Introduction to Event Management

Terminology

Activity: An activity is a sub-event (for example, a workshop that occurs within a conference). Activities require their own registrations, in addition to the main event.
Event: An event is something that happens at a certain time and place, and which participants must register to attend.
Fee: A (registration) fee is a category of registration, which is available to certain types of attendee, and which has a specific cost. There may be numerous different fees for a particular event, for example, public, member, and student fees, as well as early-bird and late fees.
Registrant: A registrant is someone who has signed up for an event.
Registration: A registration is a confirmation that a particular registrant will attend a particular event or activity. It is analagous to a ticket. A particular registrant may have several registrations to different activities within the event.

Preparation

The Event Registrations package only manages your registrations. Before you begin, you must set up the complete event (including schedule and activities) in the Event Calendar.

If you have any special registration forms, you should also create those first, using the Web Forms tool. You do not need special registration forms; a simple form is provided by default, and the registrant's contact information is automatically collected when they check out with their shopping cart.

Once you are ready, find your event. Either use the Event Calendar to find your event, and then click the registration icon in the toolbar, or use the Event Registrations module, and click the "show events without registration" link to find your new event.

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Setting Up Your Fees

Before you can accept registrations, you must have some fees setup in your event. Go to the "fees" button in the toolbar.

fees

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Setting Up Your Fees Manually

If you have only one or two fees, you can create them directly using the "new fee" button.

Status

An active fee is in use. An inactive fee is ignored, and simply kept on file for archival purposes. You can also manually tag fees as sold out or waitlist if you want them to show, but not accept registrations in the usual way.

Type

Set this to regular.

Fee Name, Description

This is how the registration will appear on the receipt. For example: "Student, Late Registration".

Registration Form

If you need to collect special information from registrants, select the appropriate form here. (You should create all such forms in the Web Forms tool first.)

Cost

This is the cost of this registration. Set it to "0.00" for free events.

Registration Limit

If there are only a limited number of spots available for this fee, provide that number here. The registration button will automatically change to "sold out" or "waitlist" after this number of registrations has been confirmed.

Access

This determines who can see/use this fee. Members can use both member fees and public fees. To provide a members-only discount, setup a public fee, and a members fee, with a lower price for the members fee. Registrants must log in to get access to the members fee. Administrator fees are only visible to system administrators; regular visitors cannot register using them, only admins can sign up people with these fees.

Visibility

Visible fees are shown in the regular registration screens. Hidden fees are not shown, but are still useable if you create manual links to them.

Registration Opens, Registration Closes

Use these to set the time window during which this fee is available. For example, you can use this to automatically open registration one month before the event, or automatically close registration one week before the event.

Password

Password-protected fees can only be used by people who know the special access code. You can use this like a coupon code to offer special rates to people who are not members.

Sortkey, Group

These fields are used for organizing fees in listings. Fees are grouped together by their group name, and are ordered in order of their sortkey.

Options

waitlist: users can sign on to a waitlist if the fee is sold out
guest address cards: use information on special registration forms to create address cards for each registrant. This is necessary if you want to send emails to guest registrants. (Normally we only create address cards for the purchaser.)
instant registration: if possible, skip the shopping cart and confirmation steps. This only works for simple, free registrations. You must have a special registration form that collects some basic contact info such as email, since the registrant will be skipping the e-commerce checkout that normally collects this info.
time exclusive: disallow registrations if the time of this activity clashes with other activities the registrant is in (for example, two workshops happening at the same time).
includes comps: this registration can includes additional registrants at no extra cost. (For example, when registering a team, you may want to register the individual teammates while you are at it, but they do not need to pay anything.)
no guests: turn off the registration option that prompts for additional registrants.

Thank-you message

This message will be displayed to the user when they register for this fee. (A simple thank-you message is displayed automatically; use this to provide important extra information to the registrant, such as instructions.)

Available To

This fee is only offered to people who have already registered for the selected fee. Leave this blank to offer this fee to everyone.

Treat As

In reports, combine the figures for this fee with the selected fee. In other words, treat them as the same registration type for roster and reporting purposes.

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Setting Up Your Fees Automatically

If you have several registration categories, multiple activities, or early/late fees, then the permutations and combinations of fees can be tricky. Use the "setup registration fees" button to set all of these up automatically.

Main Registration Types

Setup your main registration categories here. For example, Member and Non-member. Click "add another registration type" to add more fees. Enter the fee cost, and select a registration form. "Simple registration form" asks for the registrant's name only. (Contact info is collected at checkout, so it is not necessary to ask for it in the registration form in simple cases.) Special options can be accessed by clicking the advanced options buttons. If setting up a member-only fee, set the access to "members".

