Fast registration or Simplify buying registrations to multiple events or multiple registrations in one event
At the moment, it is not possible to register for multiple events at the same time, or link to the next event after registering for one event on Wild Apricot. This functionality would have been extremely helpful for a recent conference for Children's Hospital that we set up through you...would it be possible to add this feature?
(Malcolm de C) I represent two organisations where the ability to register for multiple events in a single visit would encourage more to registrations and reduce the burden on central administrators who are often asked to register for multiple events on behalf of members.
Perhaps from the List view of upcoming events it might be possible to add a check box to the dialogue box displaying the summary of the event. If there is then a general registration button that looks for all 'checked events' could it be possible to take the user through all 'checked' registrations. The problem, I believe, is always having to find your way back to the event list following each registration - not easy for everyone!
I merged another very similar thread into this one, they should be solved together – the registration to multiple events should be simple and fast if possible. There are a number of suggestions in comments on how to achieve this.
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Julianna Lorey commented
We do a lot of sign-in sheets for certain events, so the ability to quickly register multiple contacts to an event in order to check them in after an event has ended would be helpful.
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Mark commented
I would like to request the following enhancement to the Event registration process: for a Family membership, it would be helpful to be able to register all (or more than one) Family members for an Event. The way it currently functions each member in the family has to register for an Event separately or one member of the Family chooses to register and registers the other member(s) as Guest(s), which misrepresents the number of members (and guests) attending an Event.
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lmcareavy2376 commented
We have many Club Members think they are DONE with their registration process when they click on the DONE button on the Add Guest screen. They don't look for/see the NEXT button after they are returned to their event registration information so they can proceed to their Review and Confirm screen.
No matter how many times we talk about this at events and send out instructions, we have members show up at Events saying they registered but they are not on the list. Our group of members are 55+. So while some members are tech savvy, the term DONE leads them to believe they have successfully registered.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
1. Change the DONE button label to NEXT.
2. Allow the registrant to add one and/or multiple GUEST registrations all at one time instead of having to go back and click the ADD GUEST button to add a 2nd, 3rd, etc. guests. This would streamline the ADD GUEST feature.
3. Change the Ticket Type & Settings to allow the entry of a Guest price for Members and a Guest Price for Non-Members.
REASON FOR THIS RECOMMENDATION: We have multiple members that share a common email address. So to register their spouse for an Event, they MUST use the ADD GUEST function. And we do allow Members to bring non-Members, which we charge a different fee than what we charge for Members.
4. On the ADD GUEST screen, add the requirement that the registrant must indicate if each Guest is a Member or non-Member. This will allow the applicable charge based on the Ticket Type & Settings fee structure. -
pgharmony commented
You need to allow a bundle administrator to add individual bundle members to events ie if the bundles are used for family but only some in the bundle attend an event then we need to be able to have members select which ones are attending. Currently if you try to register again under the same email the system blocks you.
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Corrie Geurts commented
Please remove the word guest and count them in the registration numbers.
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Laura Perez-Handler commented
We would like for there to be a way to register a group of people with different Registration Types. For example, we would like to register everyone from one district together as a Group Registration so that they get a single invoice. However, the Registration Types and costs are different.
This would be a very useful feature since otherwise we would have to generate our own separate invoices for groups with different Registration Types, which defeats the purpose. -
Michael commented
Alex, thank you, I really appreciate the clarity you have brought to this discussion. I can see now the stronger links you have in place with Personify and WA. NewPath's model is a very successful one across online platforms and I'm sure it will work very well for you and for the many WA clients out there. I may well take another look in time.
I agree, it is becoming more obvious that Wild Apricot is seen by the team as a mature product and the will to invest in anything more than the rough edges is diminishing. Even very simple requests for an extra field here or there, which are popular and would not be technically challenging go without response. If that leads to positive opportunities for you to offer better modules and greater integration then I wish you well.
I can't help but feel if the 'heart' of Personify's allegiance to WA has gone and any real will for them to invest in it's development is lost we will have to review again where our solution lies. Who knows maybe a NewPath/WA solution is the answer, it's on the list as a possible option.
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Alex Sirota commented
Michael
NewPath is a partner for Personify on both Wild Apricot and MemberClicks. We work together closely and try to understand each other’s objectives.
Personify is one of the only companies in the AMS space that has a partner program. They have that for a reason - all successful platforms need partners to make customers successful. Wild Apricot is an all in one solution, but it can’t always be everything for everyone. It’s not a Salesforce type system where you can model anything for a price. So they realize it has a very specific area of capabilities.
I can’t guarantee they won’t ship their own new WordPress plugin, but the lack of maintenance in the existing one tells me they probably won’t. Wild Apricot Login hasn’t been modified in any way in 5 years. They don’t have the resources.
As for price, our plans are to charge fees only for plugins that have a commercial benefit for the organization that uses them in. So if you use our future event registration plugin that will give you lots more flexibility than the built in event workflow WA has, that will hopefully be worth it because it generates value for your organization. This is the freemium business model many WordPress plugins follow. It will be a fraction of Wild Apricot’s yearly fee though.
The idea is to have as many clubs and associations try WordPress at no risk just to see how powerful it really is. It opens all sorts of capabilities unknown to date. And liberates you from needing Wild Apricot from building new features every year. It gives you many more choices!
My hunch is that they believe that Wild Apricot is mature and won’t be investing heavily in much more new modules. They probably will just maintain what they have refining any rough edges.
A modern, fast, responsive website is a must today and the built-in Wild Apricot website module only takes you so far. I hope others will consider this path to having the best of both worlds.
