Registering multiple people for events [1810]

• 04-11-2009, 8:58 PM

  11993 in reply to 11777

  jlburstein Joined about 2 years ago Posts 1

  Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] This breaks my heart.  Due to the lack of this one feature, it is unlikely that our association will be able to use Wild Apricot for event management.  Our members are usually organizations, not individuals.  It is not unusual for 5-15 people from one organization to register for each event - times this by multiple organizations.  It is simply unrealistic to ask our members to go through the registration process 15 times and receive 15 different invoices/receipts for each event.  This also means that we would be paying Paypal or Google $4.50 to process 15 transactions instead of $0.30 to process one.  We do require an accurate count, the attendee names, lunch option (regular/vegetarian) and email address - so none of the work-arounds suggested here will help us solve the problem.  In addition to this, we usually offer a 10% discount for organizations that register more than one person - a very successful marketing technique that becomes tremendously difficult to implement when using Wild Apricot. I had an exciting proposal to provide to our Executive Director with a strong recommendation to switch to Wild Apricot but, as soon as this one limitation is exposed, I suspect the proposal will be struck down and we will be staying with Doubleknot.

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• 04-15-2009, 2:06 PM

  12048 in reply to 11777

  alobartn Joined about 4 years ago Posts 82

  Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] This is something we have requested since our beginning. We actually have participants that no longer register for events because it's such a pain. I keep telling them that the fix is imminent, but I don't think they believe me anymore. It's so crucial that we may have to look elsewhere, which would be terrible for me since I'd have to do the work. PLEASE! - Add a system field to the event registration form: Number of registrants. - The default value would be 1, but the applicant could enter any number they wanted. For this example, let's say 5. - The additional names MUST be collected, although no other information would be necessary. Adam, Non-Apricot

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• 04-15-2009, 2:26 PM

  12049 in reply to 12048

  Chief_Apricot Joined about 5 years ago Toronto Posts 4,184

  Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] Unfortunately, this change is very hard to do properly (unless we just do a simple drop-down with # of tickets). So we are trying to find the middle ground - the simplest possible solution which will meet the needs of most people. My current guesstimate is that we will handle this one way or another in 2009 - but probably later rather than sooner. Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot

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• 04-15-2009, 2:29 PM

  12050 in reply to 12049

  alobartn Joined about 4 years ago Posts 82	Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] My first response is, "ahhhh!" Second is, can we at least do the drop-down as an intermediate step? This would silence some complaints. Adam, Non-Apricot
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• 04-15-2009, 3:18 PM

  12052 in reply to 12050

  Chief_Apricot Joined about 5 years ago Toronto Posts 4,184	Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] Yes, this is the direction we will have to undertake for now. (still at least a few months away though...) Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot
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• 04-16-2009, 2:29 PM

  12067 in reply to 12052

  sabobird Joined about 3 years ago Posts 33

  Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] This is my organization's busiest season, and my stress level is through the roof from dealing with complaints and confusion about the inability to register multiple participants and/or multiple events in a single transaction. I'm sick of fielding phone calls from and writing groveling e-mails to confused/frustrated/angry users, entering/updating registrations that should be completely automated, drafting individual PayPal invoices to collect fees from those registrations, and marking each activity's participant list by hand with who I need to collect from "at the door" because the pending/confirmed column is too far to the right to print and there are no customizing options. Last week out of sheer desperation, I added extra-cost options individually to around 20 events so that registrants could sign up a second person. This is a really poor work-around, forcing me to watch for these registrations to come in to 1) manually add the second person to avoid overbooking and 2) make sure that non-members aren't signing up their non-member traveling companions at the discounted member rate (since I could find no way to make different extra-cost options appear on member vs. non-member registration forms). This morning I got two snippy phone calls from a user who just couldn't come to grips with the "additional participant" option; I tried to explain it to her, but she ended up submitting three individual registrations when she could have gotten by with two. I found Wild Apricot when I was searching for ways to save time and reduce both my frustrations and those of would-be participants in our events. As much as I like the idea of an integrated service dedicated specifically to membership and events management for organizations like ours, I'm beginning to think about how some combination of shopping cart and calendar might better meet my needs.

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• 04-20-2009, 1:10 PM

  12105 in reply to 11777

  jcwillie Joined about 2 years ago Posts 5

  Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] I'm completely new to WA and so far we're really pleased with the product. My organization is a private golf club.  I can run the registration for tournaments and dinners etc. very easily using the out of the box Events page, but if possible we would like to do more. It would be a great boon for us if we could utilize WA to help us with our tee time sign ups.  Currently we are using a simple and admittedly ancient paper/computer hybrid system.  Members fill out a paper form requesting a time and listing their entire group, any combination of members or guests up to four people.  We then manually enter the information into an application provided by the local golf association which generates the tee times.  (We do this so that the same groups do not get the same times every week when others might want those same times.) What would really help us is if we would use WA to collect the tee time requests. Ideally the registration form should only have to be filled out by one member per foursome, with the names of all the members of the group entered in as well.  In theory group size could be 1,2,3, or 4 players as a combination of members and guests. The tee times themselves can easily be made into a drop down box, where they can select their preferred time. Is there a clean way of doing this?  I can only think of designing a fairly long form with the four slots for names. Player 1 would be the member who is logged in and making the request. Player 2, Player 3 etc. would be filled in accordingly. The optimum way would be for the member filling out the form to select his playing partners from a drop down list, but I'm assuming that is not currently possible.

