The quickest way to understand PocketPass is to go all the way through it once, with your own phone. This guide takes about ten minutes and ends with a branded pass in your wallet and a notification on its lock screen.
You'll need your logo and a phone. Nothing else.
Step 1 - Create a pass template
Open Pass templates and choose New template. You'll see a gallery of presets - membership card, event ticket, booking, gift card and others. Pick whichever is closest to what you issue. You can change everything afterwards.
The preset drops you into the builder with sensible fields already in place.
If nothing fits, choose Membership card. It's the most general-purpose starting point and easy to reshape.
Step 2 - Make it look like you
In the builder, work through the Shared tab:
- Set the template name - this is for you, not the customer.
- Upload your logo.
- Set the background, label and text colours.
- Edit the field labels so they match your language - "Member", "Tier", "Expires".
Watch the preview on the right as you go. Use the Apple/Google toggle to check both, and the Front/Back toggle to see the reverse of the pass.
Check the contrast. A pale logo on a pale background looks fine on a monitor and disappears in sunlight. Full guidance is in Colours and images.
Save when you're happy.
Step 3 - Issue a pass to yourself
Open Passes and choose New pass. Pick the template you just made, then fill in the field values as though you were a real customer - your own name, a tier, whatever the template asks for.
Give it an Ext ID if you like. That's your own reference for this pass - a customer number or booking reference - and it lets you find and update the pass later without storing our id. See External IDs and idempotency.
Save, and the pass is created.
Step 4 - Add it to your wallet
On the pass you just created you'll find an install link and a QR code.
- Scan the QR code with your phone's camera, or send yourself the install link.
- The install page opens with Add to Apple Wallet and Add to Google Wallet buttons.
- Tap the one for your phone.
- Confirm, and the pass drops into your wallet.
A pass can only be added from a phone. Opening the install link on a laptop shows the page but the buttons won't do anything useful - that's a limitation of the wallet apps themselves, not PocketPass.
Open the pass and look at it properly. Check the colours, the logo, the field labels, and tap through to the back. This is exactly what your customers will see.
Step 5 - Change something and watch it update
Go back to the pass in the dashboard and edit one of the field values. Save.
Now look at your phone. Within a short while the pass shows the new value - you didn't re-send anything and your customer wouldn't have had to do anything either. This is the single most useful thing PocketPass does. See Live pass updates.
Step 6 - Send a notification
Open Notifications and choose New notification. Write a short message, leave the audience as everything, and send.
The message appears on your lock screen and is added to the back of the pass. See Sending a notification.
You've now seen the whole product
Those six steps are PocketPass end to end: design, issue, install, update, message. Everything else is depth on top of that.
Good next steps, roughly in order of value:
- Work through the onboarding checklist on your dashboard.
- Learn how fields and regions map onto the two wallets, so your design survives contact with both.
- Invite your team.
- If you're going to issue passes from your own systems, read the API quickstart.
Keep that test pass on your phone permanently. Whenever you change a template or want to check how a notification reads, you have a real pass on a real device - far more trustworthy than the preview.