Waitlists are an effective way of capturing registrations above your event's capacity. The Eventsquid waitlist utility allows you to easily transfer people from the waitlist to the main event with ease.
HOW DO WAITLISTS WORK?
Before we dive in, it's important to understand the basic mechanism behind Eventsquid waitlists, as they work a bit differently than a standard waitlist.
Registering for an event requires that an attendee select specific Registration Items, or options, during the sign up process. These items indicate what exactly the registrant would like to attend (i.e. which breakout sessions or which days of registration).
ITEM-BASED WAITLIST
Thus, waitlists are setup on an individual item-basis. Meaning, any registration item would require its own waitlist. The waitlist is setup as a second registration item that is linked to the "main" registration item.
Transferring a registrant involves simply deleting the waitlist item from their account and adding the main item to their account.
CREATE A WAITLIST
Enter the Event Builder and select the REGISTRATION tab at the top. Then, enter the Registration Items area.
Create a new registration item (Enhanced or Simple). Within the item's settings panel there are two key settings to pay mind to when setting up a waitlist:
- ITEM CAPACITY: in the upper right, take note of the Limit of this item for the event. This is the capacity limit of this item for the event. Setting the limit here will dictate how many registrants can sign up before the waitlist is opened.
- MAKE WAITLIST: in the bottom left, you will see an option to create a waitlist item for your main registration item
NOTE: In most cases, we do NOT recommend altering the capacity limit of the main registration item. The only case you would need to manually alter the capacity limit of the main item is if you are expanding the option to accommodate more seats/spots.
Click the MAKE WAITLIST tab and generate a waitlist for the item. A new item will generate just below your main course item.
If you click the original item, in our case "Foundational Biology", and select the OPTIONS tab on the left, take a look at the WHEN FILLED, OPEN setting. A dropdown will show what item is linked to that item as a waitlist:
In our example shown above, as soon as 25 people register for "Foundational Biology", the "Waitlist for Foundational Biology" item will show itself on the registration form for attendees and allow people to sign up for the waitlist:
Since the waitlist is just like any other registration item, you can set limits and pricing according to your event's business rules.
MANAGING THE WAITLIST
Moving registrants from the waitlist to the main event is easy. First, visit the Event Dashboard. Then, click the name of your event. Select the yellow WAITLIST button on the left of the control panel:
The waitlist utility will open. From here, use the dropdown menu in the upper left to select the main item you would like to move waitlisted registrants into.
Remember, the only options that will show in the dropdown menu WAITLISTED ITEM are registration items that have met BOTH of the following conditions:
- The item has open spots to accommodate new registrants
- The item has a connected waitlist item
You can see in the example above that "Foundational Biology" has a total capacity limit of 9 registrations and currently has 1 open slot. In the list below, you will see current waitlisted registrants. Click the ADD TO WAITLISTED ITEM to add the waitlisted registrant to the main item.
If the SEND EMAIL checkbox is selected, then adding this person to the main item will also trigger an automated notice to the registrant, letting them know they have been moved off of the waitlist.
HOW TO FREE UP REGISTRATION SPOTS
You can use the Dashboard to remove people from the main item in a couple different ways. First, click the name of your event on the Dashboard. Then, click the Registered Attendees button to open the list of active registrants:
- DELETE REGISTRANT: click the red X button to the left. This will remove the registrant from the event and all items they signed up for
- CANCEL REGISTRANT: click the red CANCEL button to the right of the registrant's name - this will remove them from all items they registered for
- SCRATCH ITEM: click the name of a registrant, then click the small circle-strikethrough icon next to the waitlisted item - this will remove their reservation from that specific item, thus releasing a slot
- DELETE ITEM: click the name of a registrant, then click the red X icon to the left of the waitlisted item - this will remove their selection and release a spot in that particular item
INCOMPLETE REGISTRANTS
The registration process allows people in the process of registering a certain amount of time to reserve their spot in a waitlisted item.
From the moment a registrant selects an item in the form, they have 20 minutes to complete checkout while their spot is reserved (in their shopping cart). If the registrant has not completed checkout within 20 minutes, their spot is released to the next registrant.