Manage Event Part IV: Event Invites

Manage Event Part IV: Event Invites

1. This tutorial will cover how to create and send invites for events.
2. Invites are invitations that you can send to anyone in your database to let them know about your upcoming event and provide them the option to register by including a clickable link.
3. Event Invites includes functionality for inviting people to a hidden/offline events (events set to private), the ability to track Yes and No RSVPs, and the ability to send follow up communications/invitations targeted just to people who have no responded to previous invitations.
4. By contrast, event Notifications can only be sent to people who have registered for your event. Invites are best used for inviting attendees to your event and tracking RSVPs; Notifications are best used for sending event reminders and follow-up information to event registrants or attendees.
5. To use Event Invites, start by viewing your event and select Invites from the left hand menu.

   

6. The resulting dashboard will show you the statistics and responses of any invites that you have previously sent for this event. You can click each of the header categories to get a drill list of contacts (the list of who RSVP'd Yes, RSVP'd No, and those who have not yet responded either way).

   

7. From here, you can also see all currently drafted, scheduled, sent, and failed notifications for this event.

   

8. You can edit/return to any in-progress draft notification listed on the Drafted tab by clicking the drop down to the right and selecting Edit.

   

9. To create a new notification, you can copy any previous notification by selecting Copy from the drop down to the right OR you can start fresh/from scratch by clicking on the Create Notification button in the lower right corner of the screen.

   

   OR

   

10. Creating and sending an event invite is a three step process.

    

11. On the first tab, Setup, start by indicating the Sender Name, Sender Email address, and the Subject Line of the email to be sent to event attendees/registrants.

    

12. If you wish to track negative RSVP responses click the “Track not attending responses” check-box. If you check the box, then the {AttendEventButton} placeholder will insert/be replaced by two buttons - one for yes and one for no - in the email. If you do NOT check the box, the recipient will just receive an email with one button - Attend Event - in the email.

    

    

    Track not attending box NOT checked

    

13. Please Note: the recipient will still have to fill in their details to the registrant and attendee fields when registering for the event; even though the link they are sent has a tracking cookie embedded in it to track their yes or yes/no response, their information from NPE will not auto fill the event registration information.
14. Note: If user registers without clicking on Attend Event button in the invite and/or clicks the Attend Event button, goes to the site, then leaves the page and then uses browser back button to go back to invite link then in the invite metric, the tracking ID field will be blank.
15. If this is a repeating event (multiple individual dates), select the date/event schedule for which you wish to send your event Notification from the Event Schedule drop down.

    

    

16. Next, select a template to use for your notification by clicking on Choose Template.

    

17. In the select template screen, either select one of your previously configured templates by hovering over it and selecting Select or create a new template by clicking the Create New button at the top of the screen.

    

    OR

    

18. Please Note: Make sure you include the "AttendEventButton" placeholder (from the placeholder list) in your invite template. This will give recipients a clickable button that will take them to the event registration page. This link will work even if you set your event to "keep private/make available for offline registration only" (in this way you can keep an event hidden and only send the invitations to people you want to invite/have attend). See our tutorial on creating templates Part I and Part IIb - Event Templates for more information on configuring event notification templates.
19. If selecting an existing template, once you click Select, a green banner will appear across the top of the template to indicate it's been selected. Then click the Done button in the lower right hand corner.

    

20. If you opt to create a new template, after clicking the Create New button, select one of your previously configured templates or a system template to use as a draft/base template. Hover over the template and select Copy. A copy of the template will be made, you'll be taken into the Edit Template screen to configure the newly created copy/template. You can add placeholders while creating or editing your template. In the placeholders drop down menu, there are several event specific fields that can be added to event invite, event notification and event registration confirmation templates, include event name, event description, event date/time, venue, view map, and event map. Add/Edit Templates Part IIb - Event Invite, Notification, and Registration Confirmation Templates. Make your changes, click Save in the lower right, and then click Done when you have finished making all changes.

    

    

    

21. Once you select a template, you will be returned to the Create Notification screen. A thumbnail of your chosen template will show in the template area. Please Note: if you make any changes to the template, it may take several minutes for the thumbnail to update. Be assured that your changes have been saved.

