UiTPAS and the social tariff in your ticket shop

With UiTPAS somebody on a low income can come to your activity at a heavily reduced price, and the council contributes a share. This article explains what UiTPAS is, how your organisation joins it, how you set up the connection in Passavo, and what exactly happens when a visitor types in their pass number.

What UiTPAS is

UiTPAS is a savings and benefits card for leisure activities in Flemish cities and municipalities. It is managed by publiq vzw. A resident of an UiTPAS municipality can get the card free of charge or for a small price and uses it at the arts centre, the sports club, the library or the museum.

The card does two things.

1. Collecting points. On every visit the holder collects points, which they can exchange for a benefit: a drink, a discount, a free ticket.
2. The social tariff. Anyone entitled to an increased allowance in their municipality discreetly gets a heavily reduced rate on UiTPAS activities in their own UiTPAS region.

That second one is what this article is about, because money is attached to it that does not come from the visitor.

How the social tariff is paid for

The starting point of UiTPAS is that the visitor on the social tariff pays 20 per cent of the ticket price. The remaining 80 per cent is shared: 40 per cent for you as the organiser and 40 per cent for the local authority. So you bear part of the discount yourself, and you claim back the council's part.

Note: that is the general starting point of UiTPAS. Regions and municipalities may make other arrangements about percentages, reimbursement and about which activities take part. So always check what applies for your region before you set anything up.

Who is entitled to the social tariff is decided by the municipality and not by you. At the desk you should not even ask about it: the pass says so itself, and that is deliberately how it has been made, so that nobody has to explain at a counter that money is tight.

How your organisation joins

Passavo can only do something once you are registered with publiq as an UiTPAS organiser. You arrange that outside this system.

1. Check whether your municipality is an UiTPAS municipality. You can find the regions at uitpas.be. If your municipality is not among them, you cannot offer UiTPAS yet; the initiative then lies with the local authority, which can join a neighbouring UiTPAS region.
2. Get in touch with the UiTPAS organisation for your region. That is the route publiq itself points suppliers to in a municipality that already takes part. Usually that is your city or municipality's leisure or culture department.
3. Make the arrangements. Which activities take part, which rate applies, how and when the council's share is reimbursed.
4. Put your activities in the UiTdatabank. Every activity gets an event ID of its own there, and you need that ID per product. Your organisation is in there too, with an ID of its own: that is your organizer ID.

Note: the arrangements with your region differ per municipality. Some regions work with an application form of their own, others with a conversation and an agreement. So always start at your own municipality or at publiq through publiq.be or uitpas.be, and not with us. We cannot get you recognised as an UiTPAS provider; your region decides that.

Requesting your API keys from publiq

Once you are an UiTPAS provider, you request the keys with which Passavo may talk to UiTPAS on your behalf from publiq yourself. It is free and takes about a quarter of an hour. You do not need test keys: you request the real keys straight away.

1. Log in to publiq platform. Open platform.publiq.be and log in with your UiTiD, or create an account. The link opens the form for a new UiTPAS integration straight away. The platform is in Dutch; the labels are given below as they appear there.

2. Choose the type "UiTPAS API". That integration is free.

3. Fill in the form:

   • Name: the name of your organisation;
   • Website: the address of your website or ticket shop, with https:// in front of it;
   • Purpose: for example "Connecting our web shop and desk sales through Passavo to UiTPAS, so that the social tariff is checked and registered automatically.";
   • Contact person of the organisation: whoever is responsible for ticket sales or for UiTPAS at your end;
   • Technical contact: Passavo, with the address [email protected]. That way publiq can reach us directly with a technical question.

   Save the form. The integration has now been created.

4. Skip the test keys and click "Activatie aanvragen" (request activation). Publiq shows you test keys first; you do not need them. In the activation form:

   • enter Passavo as the partner (whoever supplies the connection technically), with the name and address of the company behind Passavo. You find those details in our legal notice;
   • list all UiTdatabank organisations for which tickets have to be registered. If several venues or non-profits with an organisation of their own in the UiTdatabank sell tickets through you, add them all.

   Send the request.

5. Wait for publiq's email. Within a few working days you receive the live client ID and client secret. Heard nothing after a week? Then get in touch with publiq and mention that it concerns API keys for an UiTPAS connection through Passavo.

6. Fill the keys in in Passavo, as described in Step 1 below.

Good to know: Passavo is a new partner at publiq. For the first requests that name Passavo as partner, activation may therefore take a little longer than usual. If you hear nothing after a week, let us know as well through [email protected]: we will then follow it up with publiq.