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• 05-30-2009, 12:53 AM

  12770 in reply to 6789

  James Kerich Joined about 3 years ago Posts 80

  Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] This is a great idea and I hope you keep this moving forward.  However, if you do some kind of quick fix, I would recommend you include some method to identify the "extra" people because many of our events include handing out badges with their name and company listed.  Offering the ability to buy more than one would not be a good solution if we didn't know who the extra people are.

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• 06-05-2009, 10:21 AM

  12933 in reply to 6789

  djtommye Joined about 2 years ago Posts 2

  Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] This would be perfect!  I am on the board for two associations and we are in the process of moving our websites over to W.A.  We have already started having problems with not being able to register multiple people for the events, and have had to implement some not-so-perfect workarounds to keep our members happy. The perfect solution would be as described in the primary post - the ability to add multiple receipients while specifying their name (at a minimum, for name tags at the event) and checking out with one payment.  I would love to see this soon!   Thanks for a great product. Tommy

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• 06-05-2009, 12:24 PM

  12940 in reply to 6789

  Ruth Joined about 2 years ago Posts 1	Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] This is important to us as we try to capture maximum participation in trainings and events.
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• 08-11-2009, 5:24 PM

  13877 in reply to 6789

  CJoeG Joined about 2 years ago Posts 23

  Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] We need to register teams of people for some of our races.  Each team has a name, which is created by the first registrant (the team captain).  Team sizes can range from 2 to 8.  At a minimum we need to capture the names and email address of each team member (complete registration details would be best).  The prefered solution would enable each team member to pay individually for thier event registration. I've been reading all of the posts looking for temporary work arounds, but so far nothing pops out as a potential solution. YE 2009 for a complete solution will work for us but after the first quarter 2010 will be a show stopper!

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• 08-11-2009, 6:23 PM

  13878 in reply to 13877

  alobartn Joined about 4 years ago Posts 82	Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] I get complaints monthly about this. We may have to look for a new provider at the end of the year, as I've been promising a change for some time now. Major bummer. Adam, Non-Apricot
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• 08-19-2009, 2:23 PM

  13969 in reply to 11777

  GEM Joined about 2 years ago Posts 25

  Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] A simple multiplier will work for us too.  No need to collect data on all the people, we just need the ability: to sell many "tickets" in a single transaction to have the person buying multiple "tickets" pay in a single transaction to have full information on the 1 person buying (for contact if necessary etc) to know how many tickets in total have been sold for the event. GEM

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• 08-19-2009, 3:29 PM

  13972 in reply to 13969

  mamirian Joined about 2 years ago Posts 5	Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] I agree.  We would love to know who is coming to our event, but our event system in drupal works with a multiplier right now and it's fine.  Just to allow people to buy multiple tickets at once would be a HUGE step in the right direction.  We have family events, and to ask someone to register each person in their family is such a waste of time.
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• 08-19-2009, 4:45 PM

  13973 in reply to 6789

  CJoeG Joined about 2 years ago Posts 23

  Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] Just weighing in as we are commenting on our individual requirement for this group service. After reading the posts it seems to me that at one end of the spectrum are those who want to be able to have one person register for an event and then be able to purchase extra tickets, and pay for them all at once, without needing to collect any info on who is getting the other tickets. In the middle of the requirements spectrum there are those who would like to gather at least the names of the other people in the group (to create badges).   At the other end of the spectrum are those, such as the group which I represent, who would like one person to register for an event and specify a group name and a max number of person in the group. Then people would register individually, and completely, and join the already created group.  We need the registration info so that we know what age, gender and shirt size each person is, and importantly so that we can contact them regarding future events. I hope that WA can work toward fullfilling all our needs and a step-wize implementation would be fine as long as it occurred over a 6 month interval.   If there are more  distinct requirements bundles it would be good if we could add to my list and then discuss the bundles with WA. Comments?

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• 08-19-2009, 9:18 PM

  13976 in reply to 13973

  alobartn Joined about 4 years ago Posts 82	Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] I simply can't wait for even one of these options! I know it must be a difficult task, otherwise it would have been implemented long ago, but PLEASE. Adam, Non-Apricot
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• 08-20-2009, 4:36 PM

  13989 in reply to 13976

  Anonymous

  Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] First I want to say thank you for all the great feedback. The ideas, plus the sense of urgency, have really impressed upon us how important this is. It also means that we want to make sure that we create a solution that works for as many people as possible while not being unwieldy. We are working on designing the feature right now. We're trying to incorporate as many of these ideas (just sell individual tickets vs collect full registrations) as possible in a flexible framework that lets you decide which approach you want to use.  Hopefully we'll be able to capture as much of this in the first go-around as possible. As soon as this moves to development we'll let you know what and when to expect it. Our goal is to try to get at least a base version of within the next couple of releases.

