It is most beneficial to follow along this article and try and replicate exactly what is done. Then, you can practice with your own event scenario.
Click HERE to see a video demonstration of the Full Guest Registration setup process.
Click HERE to see a video demonstration of the Simple Guest Registration setup process.
Read on for a written walkthrough of the Full Guest Registration setup process.
FULL GUEST REGISTRATION INTRODUCTION
The Full Guest Method gives your event registration the following key benefits:
- Registrants can earn (or be awarded) additional registrations
- These additional registrants can either register themselves or be registered by the primary
- Additional registrants are required to create a user account and fill out a full registration form
- You are able to customize the registration form for additional registrants
- Additional registrants are linked to the primary registrant
USE CASES
Here are a few common scenarios in which we recommend using the Full Guest Record tool:
- Exhibitors register full teams of representatives to man the booth - each representative is also allowed to register for sessions and meals at the conference
- Sponsors are awarded additional registration passes with their package - each of these invited attendees will need to submit a full registration form with their event selections
- Attendees can bring a spouse to the event - you need to record the spouse's information and event itinerary selections
With the examples above in mind, you can see that the "guest" tool can be used for many scenarios in which the invited party/parties are not actually referred to as guests. This tool allows you to label invited registrants as you wish.
Today, we'll walk through a fairly basic scenario to help you grasp the various concepts of this tool:
Registrants can choose the standard or VIP option for themselves. Then, registrants can opt to buy one of two guest pass types (VIP Guest or Standard Guest). If the attendee purchases a guest pass, the additional attendee must fill out a full registration form and indicate their event selections.
SETUP THE FRAMEWORK
The first step in turning on the Full Guest Method is to build the framework, which includes the following key pieces:
- Custom Profiles
- Registration Items
These two key pieces must be considered for both the PRIMARY registrant (initial registrant) and the GUEST registrant (invited party).
CUSTOM PROFILES
It's helpful to consider the needed Custom Profiles first, as this dictates the registration pathways you will build.
For our event, we need:
- A profile for all primary attendees to pass through - this will be the only profile available to folks first visiting the site to register and pick their options
- A profile for VIP guests that are invited by a primary attendee
- A profile for Standard guests that are invited by a primary attendee
Hop into the Custom Profiles tool within the REGISTRATION tab of the Event Builder. For our example event, we're going to create three custom profiles:
- Attendee Registration
- VIP Guest
- Standard Guest
Now, we will create the registration items that will appear on each of these profiles.
REGISTRATION ITEMS
Here are the items our example event needs (screenshot and descriptions provided below):
- 2 registration items that are mutually exclusive (can't select both)
- Standard Pass
- VIP Pass
- 3 activity items that are mutually exclusive (can't select more than 1)
- Cool Tour
- Happy Tour
- Intense Tour
- 2 special activity items that are mutually exclusive (can't select both) AND excluded IF the registrant selects the Standard Pass
- Secret Tour
- Super Secret Tour
- 2 guest invitation items that will award the registrant an extra guest, which are mutually exclusive (can't select both)
- Standard Guest
- VIP Guest
To create these options, enter the REGISTRATION tab within the Event Builder, then click the Registration Items tool on the left of the screen.
CHALLENGE
Create all 7 registration options above, with the following requirements:
- You cannot pick both pass types - you're either Standard or VIP
- You cannot pick more than 1 Tour option
- You cannot pick more than 1 Secret Tour option
- You may not pick either of the Secret Tour options if you are Standard attendee
HINT: use the EXCLUDE ITEMS tool within each registration item to disallow other items based on any given item. If you are unfamiliar with the Exclude Items tool, click HERE to watch a tutorial.
CONNECT ITEMS TO PROFILES
After building Custom Profiles and Registration Items, we can connect them (click HERE for a video primer on Custom Profiles). Navigate back to the Custom Profiles tool and click the Pencil Icon to edit your first profile:
The first section in the profile editor is called PROFILE ITEMS. This section of the Custom Profile editor allows you to indicate which registration items should appear on that registration form. For the Attendee Registration profile, go ahead and check the box next to all items.
Now click the BACK TO PROFILE LIST button at the top right of the screen, then click the ACTIVATE checkbox to turn on the profile.
Next, you'll follow the same step for your other two profiles:
- In VIP Guest, check the box next to all options except for:
- Standard Pass
- In Standard Guest, check the box next to all options except
- VIP Pass
- Secret Tour
- Super Secret Tour
Once complete, click the ACTIVATE checkbox for both profiles in the Custom Profile tool.
CONFIGURING GUEST SETUP
Now that the key registration components are configured, we can implement the Full Guest mechanism.