Where to find your organizer ID

Publiq's email contains the client ID and the secret, but not your organizer ID. You get that from the UiTdatabank:

1. Log in to uitdatabank.be with the same UiTiD.
2. Open the page of your organisation, the same one you listed in the activation request.
3. The organizer ID is the long code with dashes in the address bar (of the form 1a2b3c4d-…). Copy it in full.

If several organisations from your list sell tickets through Passavo, each gets an organisation of its own in Passavo and each fills in its own organizer ID. You then use the keys from publiq's email with each of them.

What you need beforehand

• The Owner role: only that role may set up external passes.
• Your UiTPAS organizer ID from the UiTdatabank.
• The live client ID and client secret from publiq's email, after your activation request. Test keys do not work.
• Products of the type Event or Series: only there can you fill in a UiTPAS event id.
• Per product that takes part: the UiTPAS event ID.
• A quarter of an hour to request the keys, a few working days until publiq emails them, and then another quarter of an hour to fill everything in in Passavo.

Two things that are different from an ordinary discount

1. Publiq's api decides about the entitlement, not us. Passavo does not work out a rate itself and does not remember who is entitled. Whoever is entitled today may be different tomorrow, and a remembered "yes" is a council paying for somebody without an entitlement.
2. A cancellation has to reach publiq too. A ticket sale that stays standing there while the ticket has been reversed with us counts towards the settlement — and that is only noticed a year later.

Step 1 — Setting up the connection

1. In the menu on the left, under the heading Settings, click External passes. Don't see that menu item? Then you don't have the Owner role; ask whoever created the organisation.
2. Switch on We accept UiTPAS with the social tariff.
3. Fill in your UiTPAS organizer ID. You find it in the UiTdatabank, with your organisation (see Where to find your organizer ID above).
4. Fill in your Client ID and Client secret: the live keys from publiq's email, not the test keys. Think of them as the username and the password with which Passavo may knock on publiq's door on your behalf.
5. Click Save.
6. Then click Test the connection. The test uses what has been saved; if you test before you save, you are testing the old details.

The keys are stored encrypted. If you save again later with an empty secret field, the existing key stays in place. Otherwise every change would wipe a key nobody can type back in.

The test asks publiq which organisers your keys apply to, and whether you may request tariffs and register ticket sales for your organizer ID. If it works, you see the name of your organiser as publiq knows it. If a permission is missing, the message tells you which one.

Do you see the message "The UiTPAS connection has not been released on this platform yet" instead of the fields? That is not a setting of yours: Passavo has to switch the connection on once for this installation. Send a note to support and we will do it for you.

Step 2 — Filling in the event ID per product

Fill in the UiTPAS event ID on every product that takes part in UiTPAS. That ID belongs to the activity as it is registered at publiq. The field only exists on products of the type Event or Series; an ordinary admission ticket or a timed ticket therefore cannot get the social tariff.

Where that field is:

1. In the menu on the left, under Sales, click Events and open the product.
2. Scroll to the block The event. There you find the field UiTPAS event id (it only appears once the connection is switched on for the platform).
3. Paste the ID the event has in the UiTdatabank (the long code in the address bar when you open the event there, or the ID publiq gave you) and click Save changes.

Publiq counts per event and not per organisation. So without that ID no rate can be calculated: the visitor then gets This pass gives no reduction on what is in your basket and pays the full price. If something goes wrong, this is the first thing you check.

Step 3 — Using a pass, in the shop and at the desk

There is one input field for all passes: in the shop the field Pass number under Do you have a UiTPAS or a museum pass?, at the desk the field UiTPAS or museum pass, each time with the button Apply. The visitor or your desk staff member copies the number out; from the shape of that number Passavo sees by itself whether it is an UiTPAS (thirteen digits) or another pass.

What then happens:

1. the pass number goes to publiq;
2. publiq says whether there is an entitlement to the social tariff;
3. if there is, the price of one ticket is reduced;
4. just before payment the ticket sale is registered at publiq; if the payment fails, that registration is withdrawn again.

At the desk it works in exactly the same way: one field, one number, one key. See The counter till.

One pass applies to one person

If there is an entry of three tickets, it is split: one ticket at the social tariff and two at the ordinary price. Reducing the whole entry would have the council contribute three times for one card.

If a family comes with two passes, add them one by one. Every pass reduces one ticket.

Registration happens just before payment

That is what publiq prescribes: only once the ticket sale is registered with publiq is it certain that the social tariff may be granted. That is why Passavo registers the sale at the moment the visitor clicks Pay (or presses a payment button at the desk), before the money is in.

• If publiq refuses at that moment after all — because the weekly maximum has meanwhile been reached at another desk, for example — the discount is taken off the order and the visitor sees publiq's explanation. They then pay the ordinary price, or drop out; nobody pays a reduced amount for which you are never reimbursed.
• If the payment fails or the visitor drops out, Passavo withdraws the registration at publiq again. Money that never arrives should not leave a social tariff in a council's settlement.

