Hi all,

Was reading lobo's latest blog and I'm almost sure that with these improvments we can have an event smoother event registration. The workflow would be:

1) You create the event

So far so good, same as before

2) You are sending it to some groups using send to mail or civimail.

To have the highest response rate, you need to put in the subject and body the detail of the event (the title, location, date, description, registration link...).

Until now, it involved a lot of copy paste between the event page and the email to be send... or doing it the inefficient way "dude, I'm too lazy to give you the detail on the email so you can figure out what it's all about directly, but click on http://www.example.org/civicrm/event/view?id=42 and you'll get that info"

Beside being cumbersome, it also introduced errors, because the invitation was saved as template, reused but not properly update (eg. you forgot to update the id of the event and end up in the wrong registration, the date was incorrect...)

With the proposed improvment, you would have a template invitation where the proper information is fetched directly from the event thanks to new tokens:

-------------------------------------

Dear {contact.firstname},

I would like you to attend to the event "{event.title}".

Where? {event.location}

When? {event.start_date} until {event.end_date}

More info and map {event.url}

You can register online {event.registration_url}

{event.description}

-------------------------------------

By choosing a template that contains an event token, the mail form will have a new field "event" displayed where you can choose for which event (from a list/autocomplete of upcoming events) that invitation will be customised and so {event.title} contains the right title after the merge in the email sent.

3) The recipient receives the email.

The email contains a special hidden attachment (VCALENDAR), that contains the details of the event invitation in a computer readable format that both gmail and outlook understand (and plenty other mail clients too).

The mail clients display that invitation (in gmail, as a box on the top left corner of the mail)

By clicking on the yes Maybe or no, the contact is automatically added as a participant with the proper status.

4) Sending a "made up your mind?" email one week before the event

Sending a reminder to the ones that did click on "maybe" and that haven't clicked on yes or no. This is done automatically now.

5) Sending a reminder the day before the event

For all those that have clicked yes (or registered online via the form), send a reminder. This is done automatically too, and event organising is becoming less stressful.

6) Name badges

You can generate the name badges and print them the day before the event, without having to get interupted by having to send the reminder (cf point above) and you are feeling more and more happy.

7) Register the attendence during the event

TTTP has developped an external drupal module that provides a searchable list of participants. There is almost no waiting at the registration desk, each person give her/his name ("Arthur"), you type it and the list is filtered to it contains only the Arthurs', you click on the status on the right line (Arthur Dent)  and the status changes from Registered to Confirmed without leaving the page. You give the badge and are ready to register the next one. That's so easy that you are almost laughting remembering the mess it was before civi.

8) Sending a thank you after the event

The list of participant is already updated, the prepared templated message is sent automatically two hours after the event, while you are sipping a cup of champaign with the participants that congratulate you on how smoothly the event was run.

I'm pretty sure the make it happen covers this above points. Lobo, could you confirm ?

If you want to have events as easily run as what presented it, pick up your credit card and make it happen Event a small amount will help.

What's missing in the picture ?

The only points that aren't covered are:

1) being able to complete the "yes, I'm coming", and fill the details that are specific to the event (eg. if you want to register to a workshop, a dietary requirement, the arrival date...).

2) pay for the paid events

This would mean being able to let the participant update an existing registration. That has been a requested feature in the forums. Should we try to make it happen too ? Please comment if you can commit to fund part of the dev.