Registration Periods

If you have early/late registration periods, select the ones you want, and set them up here. For each one, specify a cost adjustment, which is a number like:

+25 = add $25 to the regular cost
-25 = subtract $25 from the regular cost
+25% = add 25% to the regular cost
-25% = subtract 25% from the regular cost
25 = set the cost to $25 exactly

Activities

Select the activities that require their own registration. For each one, you can specify the same registration rules as in the main registration types above. Most activities require no registration form, because you have already collected registrant info in the main event form. Sometimes (for example, dietary questions in a luncheon activity) there may be questions specifically for that activity, however.

You can also specify whether the activity cost is adjustable; if so, the early/late cost adjustments will also be applied to these fees.

Select "time exclusive" if registrants should not be able to register for an activity if they are already registered in another one at the same time.

Registration Scope

Normal scope is to register for the whole event. If an event covers several days, and you want to allow people to register separately for indivudual days, you can select that here. You can also offer cost adjustments to provide discounts for these registrants.

Confirmation

After filling in this setup form, the system will automatically calculate every permutation and combination of these fees, and present you with a final list of fees. Based on your cost adjustments, it will compute the different fee amounts for each case.

Review this list carefully. Not all of these combinations may be valid; if not, uncheck them so they won't be included. You also have the option to manually change the fees that are being charged in each case. If an error was made, you can go Back and redo the original form.

Once you submit this final form, the fees will all be created for you.

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Editing/Changing Your Fees

To modify existing fees, go to the list of all fees (under the fees button). You can edit each particular case here, as well as add new fees (including by copying exsiting fees), and delete unwanted fees.

If you haven't accepted any registrations yet, you can also clear all fees and start over. If you do this after accepting registrations, the registrations will also be discarded.

You can also re-run the setup wizard again. This will not affect existing fees, but will add to them.

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Comps

Comps are complimentary/no-cost registrations that are included with certain fees. Typically these are used for corporate, group, or sponsor registrations. For example, a $1000 company registration might include 4 comp individual registrations.

To setup comps, click on the fees button in the toolbar, and select the group fee that should include the comps. The next screen will display the fee details, and include a "comps" button in its toolbar.

First, edit the fee, and check off the option "includes complimentary registrations".
Next, click the "comps" tool, and describe the comps:

The number of comps is the number of comp tickets that will be available to the group registrant. For example, if registering a golf team of four players, enter "4" in this field.
Set the "Equivalent to" field to the type of registrant that the comps should be treated as. For example, if this is a golf team registration, then each comp should be treated as equivalent to an individual golfer.
Note that you can set a price for the comps here. Normally a complimentary registration is free, so the price is preset to $0.00. However, if you want to use the comp function to add paid fees, you can set the price of each "comp" ticket here.

You can add more comps, if you need more of a different type.

To comp someone into a fee that normally has a cost, go here.

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Comp Registration Forms

The registration form will automatically be extended to prompt for the complimentary registrant names. The registrant will also be able to check off which comps they are accepting. (For example, if they get 4 comps, but only intend to use 2, they can uncheck their unused comps.)

The complimentary registrations are added to the invoice, but at a cost of $0, unless you have explicitly specified a cost for the comp.

Experts: If you need to customize the registration form, you can use the following special merge fields in your custom form template:

[[comp_F_C:input]] - the checkbox to select the comp

[[comp_F_C_first_name:input]] - the given name of the comp registrant

[[comp_F_C_last_name:input]] - the surname of the comp registrant

In these merge codes, F is the Fee ID of the comp, and C is the comp number, which goes from 1 to the number of comps allowed. You can also add ...:prompt merge fields if you need them.

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Reports

Roster

Your roster is your list of registrants. Click the roster tool in the toolbar to get to the main roster. You can also click the roster button in the fee list to see a roster of registrants for that specific fee only.

By default, the roster shows the registrant name, registration date, registration/fee type, status, and a link to the registration form answers (if a special form was given), and to the account details. Only good registrations are shown. To change what the roster shows, click on the "Roster Options" bar, and select additional information to display. The dump button will download ALL information known about every registrant (including bad/canceled/incomplete), which can be futher processed using a spreadsheet program.

Use the pagination or search links to browse through the roster. You can also use the CSV and Excel buttons to export the roster to a spreadsheet that you can download for other purposes.

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Revenues

The revenues reports provide several views of the money earned by this event. Note that revenues can be presented as money earned (total of all fees for confirmed and unconfirmed registrants), and money paid (total of fees for confirmed registrations only).

By Registration: Each individual registration is shown, including the amount owed, the amount received, and the total of other purchases made. A particular registrant may occupy several rows in this report if they registered for multiple activities. "Other purchases" is simply anything else on the same receipt, and may include taxes or other surcharges.
By Registrant: Each person is shown on a single line; their various registrations and fees are broken down in the columns of the report. Fees which are still owed are displayed in red as debits, but are included in the total earnings (although not the total paid).
By Fee: This report displays the aggregate amounts collected for each individual fee. Both earned and paid subtotals are shown.
By Combined Fee: This simplifies the previous report by combining similar fees together.
Other Purchases: Use this report to view other purchases made by your registrants, such as merchandise and donations.