What a visitor is shown

Message	What is going on	What you do
Social tariff applied: you pay … instead of …	There is an entitlement; the price of one ticket has been reduced	Settle up
This UiTPAS is currently not entitled to the social tariff	The pass exists, but the social status is not active	Ordinary price. Refer questions to the council
Het UiTPAS-nummer dat je invulde konden we niet terugvinden. Kijk je het nummer even na? (publiq's own text, in Dutch)	Publiq does not know this number	Have the number checked; one digit wrong soon happens
Another explanation from publiq, e.g. Je kansenstatuut is vervallen…, Oeps, jouw UiTPAS is niet meer geldig… or Je kan maximaal 1 ticket per week kopen aan kansentarief…	Publiq refuses the social tariff and explains why itself. We show that text as is, as publiq asks	Ordinary price. Refer questions to the UiTPAS desk or the council
This pass gives no reduction on what is in your basket	There is an entitlement, but none of the products has a UiTPAS event id (or publiq gives no rate for that event)	Check the event ID on the product
We do not recognise this pass number	The number does not have the shape of a pass you accept	Have the number checked
The UiTPAS could not be checked	A failure at publiq	Try again later, or settle at the ordinary price

That last distinction is there deliberately: a visitor should know whether they have no entitlement or whether the system is simply not cooperating. Those are two very different conversations, and the first is one people would rather not have in a crowded entrance hall.

Cancelling and refunding

If you refund an order through your payment provider, Passavo withdraws the ticket sale at publiq automatically as soon as the refund is confirmed. You do not have to do anything for that. Note: this happens for all passes on that order, even with a partial refund.

If you only cancel a ticket, without a refund, the registration at publiq stays in place. The same goes for a cash sale at the desk that you refund from the till drawer. In that case, report it yourself to your UiTPAS contact person, so that it does not stay in your council's settlement.

If that does not work — publiq is down, the network is stuttering — the order simply stays cancelled. The registration stays visible so that it can be offered again. A failed message to publiq must never hold up your own cancellation: the visitor is standing in front of you and wants their money back.

Common mistakes

Setting the social tariff yourself as a price. Do not do that. The amount comes from publiq, per event. If you set it yourself, the settlement with your council no longer adds up.

Forgetting the event ID on a new product. The pass is then recognised all right, but the visitor gets This pass gives no reduction on what is in your basket. This is by far the most frequently reported cause.

Using one pass for a whole family. One pass reduces one ticket. If a family comes with several passes, add them one at a time.

Asking who is entitled to the social tariff. Do not. The pass says so itself, and the rate should stay discreet.

Saying "no entitlement" during a failure. Read the message. "Could not be checked" means that publiq is briefly unreachable, not that the visitor has no entitlement.

What if …

… my municipality is not an UiTPAS municipality?

Then you cannot offer UiTPAS yet. A municipality can join a neighbouring UiTPAS region; you have that conversation with your councillor or with the leisure department. Publiq guides municipalities through that.

… testing the connection gives an error?

First check your organizer ID, client ID and secret — a space that has been copied along is the classic one. Did you fill in the test keys publiq shows right after creating the integration? Those do not work: Passavo talks to the real UiTPAS environment. Fill in the live keys from the activation email. If it stays wrong, get in touch with publiq or with your region: the activation may not be complete yet.

… a visitor does not have their pass with them?

Then there is no number and so no social tariff. You cannot look the number up; Passavo keeps no list of passes, and that is deliberate.

… the price does not change while the pass is recognised?

Almost always the event ID is missing on that product, or it is the ID of a different activity. Check that first. If the product is not an Event or a Series, it cannot get the social tariff.

… publiq is down during a busy moment?

Settle at the ordinary price and refer the visitor to the council for the reimbursement, or ask them to come back later. Never set a lower price by hand: that sale then does not end up in the settlement at publiq and your council pays nothing towards it.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to set the social tariff myself? No. The amount comes from publiq, per event. If you set it yourself, the settlement with your council no longer adds up.

Does this work at the desk too? Yes, in exactly the same way: one field, one number, one key.

Where can I see what has been registered? With the order, the rate applied is on the entry. What went to publiq is stored by Passavo per use with the reference publiq gave back; the panel has no separate overview of it.

Does the social tariff cost me money? Yes, part of it. The starting point of UiTPAS is that you as the organiser bear part of the discount and the council contributes part. What has been agreed exactly for your region, you hear from your council.

Can I see who is entitled, without the visitor having to do anything? No, and rightly so. A pass number is needed, and the entitlement is requested from publiq at that moment. Nothing is remembered.