Special and Fundraising Events Masters Class Part 2: Managing your Event and Sending Invitations
Find Your Event Go to the Events Tab and either find the event on the Calendar, or use the Search Bar.
Invitations When planning for your event, it s important to consider how you want to communicate with your guests. Do guests expect a paper invitation or an email invite? In Altru, we can send invitations through Mail, Email or both depending on your guests preference on their record. If you just need a CSV file to send to a mail house, we can do that too!
Adding an Invitation Process Find your way to the Invitation tab of the Event Record and click the Add button to setup the invitation process
Adding Invitations to the Event 1. Enter the name, mail date and mark to create a selection if you want a list of people who the mailing was sent to 2. On the Processing Options tab, select how you want to send the invitation, Mail, Email or Both. 3. Choose what package you will use (See Appendix for instructions on adding a Package to Altru). If you just want a CSV output file, choose mail and select a default mail package 3. Select the address processing that applies 4. Then, select who you want to send the invitation to. Ex. Individuals, Organizations or all qualifying constituents 5. Click Save
Building the Invitation List Once you have saved the Invitation setup, we need to add to the list who we would like to invite. To do so, click on the name of the invitation you just saved.
Add the Invitees You can now add people to the invitation list one-by-one when clicking the Add Constituent option You can add multiple people together using Queries by clicking Add Multiple Constituents You can also choose to Exclude people based on Solicit Codes from this window
Sending Invitations Once you ve added all the invitees to the list, we are ready to send invitations. In the Tasks menu (top left corner of your window), click Send invitations and start the process Once the process finishes, on the recent status tab, highlight the output, click Merge letter if you created a letter, start email job or download output
Tracking Invitation Responses Pt. 1 Once we you have sent out invitations, we can track the responses. To indicate someone has Declined to attend, find their name on the Registrations Tab of the Event and choose the button Mark as Declined
Tracking Invitation Responses Pt. 2 If someone decides they can attend, find their name on the Registration Tab and click Register On the Registration Form choose the correct Registration Option, provide names as necessary If needed, you can also Waive Registration Fee to indicate a person is Registered, but they pay no money for these tickets
Accepting Payment for Registration Pt. 1 Once you have saved the Registration a new window appears. If you have received payment you can Add Payment at this time. This will be considered a Back Office payment.
Accepting Payment for Registration When recording a payment from the Registration, the Event Application will automatically appear. Provide your Amount Click to Add the Event Application Record your Payment Method Pt. 2
Registrations using Add a Payment Form Registrations and their payments may also be added at the same time from the typical Add a Payment form Choose the Application of Event Registration If the person is already Registered and just needs to pay, the Event will appear in the Application Window If the person is not yet registered, then click the Calendar Icon and search for the Event. You MUST have the Application of Event Registration chosen to see the icon.
Registration & Payment using Batch Entry The last way to enter a back office payment for an Event Registration is using batch entry. The batch type to use is called Enhanced Revenue Batch. Make sure to select the application of Event Registration. In the apply to commitments window, any existing registrations should come up, or, we can add the registration on the fly just like from the Add a Payment form. Note: If this batch contains credit cards, make sure to run credit card processing, to authorize and process the credit cards then commit the batch.
Registration & Payments through Sales Registration payments can be taken through Advance Sales, Daily Sales and Online Sales (if you enable the event for the website) These payments are all considered sales payments and not back office payments Any payments taken in Daily or Advance Sales will be included in a cash drawer If someone changes their mind and cannot attend, these payments will need to be refunded using the refunds feature on the Sales page
What if someone wants to buy more tickets after they have already paid? Back Office: On the Event Record, highlight the host name, click Edit Registrations. Select the additional registration options and select unnamed guest or the guest s constituent record. Make sure to NOT select the same person twice. Then, you can add a payment for the remaining balance. On the Constituent record, click Add a Payment. Select Event Registration as the application type and click the icon to add a registration. Select the event, and then select the options and unnamed guest or the guest s constituent record and click Save. Sales: From Daily or Advance Sales, act as if you are registering the Patron again but click Edit instead of Add and select the additional options and select unnamed guest as the additional guest names.
Taking Attendance for a Fundraising Event At The Event For Your Event, you can use the Altru Mobile Check-In feature to mark people as attended from any mobile device Just go to your organizations Altru landing page and click the Mobile Check-In Button on the bottom of the page Next, find your Event Registration list and find the person you would like to check-in Click on their Name, then click the button Mark as Attended
Taking Attendance for a Fundraising Event Pt. 2 On the Registration Tab of the Event, you can click the Mark As button and choose the Status of the Registrant. Options are: Will not Attend, Attended, No-show, Canceled
Reporting on your Event There are 4 main Reports on the Event Record to run View Seating Summary Event Comparison Event Profile Event Revenue There are 2 Additional Reports on the Events Page Event Attendance Event Summary
Event Summary Report This report will give you a high level analysis of your attendance as well as your revenue
Event Profile Report The Event Profile Report is a comprehensive analysis of the Event, it allows you to choose exactly what Sections of Information you d like to see about the Event
Reporting on Revenue for a Special Event Total Revenue Report Another great report to use that just reports revenue (not expenses) is the Total Revenue Report. You can find this from Analysis, Revenue Reports, Total Revenue You will want to run this report for a range which incorporates the date of the first payment received through the last payment received for the event.