• 08-21-2009, 3:02 PM

  14006 in reply to 6789

  admea Joined about 2 years ago Posts 3

  Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] I would also give this a high priority. We usually have at least three or four different rates for each event, with discounts for additional persons from the same company. The discount is a dollar amount, not a percentage, and it varies by registrant category, (regular or associate member, non-member), so the work-around is awkward. Being able to add staff to a single form would be very helpful.

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• 08-27-2009, 2:34 AM

  14074 in reply to 14006

  dinosaur Joined about 2 years ago Posts 10

  Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] I'll throw in my two cents as well.  We are a parent organization where all communication is through the parents but the enrollees are their children.  Ideally, if we have an event, a parent would be able to log on and then register as many of their children as they want ... really just a shopping cart application with "checkout" being at the end.  Until that is available, I have developed a workaround for our situation: We have our own domain.  So I created a mail address in our domain for each child which forwards to the parents address. This still means a separate log-in for each child...kludgy... but it centralizes event e-mail delivery to the parents mailbox. But, let me add that a simple multipler without registration details is useless to us.

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• 08-27-2009, 4:54 PM

  14081 in reply to 14074

  dinosaur Joined about 2 years ago Posts 10

  Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] Further to my post above: If I am a member and an administrator, when I log-on, the system asks me which I want to log-on as.  If a Bundle Administrator could log on as either their account or any of their bundle members' accounts, it would solve many problems.  Ideally, if the Bundle Administrator could switch between accounts without a full-blown log-out/log-in and then utilize a shopping cart/checkout for payment all our prayers would be answered! :-)  If modifying the existing "Bundle" type causes systemic problems, perhaps you could create a new account type called "Family" that works exactly like a bundle account with the addition of the logic above. Regards, Ron

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• 08-31-2009, 11:35 AM

  14113 in reply to 13989

  lucybeercook Joined about 2 years ago Posts 2

  Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] This is a very important feature, as PayPal is now blocking a second registration using the same credit card. I have been on hold with PayPal customer service in the Phillipines for more than 2 hours, trying to resolve this issue and find a workable solution. This is incredibly frustrating and I would hope that whatever multiple registration solution you create is FULLY integrated and TESTED with PayPal before being made available through Wild Apricot, Lucy

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• 09-01-2009, 1:42 PM

  14131 in reply to 14602

  alobartn Joined about 4 years ago Posts 82	Registering multiple people for events This is so important that I'm putting this link of the ongoing discussion in the wishlist forum! http://community.wildapricot.com/thread/14113.aspx Adam, Non-Apricot
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• 09-08-2009, 10:58 AM

  14217 in reply to 6789

  schisezza Joined about 2 years ago Posts 2

  Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] Hi We are just working up our site with wa. The ability to register persons for multiple events for us is 90% of our desired addition to the system. We have families in which one partner can potentially register for themselves their partner and multiple children for several courses. There are several issues that seem apparent - 1. We need to record the participant to the correct event but be able to identify the source registrant(parent) 2. We need a single payment for all courses 3. We may need to send confirmations to the registering partner but may or may not require to send to the other registrants(kids). 4. We dont want to end up somehow with a load of kids 4 years old that are incorporated into the database in some way that we end up email blasting them but I could see wanting to email blast their parents.  We have not got to company registration which is not an immediate issue for us but assume this will come up with somewhat similar issues down the road. For us this is the only major deficiency in the software and its solution would make the software fit excellent. I am sure you have many issues but this to us is the major one and would encourage you to resolve asap. Otherwise so far I really like the software. Thanks

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• 09-09-2009, 5:59 PM

  14232 in reply to 14217

  slamdunkpro Joined about 2 years ago Posts 19	Re: This is a huge hole for our BBQ society as well. For us, the option of a simple drop down to select # of tickets would be fine.
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• 09-10-2009, 2:30 AM

  14239 in reply to 13989

  iacac Joined about 2 years ago Posts 15

  Re: Registering multiple people for events [1810] Giuliano,  We are very thankful this functionality has risen in priority for WA.  After implementing WA for our organization in June, not being able to register more than one individual per transaction has been our number one complaint.   Members in our organization often are registered by a single administrative assistant in an office. The administrative assistant is often responsible for inputting and paying for 10-20 individual memberships.  You can imagine the intense amount of repetitive typing the existing workflow creates for these diligent assistants.  I look forward to seeing what WA has in the works!  Please allow for multiple registration (both events and memberships) as soon as possible!

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