I'm interested to get feedback into how your are doing RSVP's for your events.
Not on the RE side (I get that and love it -when used that is), but more on how you are capturing the RSVP's to put into RE.

I shudder at how we currently do it and I want to propose new solutions for the coming year- pardon the disdain in my description below:

Currently said 'events manager/corporate relations manager' will create their own "unique" spreadsheet (which inevitably is always different from the last event spreadsheet created), and RSVP's will be sent to their work email account (as indicated in the invitations that each guest receives - RSVP to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ). The 'events manager/corporate relations manager' will copy and paste the RSVP into their 'unique' spreadsheet. Often times this step is done by a volunteer (highschool or college level)! Then that RSVP spreadsheet is passed on to my data entry team and we put in the information in the Events Module a day or two before the event. I might also mention that sometimes the invites are generated out of RE and when that happens I have the luxury of ID codes for imports and taggin, but most of the time I think Harry Potter pulls out his wand and produces a list that doesn't match any records in our database (well, until we create a new record then suddenly we get feedback that the guest's actually name is xxx).

For very obvious reason this does not work well: missing names (added to the file AFTER it is sent), misspellings causing dups in RE -even attempts to track gifts that come in from the event in the spreadsheet is made!-- It causes quite a mess and undermines the whole point of purchasing the Event's module. We do over 15 fundraising dinners a year spread out in three states with the average attendance at 300 per event. At this pace my data entry staff and I might have an Office Space/copy machine scene meltdown on the event managers. (No joke I have the baseball bat)

At a 40,000 foot overview, what does your event data inflow system look like? Are you using any additional software? I would love suggestions that I can investigate.

Thanks for your feedback and helping to regain my teams sanity!

Caution... you may sense a little disdain in my response as well...not directed at any person...

When an organization grows so large (meaning creates so much data) that a dedicated data entry team can no longer handle the flow (and the org will not hire more data entry staff) then some form of release of control in RE needs to take place.

I have gone on a campaign to train "RE Experts" in all departments and given them rights to add/edit data in appropriate places in RE for their function.

In your case I would give the events manager or their staff the right to enter event response data to RE and train, train, train. They would do this in place of entering into a spreadsheet. (You may be rightly concerned about giving access to a volunteer - high school or otherwise).

Do some discovery on the other items they are entering to the spreadsheet and provide mechanisms for data entry in RE for that info as well.

You may need to enlist the help of senior management to enforce the rule that all data goes to RE and silo data systems like Excel are strictly forbidden. This may be the bigger challenge.

No additional software is necessary as a middle ground. Whether registrants respond via email or online or snail mail the next step is to enter to RE - not some intermediate software like Excel.


Good luck

David,

I totally agree EXCEL IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN! I've been working with our current staff (now in 3rd year) and re-training them that RE is a DATABASE where as Excel is NOT.

We currently use BBNC to accept on-line regisrations which interface well with RE. There are a few tweaks that I do when the registrations come in, but it's one of the better interfaces I've had the opportunity to use.

Good luck with purging and banishing excel as a database tool.

Wow, I can see why that would drive you totally crazy. Are your event managers not in RE at all?

We have four people who spend a lot of their time on events--two event coordinators (logistics-focused) and two fundraisers. We have about 15 good-sized events per year, plus one big gala.

- In advance of the event, the event coordinator tells me the prices and benefits and I set up the event record in RE.
- I am quite involved in the invitation process. We have large volunteer committees involved with our events; their main job is to invite people. Managing the information they give us is the most challenging part of the process, but our only hope of keeping it all straight is to manage it in RE. As soon as a committee member gives us new names (via email, excel, business card, PTA directory, phone...), they are entered into RE with a solicitor relationship. It's the event coordinator's job to track down missing information or resolve potential duplicates. If a committee member asks us for 20 invitations to send out to their friends, we make them give us the names!
- I have trained the two event coordinators on how to register participants in RE.
- As RSVPs come in by phone, mail, email, etc, the coordinator registers them for the event. At that time, they add registration fees, nametag info, and whatever else they need to.
- I have set up participant exports so they can see in the data in Excel any time they need to, and they know how to export this information themselves. If they see that something is wrong with the exported data, they know they did something wrong when registering the participant!! They can then correct the situation in advance of the event.
- The event coordinator prints nametags and registration lists from this exported data. They understand that the data lives in RE and is only exported to Excel for specific purposes.