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Wait List

You can optionally enable wait-lists on events that sell out. Do this by checking off the waitlist option in the fee configuration. Ensure that your registration form contains enough information to allow you to contact these registrants, as they will not be going through checkout and providing you with their billing info.

If a user wants to register for a sold-out event that has a waitlist, the system will accept their registration, but flag it as "waitlist". They will not be asked to pay at the time of registration.

If you receive enough waitlist registrations, you may want to expand your event to accomodate them. If so, you will need to activate these registrations at a later time.

If you are viewing an event that contains waitlisted registrants, the summary report at the bottom of the roster will include a hyperlink to the waitlist. Click on this link to view and manage your waitlist.

In the waitlist, click on a registrant name to manage their registration. The registration details, and pending invoice will be displayed. On the right side of the screen are options for you to:

activate the registration and invoice - this adds the registrant to the roster, and marks their invoice as owing.
activate the registration only - this adds the registrant to the roster, but ignores the invoice. (You may want to do this if the payment has been dealt with in another way.)
cancel registration - if the waitlisted registrant has changed their mind and can no longer make it, use this link to cancel them.
delete registration - use this to remove junk or repeat data.

You should contact your waitlist people directly to confirm. Payment for waitlisted registrations should be arranged directly with them. As they are no longer on your website, immediate e-commerce payment is not possible.

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Other

You can also find related reports in other places in the system:

Use Financial Reports to report aggregate registration revenues.
Use Address Book to create or export contact lists of registrants.
Use Web Forms to edit or export registration form answers.

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Changing Registrations

In the roster, click on the registration # to modify registrations.

Use the cancel button to cancel the registration and remove the person from the roster or waitlist. They will still be archived in the system (just marked canceled).
Use the delete button to clear out junk data that is just confusing your reports. (The cancel button is preferred for real people, since you keep their history on file.)
To recover failed or canceled registrations, and reactivate them, use the roster to run a special report selecting "inactive" or "canceled" registrations. Select the registration of interest, and use the configure button to changes its settings. Usually you just want to change the status, but in principle you can change other details of the registration here (for example, change the registrant name). Be careful! If you are careless or don't know what you are doing, you can cause problems in your roster or accounting.

WARNINGS: When you update a registration in this way, you are only affecting a single registration for a single event/activity. If the registrant is registered in multiple activities, you may need to repeat this step for each of the registrations that need to be updated.

If you delete/cancel a registration that has been paid, you have to deal with any refunds separately. Refunds should be recorded in the Payments module, to ensure accurate financial reporting.

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Changing Registration Form Answers

The roster includes a link to the response data for special registration forms. Following this link takes you to the Web Forms module, which will allow you to modify the answers given to correct errors or add additional information that wasn't collected at the original time of registration.

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E-Mail Notifications

The following email notifications can be sent by the system:

Invoices/Receipts (automatic) - Registrations that go through the shopping cart will automatically generate invoices and (if the invoices are paid via e-commerce) receipts that will be sent to the purchaser.
Notification to Registrant - The main registrant can be configured to receive a special notification when the registration is completed. This can be activated in the event preferences. Use this when you need to send them special information about registration, arrival, check-in, or something else that is not communicated on their basic receipt.
Notification to Guest - This is the same as the notification to registrant, above, except that it will be sent to people that the main registrant registered on behalf of. This may require slightly different wording than the former.
Reminder Email - If you have the Task Scheduler enabled (see below), you can send reminder emails N days before the event. The email is the same format as the notification, but it can include additional last-minute updates.
Administrator Notification - You can optionally notify the administrator whenever a registration is received. This can be activated in the event preferences. Use this feature when you need to keep a close eye on incoming registrations.
Event-full Notification - You can optionally notify the administrator whenever a registration is received past a certain occupancy threshhold, such as 90% full. This can be activated in the event preferences. This can help you to stay on top of sold-out events and waitlists.

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Merge Codes

When writing the text of notification emails, you can use the following merge codes:

[[event]] - the main event (if multiple events have been registered for, this will be the first one).

[[date]] - the date of the main event.

[[event_list]] - the complete list of events and activities that the person registered for.

[[first_name]], [[last_name]] - first and last name of the registrant.

[[name]] - full name of the main registrant (the person who actually did the registration).

[[guest]] - full name of the guest registrant.

[[login]], [[password]] - login credentials of the user, if they have login privileges on the website.

Additionally, you can include any event preferences as merge codes, such as [[notify.from]] (the from address of notifications) or [[notify.subject.registrant]] (the subject line of the email).

