Tag Archives: passes

Introducing the Google Wallet API

Posted by Petra Cross, Engineer, Google Wallet and Jose Ugia, Google Developer Relations Engineer

Google Pay API for Passes is now called Google Wallet API

Formerly known as Google Pay API for Passes, the Google Wallet API lets you digitize everything from boarding passes to loyalty programs, and engage your customers with notifications and real-time updates.

New features in Google Wallet API

Support for Generic Pass Type

The Google Pay API for Passes supported 7 types of passes: offers, loyalty cards, gift cards, event tickets, boarding passes, transit tickets and vaccine cards. But what if you want to issue passes or cards that do not fit into any of these categories, such as membership cards, or insurance cards?

We are thrilled to announce support for generic passes to the Google Wallet API so you can customize your pass objects to adapt to your program characteristics. The options are endless. If it is a card and has some text, a barcode or a QR code, it can be saved as a generic card.

You now have the flexibility to control the look and design of the card itself, by providing a card template that can contain up to 3 rows with 1-3 fields per row. You can also configure a number of attributes such as the barcode, QR code, or a hero image. Check out our documentation to learn more about how to create generic passes.

While generic passes can be used to mimic the appearance of any existing supported pass type (such as a loyalty card), we recommend you to continue to use specialized pass types when available. For example, when you use the boarding pass type for boarding passes your users receive flight delay notifications.

Grouping passes and mixing pass types

With the new Google Wallet API, you can also group passes to offer a better experience to your users when multiple passes are needed. For example, you can group the entry ticket, a parking pass, and food vouchers for a concert.

In your user’s list of passes, your users see a pass tile with a badge showing the number of items in the group. When they tap on this tile, a carousel with all passes appears, allowing them to easily swipe between all passes in the group.


Here is an example JSON Web Token payload showing one offer and one event ticket, mixed together and sharing the same groupingId. Later, if you need to add or remove passes to/from the group, you can use the REST API to update the grouping information.

{

  "iss": "OWNER_EMAIL_ADDRESS",

  "aud": "google",

  "typ": "savetowallet",

  "iat": "UNIX_TIME",

  "origins": [],

  "payload": {

    "offerObjects": [

      {

        "classId": "YOUR_ISSUER_ID.OFFER_CLASS_ID",

        "id": "YOUR_ISSUER_ID.OFFER_ID",

        "groupingInfo": {

          "groupingId": "groupId1",

          "sortIndex": 2

        }

      }

    ],

    "eventTicketObjects": [

      {

        "classId": "YOUR_ISSUER_ID.EVENT_CLASS_ID",

        "id": "YOUR_ISSUER_ID.EVENT_ID",

        "groupingInfo": {

          "groupingId": "groupId1",

          "sortIndex": 1

        }

      }

    ] 

  }

}


A note about Google Pay API for Passes:

Although we are introducing the Google Wallet API, all existing developer integrations with the previous Google Pay Passes API will continue to work. When the Google Wallet app is launched in just a few weeks, make sure to use the new “Add to Google Wallet” button in the updated button guidelines.

We’re really excited to build a great digital wallet experience with you, and can’t wait to see how you use the Google Wallet API to enhance your user experience.

Learn more

Simpler Google Wallet integration for Android developers

Posted by Petra Cross, Engineer, Google Wallet and Jose Ugia, Google Developer Relations Engineer

Today more than ever, consumers expect to be able to digitize their physical wallet, from payments and loyalty to tickets and IDs. At Google I/O we announced Google Wallet, which allows users to do exactly that. Consumers can securely store and manage their payment and loyalty cards, board a flight, access a gym and much more, all with just their Android phone.

For Android developers, who manage their own digital passes, Google Wallet offers a fast and secure entry point, especially when quick access is needed. Google Wallet will be quickly accessible from the device lock screen on Pixel devices and from the pulldown shade. Your users will be able to quickly access their passes when they need them - all in one place.

Integrating with Google Wallet became even easier and more flexible. We’ve summarized the news of what you can expect as an Android developer.

New Android SDK

The existing Android SDK supports saving three types of passes: offers, loyalty cards, and gift cards. You asked us to add support for other pass types, and we’ve heard you. Today, we are announcing a new, more extensible API and Android SDK, that in addition to tickets, boarding passes, and transit tickets, and additional pass types, includes support for the new generic pass, which lets your users store any pass or card to Google Wallet. The Android SDK lets you create passes using JSON or JSON Web Token as a payload without a backend integration.

Using the Android SDK is straightforward. First, you create a payload with information about the pass. You can either build it directly in your Android app, or retrieve it from your backend stack. Then, you call the savePasses or savePassesJwt method in the "PayClient" to add the pass to Google Wallet.

Here is how you define and save a sample generic pass object:

{

  "id": "ISSUER_ID.OBJECT_ID",

  "classId": "CLASS_ID",

  "genericType": "GENERIC_TYPE_UNSPECIFIED",

  "cardTitle": {

    "defaultValue": {

      "language": "en",

      "value": "Your Program Name"

    }

  },

  "header": {

    "defaultValue": {

      "language": "en",

      "value": "Alex McJacobs"

    }

  }

}


private val addToGoogleWalletRequestCode = 1000

private val walletClient: PayClient = Pay.getClient(application)

private val jwtString = "" // Fetch a previously created JWT with pass data

walletClient.savePassesJwt(jwtString, this, addToGoogleWalletRequestCode)

Once your app calls savePassesJwt, the process guides your users through the flow of adding a pass to Google Wallet, and allows them to preview the pass before confirming the save operation.