I love that the event coordinators are responsible for this stuff, and not me. That way if someone shows up to the event and their nametag is missing or misspelled (DISASTER!) it's not my fault, ha! Seriously, the event coordinator should be invested in making sure participants are being correctly registered. What do your event managers have to say about how the system is working? Do they perceive that there is a problem?

I'm lucky that my event colleagues are in the cubicles right next to mine, so they can ask me questions all the time. I can definitely see how having those people located in other states would be difficult.

Hope that helps, and good luck!

Hi everyone,

I'm always impressed at how set-ups that work for some organizations would be difficult if not almost impossible to implement in ours. For example, I'm impressed that Allison's organization deligates duplicate resolution for participant entry to the event coordinator. What tools are at his/her disposal to assist with that? (e.g. LexisNexis, other online directories?)

I've often found that even my best data entry person needs to go to some length to determine that two people are in fact the same person! I just can't imagine someone who's primary job is not RE to be THAT good. Kudos if that's working out for you!

Some questions with that:
- What leverage do you have over the event coordinator to ensure that he/she doesn't create duplicates, makes the fewest mistakes possible, captures new information? I'm thinking once the event is over, that the coordinator is onto the next event and may not care much about the wake of data problems left behind.

- Sometimes we learn that someone has moved or has remarried when they register/attend an event. Do you trust your event coordinator to change the address or set up the new relationship? If not, then I'm guessing this needs to be handed off to primary data entry staff? If so, is it handed off before or after the participation records have been entered?


Also, I have a question about confirming and entering attendees.

Has anyone come up with a reliable way to accurately capture and efficiently enter event attendees for events with and without registration? We have quite a few without registration that our Advancement staff wants to know about.

Here are the problems we encounter for events WITHOUT REGISTRATION:

- How do you capture the attendee info?
- Do you ask them to fill out a card upon arriving?
- What if they don't want to provide some/all of their info?
- What if their handwriting is illegible?
- How is guest information captured?
- Do you just get a spreadsheet with names only?
- Each attendee has to be looked up to see if they're an RE constituent. Cue the potential for duplicates here!

Here are the problems we occasionally encounter for events WITH REGISTRATION:

- Unregistered people show up and pay at the door.

- Person who shows up gives a different name than the one they registered with (ie. registered with William, shows up with Billy and a different address!... )

- Registrant gives their tickets to completely different person.
- Registrant appears with different guests than those listed.
- Registrant's S.O. attends instead of them, but we didn't know they were together. (Are they partners? Married?)

Sorry for so many questions, but I'd really love to hear what solutions you have for the entire process and how you handle the potential for duplicates/erros and changes to relationships (other information gleaned?) from event participation! THANKS!!

-Eric

Eric,

I'm struck by this question: "What leverage do you have over the event coordinator to ensure that he/she doesn't create duplicates, makes the fewest mistakes possible, captures new information?"

We recently worked with a large healthcare client to solve just that issue of leverage! Their events folks complained that entering/updating data in the Events module took too long due to the multiple windows/tabs that need to be navigated to, for instance, add 8 placeholder guests when someone bought a table's worth of tickets (if you've tried it, you know it can make your mouse overheat). So the events folks were able to insist on tracking everything in Excel, then promised to import all the data after the event. Naturally, after the event they were busy working on the next one, so all those address changes, name updates, marital status changes, etc withered away in some spreadsheet somewhere and never made it into RE. We worked with them to develop (naturally) Event-O-Matic for the Raiser's Edge, an add-on to the Raiser's Edge that makes event participant management just like Excel, but a whole lot better, and completely integrated with the Raiser's Edge of course. If event participant management is a thorn in your organization's side, I think this quick demo video will make your day: vimeo.com/omaticsoftware/review/37273925/4f9458fee9

This video is from an older version, so it doesn't show our new features like the ability to bulk email participants (with mail-merge fields), advanced participant filtering, customized dashboard for nearly anything you want to track in your event, and the new reports section for RSVP and seating reports.

I would love to hear your feedback on it!

Thanks,
Jeff