Self-service online event registration process
Process overview
Event registration consists of five (5) basic steps:
- Step 1 - Check registration availability and registration types - see registration types )
- Step 2 - Fill out event registration form (including options which change the total registration fee)
- Step 3 - Enter any guest registrations (if registration type is setup with this option)
- Step 4 - Final review and confirmation
- Step 5 - Payment
Step 1 - Check registration availability and registration types
Each event registration begins with the registrant entering an email address. This is an important step because the email address is used to identify the registrant as a new contact or existing contact/member, and then based on that information will check present available registration types.
The email check happens once an email has been entered and the user clicks on the [Next] button. The registration process will also check to see which registration types are available for the contact registering for the event.
This step can have one or many registration types available to the user. Different registration types with different prices may be available to the public users and to the members.
- If the email is found in your database and it matches a contact which is not a member, the registration will proceed normally. Contact card fields filled out on the event registration form are stored in each event registration and do not affect the original contact card. For example, you might have a contact card originally created under 'Jim Black' and have two event registrations attached to it under 'Jim C. Black' and 'James Black'.
- If the email is found and it belongs to a member, the user will see a message suggesting to login in order to auto-fill contact information. Also, the member may have more options to choose from in the Registration types.
Note: when a logged-in member registers for an event, basic contact information is pre-filled automatically from the member's profile. However, if the system has determined membership status only by email match, information can not be pre-filled for security reasons (since someone else might enter member email and system should not disclose member contact information).
- If the user already registered for the event he will see an "already registered for event..." message and will be offered to login to view existing information.
Note: depending on the event registration types, the user may also see a message "some registration types are only available for members" and the system will offer to apply for a membership first.
This is useful when you want to up-sell your membership to new event attendees. See Event Registration Types.
- If the email is not in the contact database yet, user will be presented with publicly available registration types.
- Event can be setup with members only registration types that can be set to be visible on the registration page and will be available to new members only. In this case, a message saying "some registration types are only available for members" will appear and it will offer to apply for a membership first.
- Also, registration types for the event can be limited to members and hidden from the public. In this case system will show a message that says event registration is not available for public.
From here the contact can proceed with event registration. Note that if contact applied for membership, they can always return to the event registration and then select members-only registration type.
If the event registration is setup with restrictions and is not available to the registrant, Wild Apricot will display a message that registration is not available
Step 2 - fill out registration form
User is asked to fill out a registration form including any additional costs that may be associated with the event.
See Customize event registration form and Extra event registration costs (dynamic event pricing)
Click [Next] button to continue.
Step 3 - enter any guest registrations
If your registration type is set up to allow multiple registrations (see Guest event registration), the registrant can enter them here. If you are only collecting the number of guests, you can do it on the registration page. If you are also collecting additional information about the guests, the registrant can add a guest by clicking on the [Add guest] button.
And then fill out the guest information
For more details and options for guest registrations, see - Guest event registration
Step 4 - review and confirm registration details
Next button opens Review and confirm page.
From here, registrant can always go back and adjust any details of the registration by clicking on the [Back] button, or they can continue by clicking on the [Confirm and proceed with payment] button (if applicable).
Clicking on [Confirm and proceed with payment] button will generate a new invoice and do the following:
- If the registration was done by a logged in member - system will take him to Invoices and payment tab to complete the payment
- If the registration was done by an existing contact but contact did not login - system will create a temporary profile from where contact will be able to complete the payment
- If the registration was done by a new contact (as illustrated in this example) - system will create a new contact profile and show Invoices and payment tab from where contact can complete the payment
For more details on completing payments from profile see View account history and pay invoices
See also
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