Events and registrations

Events are the dated things people come to: a retreat, a class, a conference, a family night. Each event can take free registrations, with an optional limit on places and a waitlist, and appears in the website's event lists with a Register button.

When to use this

• A ministry is planning something people should sign up for.
• You need to know who's coming, and how many.
• On the day, to check people in at the door.

Create an event

1. Open Forms and events › Events and select New event.
2. Add the title, date, start and (optionally) end time, all in Central time. Leave the start empty for an all-day event.
3. Add the location, who it's for and a description.
4. Choose an image from the site's own illustrations. Photos of people aren't used for events.
5. Under Registration, decide whether to take free registrations (see below).
6. Select Create event. When it's ready to be seen, tick Show this event on the website preview (or use Save and show on website).

Paid registration comes later; for now, every registration is free.

Capacity and the waitlist

• Tick Limit places and enter the capacity in people, not in sign-ups. A family of four registering together takes four places.
• Tick When it's full, take a waitlist to keep collecting names once every place is taken. Without it, registration simply closes when the event is full.

When someone cancels, the first person on the waitlist can be given their place from the event's registrations page (Give a place). They aren't moved up automatically, so you stay in control of who's told.

Registration form and close date

• Registration form: the simple form asks for name, email, phone and who's coming. Choose one of your forms instead if you need more, such as T-shirt sizes or dietary needs, or build a new one from the link. Every name in a form's Attendees question counts toward capacity.
• Registration closes: the last day people can register. Leave it empty to keep registration open until the event.
• Owner: the team told about each registration, by its shared mailbox.

Show it on the website

A published event appears in every event list on the website, with a Register button. To give it a section of its own on a particular page, place it from the Back-office page editor.

Check people in at the door

Open the event's Registrations page:

• Select Check in beside each person as they arrive; it changes to Here. The counts update as you go.
• Add a walk-in registers someone on the spot.
• Move someone up from the waitlist with Give a place, or cancel and restore registrations.
• Export CSV downloads the list, without private answers.
• Email registrants writes to everyone registered, on the waitlist, checked in or not yet in. In the sandbox the emails go to the captured outbox.

Good to know

• Events built here and events in the website's own Events collection both appear in the site's event lists.
• Registration confirmations come from the operational lane, so they reach people even if they've opted out of church news.

Top tips

• Set capacity a little below the room's true limit: walk-ins always appear.
• Email the waitlist when a few places open up, rather than one at a time; it's kinder and quicker.
• Use a registration close date a few days before the event, so you have time to plan food and supplies.

Troubleshooting

The Register button doesn't show on the website. Check Show this event on the website preview is ticked, and that registration hasn't closed or filled without a waitlist.

The places taken look too high. Capacity counts people, not sign-ups. Look at the registrations: each shows how many people it covers.