General FAQ - Setting Up an Event

An event is a single happening that has a start date, end date, and a location. The event is the starting point for creating both online registration forms and websites. All registrations belong to an event. Event setup is the foundation of both registrations and registration reports.

The Event List is the page you see when you log in to Certain. The Event List is where you click on an Event to manage it and view registrants for the event.

The first page you see when accessing an event is the Event Dashboard. The Event Dashboard provides setup options. The Event Dashboard provides summary data about registrants.

See our instructions for creating events for three ways to get started creating your first event.

We recommend the following process to successfully configure your event:

| Step 1: Configure event details | Step 2: Create forms and customize | Step 3: Add optional components | |---|---|---| | Event Details | Profile (collect personal data) | Agenda (establish an agenda that attendees can browse and select from) | | Primary Location or Venue | Attendee Types (determine how registrants choose or are placed in attendee types) | Payment (how will attendees pay if they need to?) | | Primary Registration Contact | Questions (collect additional information about attendees) | Accommodation (enable attendees to reserve a hotel room) | | Attendee Types | Verify (enable attendees to verify and/or edit their information) | Additional Registrations (enable attendees to register other attendees) | | Event Questions | Confirmation (provides attendees with final data on their registration) | Logic (create conditional rules that cause things to happen on the form or behind the scenes) | | Custom Registration Statuses | | Custom HTML (displays additional optional messages on the form) | | Configure Event Settings | | |

Next, continue the process to publish your forms.

You have several options:

Post links to the forms on your public Website.
Create a Website inside of Certain to market your event.
Email a link to your registration form to potential attendees.

Event Setup

Each event has a start and end date and status. The event status determines whether the event is in testing mode or is accepting live registrations. The event status can also be used to keep track of when the event physically takes place. Basic event setup also consists of choosing which Functional areas are needed for the event (see the Plan > Configure > Options page).

Functional areas, such as Finance or Accommodation, can be enabled or disabled depending on which features you need in order to run your event. If you do not need to collect fees for an event, you can disable the Finance and E-commerce modules.

Modify basic event settings (details)

Location / Venue

Each event can be assigned a primary venue. The primary venue can be unique to the event. The primary venue can also be taken from the account's database of previously used suppliers. The event's primary venue is defined on the Plan > Event Setup > Details page.

Registration Contact

Each event can be assigned a registration contact. You can select a registration contact from the account's list of registration contacts. You can also add a registration contact to that list as part of assigning that contact.

Do this under 'Contact' on the Plan >Event Setup > Detail page.

Attendee Types

Registrations for an event are divided into one or more attendee types (e.g., attendee, sponsor, guest, employee, etc.). Attendee Types are created and modified on the Plan > Event Setup > Attendee Types page.

Here the planner can:

Select an attendee type from the ones available to the event, or create a new one.
Modify the attendee type, default status, and confirmation text.
Set limits on the number of registrations in this attendee type for both the event and a single order.
Assign date-based registration and cancellation fees for the attendee type.
Designate a passcode to the attendee type and send it to all invitees of that type.
Enter projected amounts for all attendee type fees, which are used in budget reports.

Create and modify attendee types (details)

Registration Status

The registrations in an event can be tracked by their status.

Registration status includes standard values of:

Requested Invitation
Waitlist Hold
Invited
Request Denied
Invitation Sent
Pre-registered
Declined Invitation
Cancelled
No-show
Attended

You can create custom registration statuses for each event. Custom registration statuses are created on the Plan> Configuration > Status page.

Modify the event's registration statuses (details)

Custom Questions

An event may contain up to 30 custom questions. The system stores custom question answers for each registration in that event.

Custom questions should collect information that is specific to the event only. Questions that have prices or inventory limits should be set up as agenda items. Questions whose answers describe a person and do not change that much over time should be set up as custom profile questions. Non-event-specific questions should be set up as custom profile questions.

Custom registration questions are created and modified on the Configuration tab > Questions sub-tab.

From the custom question list, you can:

View, reorder, and remove questions in the custom question list
Modify the custom questions

An event has 60 custom questions available to it—30 as custom profile questions and 30 as custom registration questions. Since custom profile questions are set up for an account, all events in that account use the same 30 custom profile questions. Each event can have its own distinct 30 custom registration questions. Each event-specific set of custom registration questions contains event-specific information.

Create and modify custom registration questions (details) The difference between profiles and registrations

How to set up custom profile information for an account

Agenda Items

An event may have many agenda items that occur between the start and end dates. Agenda items may include breakout sessions, optional activities, meals, guest programs, classes, speaker engagements, etc.

You create Agenda Items on the Plan > Event Setup > Agenda page.

On that page, you can:

Edit existing agenda items or create a new ones
Modify the name, online label, and description of the agenda item
Manage agenda items by grouping them by Location, Track, or Session/Group
Limit how many registrants can select an agenda item by assigning it an inventory
Assign date-based and time-based registration and cancellation fees
Assign CEU credits to the item
Enter projected amounts for all agenda item fees, which are used in budget reports

Create and modify agenda items (details) How to create or modify custom questions for agenda items

> Note: If your Certain edition includes it, you may use the Speaker and Session Management features in your event. In that case, you would be setting up "sessions" instead of "agenda items". See Manage > Speakers and Sessions > Sessions.

Payment Processing

Events that involve online payment processing from the attendees must be assigned an e-commerce account. The system uses the e-commerce account to direct the payments received.

Set up an e-commerce account to accept payments online Assign an e-commerce account to an event

Accommodation

The collection of accommodation reservations, including room block and sub-block management, is set up on the Plan > Accommodation page.

Here you can:

Create or modify hotels, room types, and room night inventory limits
Create or modify accommodation blocks and sub-blocks
Select housing options to ask of registrants
Enter optional fees and projected numbers

Room Sharing and Roommate Matching

You can enable or require registrants to share hotel rooms with other registrants if you wish. The Room Sharing and Roommate Matching module provides elements that can be shown on the Accommodation pages of the form as well as Roommate Matching functionality you access from the Accommodation area.

Potential roommates:

Select housing options to ask of registrants
Input roommate matching criteria requirements (e.g., only attendees of the same gender may room together).

Setup Room Sharing and Roommate Matching (details)

Online Display Settings

Each event can have its own custom online display. The custom online display defines the overall look and feel of both Websites and online forms.

The display settings are modified on the Settings tab > Display sub-tab.

This area enables the planner to:

Upload an image for the event
Create custom headers and footers for the page display
Select the page alignment, width, and layout
Select font faces, colors, and sizes
Add custom HTML shells (for advanced users with HTML knowledge, only)

Customize the event display (details)

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