Event Attendance Report The Event Attendance Report will allow you to analyze the number of Attendees by either the: Event Price Type Date
How to get a list of all registrants for an event? -You can go to the Registrants Tab on the Event Record and sort the list how you would like by clicking on the Column Headers. -At the top of the window, click the word More. -A dropdown will appear where you can download the list into an XLSX or CSV File. On The Event Profile report If you select which Sections you d like to see and ONLY select Registrants, the report will look like this:
Appendix
How to get a customized list of all registrants for an event? Lets say that you need a list of people with addresses who attended a event. Since the default reports do not give address information, we can get this through query. We will build an Event ad-hoc query. Keep in mind that if you are needing this for a mailing and not a door list, use a constituent query because appeal mailings require constituent based queries. Highlight Event, drag Event Record to the Include records where select equal to (Event Name) Expand Registrant, drag Name to Results fields to display Highlight Constituent, expand Address Primary, drag Address, City, State, Zip to the results fields to display
How to get a customized list of all registrants for an event? Pt.2 You can also output the registration option for each of the attendee:
Other ways to report on revenue Create a Revenue ad-hoc query Expand Application Details, highlight Event, event record to include records where select equal to (Event Name) Expand Constituent, drag Name to results fields to display
Reporting on Revenue for a Special Other useful reports: Sales Report -This will only show event registrations taken from Daily Sales, Online Sales or Advance Sales Event Comparison Report This report compares the effectiveness of multiple events. For example, you can use this report to compare the effectiveness of an annual event over consecutive years.
Globally Updating Attendance Altru allows you to globally update all registrants whose attendance is unspecified to either no-show or attended. This is normally done after an event. In the Tasks menu, click Update event attendance
Mail Invitations Creating the Letter 1. From Marketing and Communications, click Export Definitions, highlight the default direct marketing definition, click Generate Header File (this is your list of merge fields) 2. Save this file to your desktop 3. In Microsoft Word, open a new document and write your letter 4. Use the Step-by-Step mail merge process to insert each merge field from this file 5. Save your document 6. From Marketing and Communications, click Letters, click Add a direct marketing letter 6. Enter the name, description, select the export definition used to create the letter, select the word file from your desktop, click Save **See this knowledgebase solution for help, http://www.blackbaud.com/kb/index?page= content&id=bb723271 ** Creating the Package 1. From Marketing and Communications, click Packages, click Add a mail package 2. Enter the details, select the letter and export definition, click save
Email Invitations Creating the Email Letter 1. From Marketing and Communications, click Email Marketing 2. Click Add a direct marketing email 3. Click the magnifying glass, select an export definition (Export Definitions contain all the merge fields for the letter). Click Continue 4. Fill out the contents of the email (Name, Subject, From Address, From Name, reply to, etc) 5. In the Editor, write your letter 6. At the end of the letter, you must insert a link to Email Preference and Privacy Policy. Once complete, click Save Creating the Email Package 1. From Marketing and Communications, click Packages, click Add an email package 2. Enter all the details, select the message (letter), click Save
Registration Payments in Daily Sales From Daily Sales, make sure to select the Patron who is buying the tickets. Click the Event Registration button OR if you have a custom button already created for this event use that. If they are already registered, they will show in this window, click Add to Order If they are not registered yet, click Add. OR if you need to add additional registrations (if they are buying tickets for other people), click Edit and select the additional tickets and registrants.
Registration Payments in Advance Sales From Advance Sales, make sure to select the Patron who is buying the tickets. On the Create Order tab, click the Event Registration button. You will come to the same screen as in Daily Sales. Select the event and click Add to register them. If they are already registered, mark the checkbox and click Add to order. On the Add payment tab, select the payment and complete the order OR if they want to pay the day of the event, click pay on arrival. On the day of the event, use the Pick up Tickets button to search for this order and accept payment.
Allowing Events for Online Sales Patrons can register for Special Events online. You just need to approve the event for the website (on the event record) Once its approved for the web, you can go to Web, Manage Event Registration Forms, find the event. Highlight the event, you will find the URL to place into your website.
Allowing Events for Online Sales (cont.) If you have any special registration options that you do not want to offer online, click Options Unmark each registration option that will not be available for online sales.
Customer Experience in Online Sales On the web form, enter the number of tickets to purchase, click Register Enter the information about each registrant Click Add to Cart
Customer Experience in Online Sales (cont.) Finish filling out the personal information (which is the information about the person buying the tickets) and click Check out