Developer documentation, samples and codelabs

You can find the new Wallet API documentation on developers.google.com/wallet. We customized our developer guides for each pass type to make all the information easily accessible for your specific needs. You will also find plenty of code samples demonstrating how to check for availability of the Google Wallet API on the Android device, how to handle errors, and how to add the “Add to Google Wallet” button to your app.

Don’t forget to play with our interactive passes visual demo, which lets you fill in the fields and create your own custom pass prototype without writing a single line of code. The tool also generates code samples that you can use to build this pass’ data structures which we call “classes” and “objects”.

We’re really excited to build a great digital wallet experience with you, and can’t wait to see how you use the Google Wallet API to enrich your customer experience. Take a look at our hands-on workshop "Digitize any wallet object with the Google Wallet API" to see a full integration tutorial on Android.

Learn more

Manage your passes from Google Pay and Wallet Console

Posted by Ryan Novas, Product Manager, Google Pay’s Business Console and Jose Ugia, Developer Relations Engineer, Google Pay

Author Picture

Today, we are introducing the Google Pay & Wallet Console, a platform that helps developers discover, integrate with, and manage Google Pay and Google Wallet features for their businesses. Integrating Google Pay and Google Wallet products has become easier and faster, with features like a common business profile and a unified dashboard. Check out the new Google Wallet section in the console’s left-hand navigation bar, where you can manage all your tickets, loyalty programs, offers and other passes resources from one place. Google Pay & Wallet Console features a more familiar and intuitive user interface that helps you reuse common bits of information, like your business information, and lets you easily browse and discover products, such as the Online API.

The new Google Wallet section in Google Pay & Wallet Console lets you request access to the API and manage your passes alongside other Google Pay and Google Wallet resources.


You can also manage authentication keys for your Smart Tap integration directly from the console, and let customers use eligible passes saved to Google Pay by simply holding their phones to NFC point-of-sale terminals.

Visit Google Pay & Wallet Console today, and start managing your existing products, or discover and integrate with new ones.

Here is what early users are saying about managing passes in the console:

“The cleaner and consistent look of Google Pay & Wallet Console helps us manage our Google Pay and Google Wallet resources more intuitively." Or Maoz, Senior Director of R&D at EngagedMedia said.

The user management additions also helped EngagedMedia better represent their team in the console:

“The new user roles and controls on Google Pay & Wallet Console help us handle permissions more intuitively and accurately, and allow us to assign roles that better reflect our team structure more easily.”

We are committed to continuously evolving Google Pay & Wallet Console to make it your go-to place to discover and manage Google Pay and Google Wallet integrations. We’d love to hear about your experience. You can share feedback with us from the “Feedback” section in the console. We’re looking forward to learning how we can make Google Pay and Google Wallet even more helpful for you in the future.

Learn more

Want to learn more?

Manage your passes from Google Pay’s Business Console

Posted by:

Ryan Novas, Product Manager, Google Pay’s Business Console

Jose Ugia, Developer Relations Engineer, Google Pay

Last year we launched Google Pay’s Business Console, a platform that helps developers discover, integrate with, and manage Google Pay features for their businesses. Since then, integrating Google Pay products has become easier and faster, with features like a common business profile and a unified dashboard.

Today, we are adding Passes as a new section to Google Pay’s Business Console, so you can manage all your Google Pay resources from one place. You can find the new Passes section in the console’s left-hand navigation bar, and from there, access your tickets, loyalty programs, offers and other passes resources.

Google Pay’s Business Console features a more familiar and intuitive user interface that helps you reuse common bits of information, like your business information, and lets you easily navigate and discover Google Pay products, such as the Online API. Visit Google Pay’s Business Console today, and start managing your current Google Pay products, or discover and integrate with new ones.

The new Passes section in Google Pay’s Business Console lets you request access to the API and manage your passes alongside other Google Pay resources.
The new Passes section in Google Pay’s Business Console lets you request access to the API and manage your passes alongside other Google Pay resources.

Here is what early users are saying about managing Passes in the console:

“The cleaner and consistent look of Google Pay's Business Console helps us manage our Google Pay resources more intuitively." Or Maoz, Senior Director of R&D at EngagedMedia said.

The user management additions also helped EngagedMedia better represent their team in the console:

“The new user roles and controls on Google Pay's Business Console help us handle permissions more intuitively and accurately, and allow us to assign roles that better reflect our team structure more easily.”

We are committed to continuously evolving Google Pay’s Business Console to make it your go-to place to discover and manage Google Pay integrations. We’d love to hear about your experience. You can share feedback with us from the “Feedback” section in the console. We’re looking forward to learning how we can make Google Pay even more helpful for you in the future.

Learn more

Want to learn more about Google Pay?