Manage Event Attendance

You can use InterAction to manage tasks associated with events. At your event, you might want to provide name badges for those in attendance. You might also choose to check in your guests or provide a guest registration sign-in sheet. Based on your invitation list, you can easily use InterAction to create name badges, a list of expected attendees, guest sign-in sheets, or other materials necessary for managing your event.

1. If the number of people attending the event is needed to order meals, programs, gifts, etc., run the Contacts and Guests Attending the [Event Name] search.

2. Just prior to the event, run the Contacts and Guests Attending the [Event Name] search to perform the following tasks.

   • Use InterAction’s labels or mail merge functionality to print name badges for the contacts and guests returned in the search results.

   • From the search results window, print the InterAction out-of-the-box Seminar Attendee Checklist report. This report provides a list of event contacts and can be used if people will be checked in at the event.

3. If you will check people in at the event, follow these guidelines:

   • If the event is large, you may want to break up the Seminar Attendee Checklist report alphabetically and have several check-in tables. If you do this, make sure each table also has a complete list, in case people check in at the wrong table.

   • The Seminar Attendee Checklist report includes all invited contacts, regardless of their RSVP response. Guests may show up who did not RSVP, and you will want to confirm that they were invited and record their attendance.

   • As staff members are checking guests in, make sure they know to check for special instructions. These may include notes regarding diet or handicap requirements, messages to give to the guest, etc.

   • After the event, record which contacts actually attended. Run the Contacts and Guests Attending the [Event Name] search. Use the reports that were used to check people in at the event to mark those who actually attended. Set the Attended additional field to Attended.

   • While contacts that attended the event are still marked, add an activity regarding the event of type Attended Event with the name and date of the event in the activity Summary.

   • Search for the names of walk-in attendees or replacement attendees on the check-in list. If the contact is already in InterAction, link it to the event folder and set the Attended additional field to Walk-in. If not, create a new contact and then link it into the event folder and set the Attended additional field. Add a global Attended Event activity for those attendees as well.

   • Similarly, record which contacts did not show up to the event. Run the Contacts and Guests Attending the [Event Name] search. Use the reports that were used to check people in at the event to mark those who did not show up. Set the Attended additional field to No Show.

4. If you will not check people in at the event, follow this procedure.

   • On the day of the event after everyone has arrived, collect remaining, unused name badges.

   • Use these badges to set those contacts’ Attended additional field to No Show.

   • To set the Attended additional field for those who did attend, run a search of the event folder, searching for contacts whose RSVP additional field is Yes or whose Guest of field has any value AND Attended additional field is Empty.

   • Mark all contacts in the search results, and set their Attended additional field to Attended.

   • While search results are still marked, add an activity regarding the event of type Attended Event, with the name and date of the event in the activity Summary.

5. Run a search looking for contacts who need materials for the event shipped.

   • Send the event materials to these contacts who had planned to attend but did not and those who only wished to receive the materials.

   • Mark all contacts in the search results, and use InterAction’s envelopes, labels, and/or mail merge functionality to print event mailing materials.

   • While contacts in the search results window are still marked, add an activity regarding the event of type Marketing Mailing, with Materials sent for [Event Name] in the Summary.

Folder Management

Eventually, the list of folders in the Folder List will become full of obsolete folders for past events. If you were to delete an old folder, however, all the activities that were regarding the folder would also be deleted. If you want to avoid this and still reduce the number of folders in this Folder List, you can archive folders as follows:

• Modify access rights to older folders so that users outside of the Marketing department are not overwhelmed by the number of folders in the folder list. After an event has occurred, remove the Read access right from all users.

• Archive the event folder by changing the current folder type to the Administrative Folder - Archive folder type. Only the System Administrator has rights to make this change.

  After archiving the folder, the System Administrator User becomes the only user with access to the event folder. If necessary, the archived folder can be easily restored so all previous users have access to it.