits it for review. The form is plain that submitting "does not make the program live."
3. The same person builds the card in Card Designs and submits that as well.

The Wallet request goes first for a reason. A design can be published for a Wallet only once that Wallet is connected. If a Wallet is connected after the design went out, the Setup page tells you: "Published, but not yet for Google Wallet. Publish it again so cards reach phones."

Two-step verification comes first. It is a six-digit code from an authenticator app, asked for each time you sign in. Until it is on, every other Setup step except your name is closed, and the ones you could otherwise start read After two-step verification. The page gives its reason: "Setup changes what your customers see and who can sign in, so native.cards asks for a code from your phone before saving any of it." Tick Add two-step verification when you create the account, or do the first Setup step.

Only the owner can turn on the Wallets. An admin sees "Only the business owner can turn this on." The owner is whoever created the account. If that was an agency or a junior colleague, they hold the step every card depends on. The owner can make a colleague an owner later, in Team Access. It is simpler to start with the right person.

The kind of program decides whether members earn. The form opens on Membership. If members are to earn Stamps or Points, choose Loyalty and rewards; that choice brings the earning step into the form. Once the program is live, its Rules view says "Earning rules on a live program can't be changed here." Only one program can be live at a time, so do not submit a trial version to see what happens. Settle the rule first, with Points, stamps or visits: which should you use? and How soon should customers earn their first reward?

A program needs at least one active outlet. The one you named when you set up the business counts, before it has an address.

Approval covers the exact card you saved. Change a colour afterwards, save, and the button goes back to Submit for review. Finish the card, then send it.

• Your SSM registration number. The form that adds your business asks for it "to confirm the business before it opens."
• An authenticator app on the owner's phone.
• Your logo as a square image of at least 660 by 660 pixels, with clear space around the mark. Google's guidelines say "Google Wallet masks your logo into a circular shape" and ask for "a 15% margin so that it isn't cut off when masked." That is Google's rule for Google Wallet; How to design a Wallet Card customers recognise covers both Wallets.
• One brand colour and an email address your team reads, for your business profile. Your Business page and the emails your customers get use the logo and colour, and customers' replies go to that address.
• The card's own colours and a text colour that reads on them (the designer marks each pairing Readable or Hard to read), and an image for the card if you want one.
• A name for the program, a sentence or two on what members get, and the number they earn by: the size of the stamp card, or the Points for each ringgit.
• What you will ask when someone joins. Email is always asked and the member's name is ticked by default. The form's own advice: "Every extra question loses a few people."
• Terms and a privacy notice, each at least a short paragraph. The form arrives with standard wording filled in. Read it as a customer would, because customers accept it when they join.
• Your first reward in a few words, and what it costs in Stamps or Points.

The reward. Add it under Rewards And Benefits. It is the fifth wait: members see it only once it is approved.

The sign. There is nothing to make and nothing to wait for. Until the program is live, QR Materials says: "Your QR codes appear here, already live, as soon as" the program "is approved and live. There is nothing to make." Once it is, the page opens with Ready-made QR codes, one for each place a code is used: General, Counter, Standee, Window, Receipt and Online. Every one is live and opens your program's join page. Pick Counter, then Download or Copy image. For a designed sign, make it in the same place and, on its QR code page, choose One I already have and the Counter code. Avoid Its own new QR code for launch day: a new code is checked by native.cards before it goes live. How to get customers to join at the counter covers where the sign goes and what to say.

The counter. Whoever records the first purchase needs two-step verification and a Staff PIN of their own, the owner included. You set yours on the Setup page with Set your staff PIN. Colleagues you invite set theirs after they accept. How to prepare your staff to run the program is the briefing for that.

Then make your first member someone on your own team. Have them scan the printed sign, join with their own email, add the card and buy something, on an iPhone and on an Android phone if you can. You see what a customer will meet before a customer does, and the Setup page marks its First member milestone as Reached.