Influitive Referral Points Mismatch and Negative Balance Caused by Referrals Reverting to “Submitted”

Solution

Symptoms

• Referral entries unexpectedly revert to "Submitted".
• Points are deducted (e.g., -50 per referral) and the advocate’s balance becomes negative.
• The hub appears to show repeated awards such as "50 points awarded 14 times", creating confusion about how many referrals exist.
• The advocate cannot redeem rewards due to the negative points balance.

How Influitive referral points behave (key concept)

Influitive awards points based on referral campaign milestones. A single referral can reach the same milestone multiple times if it is moved backward and forward between statuses. Typical sequence:

• Submitted → Referral Verified results in +50 (milestone award).
• Referral Verified → Submitted results in -50 (milestone reversal).
• Moving forward again to Verified results in +50 again.

Because of this, “points awarded N times” can be larger than the number of unique referral records.

Investigation workflow

1) Confirm the number of unique referral records in Influitive

Use the Referrals API to list referrals filtered by the advocate identifier (for example, contact email):

• GET /referrals?contact_email=<advocate_email>

Record how many unique referral records exist, and capture their IDs and current milestone/status.

2) Explain why points were awarded multiple times

For each referral, review milestone history (for example, a field such as milestones_reached) to determine how many times "Referral Verified" was reached and how many times it was reversed.

3) Identify when and why deductions occurred

Use the Events API to locate milestone events showing negative points for the referral milestone:

• Look for events like referral_milestone_reached where points = -50.
• Correlate timestamps to detect batch changes (multiple referrals updated around the same time).

Observed platform behavior (example findings)

• Platform data can show fewer unique referral records (for example, 9 unique referral records) than the hub’s “awarded” count (for example, 14).
• The “50 points awarded 14 times” value reflects how many times the referral reached the "Referral Verified" milestone, not the number of distinct referrals.
• A repeating milestone sequence may appear where referrals move back and forth: Submitted → Referral Verified (+50) and Referral Verified → Submitted (-50).
• A batch of updates on <date> may move multiple referrals back to "Submitted", producing referral_milestone_reached events with points = -50.
• If some referrals are moved forward again but others remain in "Submitted" (for example, 4 referrals), the advocate remains short by 200 points (4 × 50) compared to if those referrals were Verified.

Root cause

This behavior is expected when referral records are moved backward from "Referral Verified" to "Submitted". Influitive automatically reverses previously-awarded milestone points, which can temporarily or permanently reduce an advocate’s balance if the referrals are not advanced back to the Verified milestone.

Resolution (restore points by re-verifying the correct referrals)

If specific referrals should be in "Referral Verified", advance them back to that milestone.

Option A: Fix in the Referrals admin UI

1. Go to your hub’s Referrals administration area.
2. Locate the affected referrals (match by prospect identifier such as the referred person’s email).
3. For each referral that should be verified, move/advance it to the "Referral Verified" milestone.
4. Save/confirm changes.

Option B: Fix via API

1. Identify each affected referral’s ID (from the list-referrals response).
2. Advance the referral to the appropriate milestone using the campaign’s milestone API code:

PUT /referrals/<referral_id>/milestones/<milestone_api_code>

Important: <milestone_api_code> must match the milestone’s configured API code in your referral campaign settings.

Validation / confirmation steps

1. Re-check the affected referrals and confirm their current milestone is "Referral Verified".
2. Confirm the advocate’s points balance increased by 50 × (number of referrals re-verified).
3. Confirm reward redemption is available again (no negative balance blocking redemption).
4. Reconcile with Salesforce by comparing at the prospect (referred person) level against the Influitive referral list, since Salesforce may count “verified” and duplicates differently.