A tip I got from Cvent's Tech Support Team:
Session Registration Type Capacity Waitlist
We had session-level capacities for each of our registration types within each session plus our event planning team wanted a session waitlist. This workaround was feasible because we only had three registration types and two sessions.
- Enter event-level capacities in Event Details > Registration Types
- Create a session for each registration type,
- Limit attendance to a specific registration type
- Set capacity
- Turn on waitlist
6 sessions were created and availability limited to each Registration Type
Session 1 - Registration Type A
Session 1 - Registration Type B
Session 1 - Registration Type C
Session 2 - Registration Type A
Session 2 - Registration Type B
Session 2 - Registration Type C
What are other ways people are building out this situation?
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Loretta Peterson
Events Associate
CDW
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Original Message:
Sent: 06-23-2021 11:25
From: Danielle Czark
Subject: Waitlist Refresher
Welcome back to the next edition of Tip of the Week! So, returning to in-person events may mean you are using some features that maybe you haven't used recently due to a virtual format. One that comes to mind may be the waitlist features, whether that be the overall event waitlist to manage the onsite capacity, or the session waitlist to manage the room capacities.
Let's review how to configure these and some tips to efficiently manage this process:
- Event Waitlist:
- First, you can enable the Event Waitlist feature within Event Configuration.
- Next, customize how you'd like the page to appear when someone adds themselves to the waitlist for your overall event.
- Within the Flex Site Designer, access the menu to the left of the canvas and scroll to the Other section to select the Waitlist page.
- Use the Build menu similar to the actual Registration Process and add the fields and information you'd like to collect.
- Now, consider how you'd like to manage this process once the waitlist is officially open. Will it be all manual by you and your team, or automated?
- If manual, you can still use the Waitlist Notification email to notify an invitee when a spot has opened up. It is just your responsibility to manually send that email and monitor if they complete the process.
- If automated, use the Waitlist Notification email to send out when a spot opens up and even set how long an invitee has to fill the spot, as well as how it should be prioritized to the next invitee.
- For prioritization, this depends on your event and the attendees. If it is generally open to the public, consider setting this to 'Waitlisted date' so the system can go in order. If you are looking for more attendance from a certain type, such as VIPs, you can set it to prioritize by Contact Type.
- Familiarize yourself with any manual steps, such as ad-hoc adding or removing an invitee from the waitlist. Review this helpful Knowledge Base article to learn all the ins and outs of managing waitlisted invitees.
- Session Waitlist:
- Although the thought process behind a session waitlist is very similar to the event waitlist, how it is configured and managed in your Flex event is slightly different.
- You can enable a session waitlist in the session settings under the Status & Capacity section. Once you choose to enable this, you can also set a waitlist capacity if desired.
- For a visual understanding of how this functions, an invitee can navigate through the registration process as usual, and then when viewing and registering for all the various sessions, instead of selecting this session it will instead prompt them to Join Waitlist with a Capacity Full message.
- Now, the process is similar where you can use the Session Waitlist Notification to either manually notify a registrant, or automatically send them the notification and use different send settings and prioritization to manage this.
- Since this process is built into your event, consider using this to your advantage when promoting break-out sessions or unique experiences that you're looking to draw some attention and excitement to.
Questions for You:
- How are you using the waitlist features today, whether for in-person or virtual events?
- Do you use the waitlist notification email or do you manage the process through a different method?
Let us know below! #CventTip
#Flex-Creating/ManagingEvents
#PromotingYourEvent
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Danni Czark
Senior Associate, Online Community Marketing
Cvent
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