    

    

    

22. If you wish to make changes to the template you have selected, hover over the template and select Edit. You can preview the template by hovering over it and selecting Preview.

    

23. If you want to select a different template, click the Change Template button.

    

24. If you desire to send yourself a test copy of the notification, click the Send Test Email check-box, and then enter the desired recipient email in the field that appears and click on Send. Please Note: links are not active in test emails. You will not be able to click the event URL link/button to test the link in a test email.

    

    

25. Also, please note: if you are using Pages to integrate with your website, you cannot visit a Pages URL while also logged into Fundly CRM as this will take you to Pages in admin/logged in mode (rather than taking you to the public page/the active web page visitors to your site will see). Instead, you will need to test the event URL by logging out of CRM before clicking the link OR by opening the link in a private browser window.
26. When you have finished setting the details and template for your notification click on the Save & Next button to proceed to the next tab or Save to save and exit (you can exit and return to your in-progress draft at any time). Please Note: If you leave this screen WITHOUT saving, your template will end up in the My Drafts folder of Create New Communication. You will have to edit the template in the My Drafts folder and choose "Save as Template" to recover and use your template (if you want to use it for a subsequent invitation).
    

    

27. On the Select Invitees screen you can add contacts individually to the invitation using the Choose Contact field. Type a contact name, select the name off the list of matching results, and then click the + button to add the invitee.

    

    

    

    

28. Alternatively, you can run an advanced search using the Advanced Search button in the upper right. Enter your filters/criteria and click Add to List. You can run additional searches to continue adding contacts to the list.

    

    

    

    

29. If this is a subsequent invitation (not the first invitation sent for this event), you will have an additional option to Quick Select contacts who were sent the first/prior invitation(s) and have not responded. Select an option from the drop down and click the + to add those contacts to the invitation.
    Note: If you are sending a follow up invite by copying previously sent invite, users who manually registered for the event as well as the users who registered via the 'attend event" button from previous invite will be included if you select the quick select function "who haven't already registered."
    

    

30. You can remove individual contacts from the list of invitees by clicking the Delete button to the right of each name.

    

31. For more on advanced searches, please see the tutorial on searching for contacts.
32. Keep in mind that you can only send Invites to contacts who have an email address on their record and whose communication preference for email set to Yes.
33. When all invitees have been selected, click on Next to proceed to the final step.

    

34. On tab #3: Send, indicate when the notification will be sent to the selected recipients by indicating either Send Now (event invite will send immediately) or Send On (schedule the event invitation to send at a particular date/time).

    

    

35. When you are done, click on Save and the notification will be sent or scheduled to be sent as appropriate.

    

36. If the event notification is scheduled to be sent at a future date/time, you will find it on the Scheduled tab. You can Edit or Delete the schedule notification by clicking the drop down to the right of the notification.

    

37. Once the event invite starts processing/sending, it will be moved to the Processing tab. Once the notification starts sending, it cannot be stopped or deleted (not even by Fundly Support).

    

38. After one or more notifications are sent, you will be able to see ROLL-UP metrics for all notifications sent on the event notification index page including # sent, # bounced, and # opened total across all notifications sent. NOTE: All emails received by people using the Apple mail privacy feature will be opened at least once by a robot. The Open section can't differentiate if it was open by a robot or by a real user. We suggest referring on the Click rather than Open for reliable metrics as clicks always comes from real users, not robot.
    

    

39. Clicking any of the metric items will bring up a list of contacts who are in that category.

    

40. Clicking on an individual notification in the sent list will bring up a list of metrics just for that one notification.

    

    

41. Clicking on any of the metric items will bring up a drill down list of recipients in that category.

    

42. Selecting Edit from the drop down to the right of any contact will allow you to edit the contact's email address (using the drill down list to identify those with a bounced email or messages that failed to send will allow you to update the contact email address(es) here instead of navigating to edit contact).

    

    

43. Selecting Delete from the drop down here will delete the contact's email address from their record.

    

44. You can delete the email address from multiple contact records by clicking the white check box to the left of each name and clicking the blue "Delete Selected Contact Email(s)" button in the lower right.