General FAQ - Managing Profiles

General FAQ - Managing Profiles

Profiles contain contact (name, position, email address, etc.) and profiling (demographics, product interest, business category, etc.) information for current and past attendees, and individuals who might attend future events. Profiles may be potential attendees, previous attendees, existing customers or members, exhibitors, sponsors, etc.

A new profile is created automatically with every new registration entered into the database. Each account has its own database of profiles, enabling you to separate the contact information of different companies or divisions into different accounts.

The Difference Between Profiles and Registrations

A profile contains the information about an individual that does not change from one event to the next. A registration contains information about an attendee that is specific to one event.

If an account's customers or members attend more than one of the account's events, the profile database collects and stores information from one event to the next. This approach avoids asking the attendee to re-enter that information with each new registration.

Setting up Custom Profile Information for an Account

Since each account has its own profiles database, the account structure must be established prior to setting up custom profile questions for the account. After the account structure is finalized, the account determines what profiling information to collect for each account. Profile information should be independent of any event.

For example, a Technical Group account and a Marketing Group account might use sample custom profile questions like the following.

• Technical Group Account
• Select job classification (IT, developer, webmaster, other)
• Select areas of interest (Software, hardware, networks, other)
• Marketing Group Account
• Years of experience (>20, 15-20, 10-15, 5-10, <5)
• Media used (TV, radio, newspaper, magazines, email, other)

In the above cases, answers to each custom question provide more detailed information about a specific profile. Profile custom question answers are independent of any single event.

Bad examples of profile questions are:

• Are you bringing a guest?
• Will you attend the pre-event dinner function?

Answers to bad example profile questions are event-specific. Event-specific answers may change from one event to the next.

Event-specific questions should be created as custom registration questions. Event-specific questions should not be created as profile custom questions.

After deciding what questions should be stored with profiles, the account can create up to 30 questions of any type (including pre-defined answer options) for the account. Custom profile questions are created in Account Settings > Custom Profile Data.

How to set up custom registration questions for an event

Managing Profile Information

The profile database can be managed independently of a single event. Click the Profiles tab to search for an individual profile record (using QuickSearch or Query Profiles). Select a record to view or modify.

Profiles contain the following information:

• Contact information
• Other information (custom profile questions)
• Alternate address
• History

Sending Messages to Profiles

A user can send email messages to individual or groups of profiles. Common messages include:

• Invitations to an event
• Solicitations to exhibit or sponsor an event
• Reminders to potential attendees who have not registered yet
• Routine communication (newsletters, etc.)

Allowing Profiles to Access Information Online

Profiles can use their username and password to access their personal information online. Profiles use access to make modifications to their profile record. Profiles also use access to register for an event.

The username and password combination must be unique. The system creates the username and password in one of these ways:

• The planner sets up the online registration form to collect a username and password. Certain validates that the username is unique in the database before accepting the username request.
• The planner assigns the username and password when the planner creates the registration (manually or via data import).
• The planner has Certain automatically generate a username and password when the profile is created.