Conceptually, we need the following to be done by the Full Guest tool:
- 1) System to recognize when someone has purchased a guest pass
- 2) System to recognize what type of guest that person is
- 3) A way for that guest to be registered or register themselves in the system
FULL GUEST REGISTRATION SETUP
Navigate to the REGISTRATION tab in the Event Builder. Then, click the GUEST SETUP tool on the left. Flip the activation switch in the upper right corner.
You'll see below that the Guest Setup tool is broken down by steps. The first step is to select the method you'll be choosing - select the Full Record Method.
Below, you'll see the three steps to setting up Full Guest registration:
- INVITED PARTY LABEL: this is where we can rename "guests" to another term
- SET TRIGGER(S): designate the item(s) that are responsible for awarding an extra slot
- GUEST ITEMS: determine which items should be seen by invited registrants
1. RE-LABEL
Feel free to change the label of invited registrants to something more suitable than "Guest" if you'd like.
2. SET TRIGGERS
In essence, items tell the system how many guest slots should be awarded to the Primary Registrant.
In the steps above, we created two items that should be given the trigger designation:
- VIP Guest
- Standard Guest
These items, when picked, should indicate [to the system] that the registrant has earned a guest slot. To set the trigger designation for each item:
- Check the box next to each invitation item to set it as a trigger
- Keep the privilege to "Registrant +1" - this way, each item (whichever is picked) is worth 1 guest
- Then, align the triggering item with the registration profile that it corresponds to
QUICK TIP: You should now see how the Custom Profiles we created for guests ("Standard Guest" and "VIP Guest") come into play. What we can do is direct the guest registrants to the right profile.
Said another way, the registrants that buy a "Standard Guest Pass" will get a guest that can register under the "Standard Guest" profile. The registrants that buy a "VIP Guest Pass" will get a guest that can register under the "VIP Guest" profile.
Keep in mind, for other events, you can use the profile routing ability in a few different ways (i.e. control the triggering item and guest profile connection). For a given triggering item, you can:
- Leave all profiles un-checked so the guest registrant has the option of any available profile
- You can turn on a couple profiles to narrow down the offered profiles
- You can select only 1 profile, which forces the guest triggered by that item, into that profile
In our example above, we will make sure that we direct Standard Guests to the right profile, just like VIP Guests. There is no option - the pass type that the initial registrant purchases will dictate the profile of their guest.
NOTE: if you do not see your 3 custom profiles stacked up on the right side of each triggering item, then you need to make sure you have allocated registration items to each of your custom profiles properly as well as ACTIVATED all of your profiles.
Go back and ensure your Custom Profile grid looks like this:
3. SETUP GUEST FORM
In the last step of the Guest Setup tool, we need to determine which items that are already present on the registration form should also be viewable by "guest" registrants.
NOTE: you will not see your invitation items (the items you designated as triggers in the previous step) in this list. That is because triggering items are automatically disallowed by being show to "guest" registrants, to prevent a scenario wherein guests can trigger guests. This could create a very complex registration scenario.
Each item has the same 3 options:
- Show ONLY on Primary
- Show BOTH on Primary and Guest
- Show ONLY on Guest
These 3 options cover any scenario you might encounter.
Some items should only be viewable by the initial/main registrant (in our example, only the triggering items would follow that criteria).
Other items should be viewable to both primary registrants and the guests they are bringing (in our example, we are going to flip all items to this option). This is very common for events that offer activity/session selection for primary registrants and their guests.
Finally, there may some items within your event that should only be viewable to guests (we don't have this in our scenario, but a few common examples include "guest activities", free registration options for guests, etc.).
Once an item is made accessible to guests, the dropdown on the far right will light up. It gives you the ability to make an item free for guests. Otherwise, you can keep the item's pricing the same as it is for primary registrants.
EXAMPLE: VIP registrants need to pay for themselves and their VIP guests; VIP guests don't need to pay since the person that invited them already paid for them to attend.
- The main VIP registration item will have a base price
- The VIP Guest triggering item will have a base priceWith this in mind, set a base price on the TRIGGERING item
- However, when guests register, they have to select the main VIP registration item as well..
- Thus, we can set the main VIP registration item to "show on BOTH primary & guest"
- Then, set the main VIP registration item to "Free for guests"
At the very bottom of Step 3 of the Guest Setup tool, you can disallow primary registrants from inviting guests. This would require main registrants to register on behalf of their guest, rather than sending them an email invitation to register themselves. Each event is different! Make sure you enable the best strategy for your audience.
TEST GUEST REGISTRATION
After finalizing steps 1-3 of the Guest Setup tool, go ahead and give your registration a test. As a best practice, make sure to test all possible guest pathways (i.e. Standard Guest and VIP Guest).