Evidence and OCR
Evidence means the receipts and photos that participants upload. They are reviewed in Operations › Evidence review and read with the OCR you configure in Administration › Settings, OCR tab.
Symptoms and causes
| Symptom | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| All evidence waits for manual review | Provider is set to Manual (no OCR) | Choose Gemini Flash or External API on the OCR tab |
| Lots of evidence goes to review even though the receipt is legible | Confidence Threshold is too high | Lower it. Below the threshold, the evidence goes to manual review |
| OCR unavailable badge and no amount | The provider didn't respond, timed out or there are no credits left | The evidence is not rejected. Enter the amount in Override amount (optional) and approve. Check your credits in Subscription and credits |
| A legible receipt stays pending | A rule requires a piece of data that the OCR did not read | This is the expected behaviour: it is not rejected, it goes to manual review |
| Receipt rejected for age, amount or shop | Validation rules of the campaign or the programme | Check Receipt Submission Rules (campaign) and Evidence Validation Rules (programme) in Ticket Scanning (OCR) |
| Duplicate status | The same receipt was already uploaded; it is detected even if the photo changes slightly | This is a safeguard. It is not approved |
| You don't see the Approve or Reject buttons | Your role only has the Evidence permission | Ask an administrator for Review and change evidence status |
| "This evidence was already rejected and its participation is closed; it cannot be approved." | The associated participation was closed when it was rejected | It cannot be reopened from this screen |
| skipped (no member, still pending) in a bulk review | The evidence comes from an anonymous upload from a landing page | Review it one by one |
| You can't find a specific piece of evidence | There are more than 50 results or a filter is missing | Narrow down with Person, Store or Campaign; the list loads the first 50 |
| The screen doesn't appear in the menu | Your edition doesn't include it (Free) or the Rewards permission is missing | See Editions and features and Roles and permissions |
| The participant gets no notice on approval or rejection | The campaign doesn't have the notice enabled | Enable Notify the participant when their photo is reviewed on the campaign |
| Receipts stop being read mid-month | You have used up your edition's monthly OCR reads | See the limits in Editions and features |
If an OCR key doesn't work
Keys are stored encrypted and are not displayed. To change them, enter a new one in API Key; to keep them, leave the field untouched. With External API, also check API URL.
tip
With an external provider, it is the provider that decides whether the receipt needs review. The confidence threshold does not apply to it.