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Event Reminders

Reminders are useful when you need to send additional information or updates to your registrants before the event. Reminders will be send out automatically a certain number of days before the event, if you have set them up in advance.

Reminders are sent by the Task Scheduler application. You must:

have the Task Scheduler plugin installed
be running the ExSite cron.pl script every hour (contact your technical support to set this up)

To send event reminders, open up the Task Scheduler, and add a task with the following parameters:

Description: Send Event Reminders
Module: EvtReg
Action: remind
Method: daily
Run As: [select yourself from this list]
Status: active

This only needs to be setup once, and from then on it will check every event for reminders that need to go out.

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Entering Registrations

There are two ways to enter registrations into an event:

Through the regular registration screens on the website front-end. Use this method for normal registrations, especially ones involving credit card payments.

If registering on behalf of a user, login as that user first to ensure the registration is recorded against that user's account.
Through the registration tools in the back-end control panel. These give the administrator special powers to bypass normal restrictions. You can enter registrations outside the allowed dates, without the correct prerequisite registrations, and at member rates the user would not normally qualify for, and even comp people through without collecting any fees.
Warning: You cannot do online credit-card purchases through the administrator back-end.

Complimentary Registrations

To enter someone into your event without charging them the listed rate, use the following procedure:

Go to your event in the EvtReg control panel
Click the register tool in the toolbar
Select the appropriate fee, and register for it.
Add any activites, additional registrants, etc. that should also be comped
When done, click "Done - Finish Registration"
In the list of options, you will be given links to comp these registrations without invoicing or payment. When you click these links, a popup will appear, confirming the comp. Hit "close" to dismiss the popup. You must comp each registration separately.

Force Registrations

To register someone in a fee that is closed, not yet open, or restricted to a different type of user, use the following procedure:

Go to your event in the EvtReg control panel
Click the register tool in the toolbar
Select the appropriate fee, and click the "force register" button for it.
Add any activites, additional registrants, etc.
When done, click "Done - Finish Registration"
If payment will be required, select "go through checkout".
Select an appropriate account to bill this registration to, or start a new account.

Reopen Registrations

To add new activities for a user who has already registered, use the following procedure:

Go to your event in the EvtReg control panel
Click the register tool in the toolbar
Scroll down, and click on "Restricted Fees" to see the various add-on fees. Click the appropriate "force register" button.
When done, click "Done - Finish Registration"
If payment will be required, select "go through checkout", otherwise comp the registration.

Managing the appearance of the registration session

The registration session summarizes everything that the user has registered for so far, allowing them to add new activities or new persons, or to checkout and complete the registration process. For large events, this screen can grow to become quite long and complicated, especially if the user is registering multiple people. Here are some tips for simplifying the screen.

Blindboxes

Blindboxes hide information that you may not need to see behind a clickable link that "blinds" or "shades" the information. The user can click on the link to unroll the hidden information. The following configuration settings will activate blindboxes to reduce the "wall of text" that can be intimidating for users:

add_registrations_blindbox = 1

This setting hides add-on fees and activities for the current registrant.

new_registration_blindbox = 1

This setting hides the links to start over with a new registrant.

other_registrants_blindbox = 1

This setting hides all but the current registrant.

merchandise_blindbox = 1

This setting hides all event-related merchandise options.

You should add appropriate CSS to make sure the blindbox links stand out sufficiently, so that users know they can click on them if needed.

Links

Instead of displaying information on the registration session screen, you can optionally just provide links to allow the user to click through to the information or functions, if they need it. This may create more clicks and a slightly longer registration process, but it can also clean up the registration screen a lot.

new_registrant_restart = 1

This replaces the fees to start over with a new registrant, with a link back to the start of the registration process. That saves on screen space and doesn't rely on any special effects or require new CSS styles like the blindbox option does.

link_to_cart = 1

This replaces the inlined shopping cart at the bottom of the registration session screen with a link to proceed to checkout.

Expiring Stale Registrations

The registration system remembers your past registrations, so that you can see whom you have already entered in to the system if you return to register more. This is useful for preventing accidental duplicate registrations, but it can cause confusion if a user abandons a registration attempt and starts over. The system will continue to show the abandoned user---it doesn't know if you still have them open in another window, and wish to complete them later, so it does not discard them.

You can set timeouts for when the system should definitely ignore old registrations and not display them any longer in the session. The timeouts can be different depending on the registration status:

session_timeout.active = 90
session_timeout.unconfirmed = 30
session_timeout.waitlist = 30
session_timeout.canceled = 0
session_timeout.inactive = 1

The timeouts are in days, so these defaults say to:

keep showing completed & paid registrations for 90 days
keep showing completed but unpaid registrations for 30 days
keep showing waitlisted registrations for 30 days
ignore canceled registrations always
show registrations still in process for one day only