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Michael commented
Alex, thank you. I came to WA after looking at a lot of others and shared your view that it was one of the best out there. One of the things I liked was the way they seemed to respond to clients requests via this board.
I will always prefer a single solution to a business need, accepting that there may be a price for that privilege. Using third party add ons to support a product leaves me with 3 main problems.
1. Development - What if one supplier stops supporting the others or changes theirs so it works better standalone or with new platforms but now conflicts with the co-existence of the ones I now rely on. Will WA, Wordpress and NewPath always play nicely together? Consider if you designed a great LMS solution that integrated with WA. But their recent purchase of MemberClicks means they'd prefer WA clients used that, as opposed to other solutions like yours it's not hard to imagine they could start making that option difficult. Their apparent preference for acquiring solutions in-full rather than build integration leads me to consider these factors
2. Price - now I have to worry about the pricing structure of two or possibly more even companies. I accepted WA's recent increase as it is the only price I pay for the product. You may be offering some Beta Access levels of yours free for now but will that be the case for ever? There is already an annual cost for your Reporting and QuickBooks integration. Don't get me wrong, they look good, you deserve to charge for them and the current rates appear very reasonable. I wish you well with the product line you've developed. But for me, having to include other company's pricing levels into my evaluation of a product rates badly.
3. Product Future - If a company brings a product to market, agreed by us both to be one of the best out there, and then doesn't have the will or skills to innovate and develop that product, the future is not a bright one for any of it's clients. This specific request, with significant support has been here since 2015. If in 6 years the best WA is happy to accept for it's customers by way of solution is - go to NewPath then the writing is on the wall for me.. I sincerely wish you well with your solutions, it looks like you listen to the market and develop accordingly. Do you have any plans for a full AMS solution :-)
If anyone else here has reached the end of this post, I apologise for the length of it, I wonder if the sudden flurry of activity here will stir any response from WA?
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Alex Sirota commented
By the way, you’re never going to find a similar priced solution with this feature set elsewhere. Most systems are aimed at much larger orgs at 2-10x the cost.
I consider Wild Apricot the best deal in the AMS space and pretty much one of the only solutions aimed at tiny to small organizations.
There may be other systems like club express or mighty networks or bespoke WordPress powered systems but none will be as easy to configure or maintain. At least not yet.
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Alex Sirota commented
Michael
This integration issue is always a potential pitfall. But the API wild Apricot developed is the secret weapon of this system. It’s the place all integration will happen and what the mobile apps use.
Instead of relying on the company to innovate in areas where they have no skills (modern content systems) partners could step in like us. And we have and will continue to do so.
If it is commercially viable for us to make plugins and we think it is, we will maintain them for the long term. And the API will also be improved to include all parts of Wild Apricot. It’s already superb and we have built
Https://newpathconsulting.com/warm and
Https://newpathconsulting.com/waqm/ on it. -
Michael commented
Hi Alex, thank you for coming back to me, I'm sure your solution works. The worry for me using these 'linked' solutions is I now need to worry about either side changing. What if WA alter their system and it's no longer compatible with Wordpress integration. Or WordPress alters. Neither side is going to consider the needs of the other other (or me) in their own platform development. I'm sure you have an elegant solution which may well work for many, but it let's WA off the hook a bit when I think they should be responding to the level of demand from users to add this functionality to the platform they offer. It's a worrying trend from WA, if you look at their roadmap, they seem to be focussing on integration with 3rd party apps rather than developing their own platform.
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Alex Sirota commented
Michael
I understand your frustration. I share it. This is why this is not a workaround at all. Most AMS systems don’t even have a website module and integration is always custom.
Our solution is :
Inexpensive- just cost of hosting Wordpress
Capable - we spent 8 person months developing it this summer
Her have a roadmap to replace the whole WA website system with WordPress blocks and themes.
Give it a try seriously. You’ll love it.
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Michael commented
Thanks Alex, whilst that may work it shouldn't be up to us to design workarounds for something that ought to be part of the platform. Even before the new pricing structure this should be a basic function available. Evgeny said in 2015 '[this] they should be solved together. At over 329 votes it's a popular request and should be getting attention. Suggesting a workaround with WordPress makes me consider entirely new platform options that include this facility out of the box as a better solution.
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Alex Sirota commented
One potential idea would be to use WordPress to front end the whole event system and use a plugin to automate the registration to multiple events via the API. We are considering that using our plugin for WordPress
See https://newpathconsulting.com/wap for more.
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Ryan Agostini commented
This request and many more for a better event registration system has been ongoing for a very long time, is this in the cue to be solved? If not, why? If it is when will we see something rolled out?
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CTC Manager commented
If someone has a family membership and wants to register each of their children separately for the same camp or different camps they currently cannot do that. Would be great to change that
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Lindsey commented
For events, allow a registrant (or agency) to register a group of members and non-members with different pricing.
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Michael commented
Being able to register for a number of events and then pay once would be huge benefit for us. We hold a number of grouped events, usually 6 and people often don't want all 6 but a mixture of individual ones relevant to them. The current system of book one then go to the next and book that etc etc is time consuming and fairly archaic. It does seem like a popular idea and yet it appears this thread was first posted in 2009 - is that right?
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Alan B commented
My club has many fishing trips and these fishing trips last many days. The club requires a member to register and pay for the trip which at a minimum would cover the cost of nightly accommodation. In general, we provide members flexibility and allow them to come for as many days as they want. By way of example, if the trip was six days, then a member could book and pay one, two, etc days. Each day can be configured to limit the number of members who can register for the day. This functionality is not provided in Wild Apricot.
We currently use an online ticketing system (OTS) to achieve this and would like to see the functionality provided Wild Apricot so that we can keep all our events within Wild Apricot.