The Basics of Event Registration

Before getting too deep, let's establish some of the key terms and concepts related to event registration.

A Typical Event Registration

Hang in there - we're almost to the meat. First, we'll do a quick overview of what an event registration will look like to your members. The example below uses the default registration out of the box. While you'll see that this experience is simple and mobile-friendly, we plan to create even simpler experiences for very basic registrations (think: give me your name and we're done).

Let's get some background on the registration we're walking through below. In this case Ted Decker will be registering his two children Noah and Alexis, as well as Alexis' best friend Katie for camp. The camp costs $200 but also has an optional fee for a t-shirt.

1Step one

Tell us how many people you plan on registering. Technically, you'll only see this screen if you've enabled Allow Multiple Registrants. Otherwise, you'll be limited to a single registrant. As you can see, Ted has selected three registrants.

2Information 1

And we’re off! We'll start by entering the information required for the first child. In this case Ted has entered Katie's information. Because the registration was configured to Ask if registrants are in the same family, that's exactly what it's doing. This will help make sure that the data that is entered into Rock is consistent with the actual family structure of the individuals being registered.

3Information 2

Now we see the entry form for the next child. Let's pause here for a second and mention that while this case has one form for each registrant, Rock allows you to configure multiple entry screens for each registrant. OK, back to the registration. You'll see that Ted has entered Alexis' information and has indicated that Alexis is not in the same family as Katie.

4Information 3

Now it's Noah’s turn. Again, notice the family selection. Ted has selected that Noah is in the same family as Alexis.

5Payment

Now it's time to pay up! Here we see a nice breakdown of the costs and fees. We have the opportunity to enter a discount code as well as enter the amount we wish to pay today. You'll also note that the registrar can enter their information here too. Like the registrants, they can select which family they belong to.

6Confirmation

Done!

Overview

Creating events involves much more than the event details. Events include but are not limited to, registrations, groups, calendar occurrences, and well... finances.

Let’s jump right in and look at this tool, and all it has to offer.

Take the Step

Summer is coming, and that means camp is right around the corner. You’ve had camps in previous years, so the registration template is solid with everything a registration needs for this event to be successful. This year, you and the rest of the administrative staff have decided to pass the baton to staff members to create their registrations in Rock. This is a huge deal, pat yourself on the back for this great handoff.

But wait! The Students Director isn’t the most tech savvy person to be creating registrations in Rock. Are you sure this is a good idea? Yes, it’s still a good idea; in fact, it’s the best idea you’ve had in a while. It takes five simple steps to create a typical registration, and some of these steps are even optional.

Administrators have no fear, check out the Event Wizard Block Properties section for details on customizing this tool for the whole staff. As for the rest of your staff, use the below steps for training purposes on using this tool.

Wizard in Use

Ted Decker has recently stepped into the temporary role of overseeing all students’ and kids’ events, and they are making plans for this year’s summer camp. With all the details in hand, Ted is going to log into his Rock account and begin creating the registrations for camp.

He’ll open the Event Wizard page (that you have so kindly configured for him) and he’ll begin by choosing the registration template. Mentioned above, the registration templates will already be created and ready for use. If for some reason someone needs a different template, you’ll want to create that for them and make sure it’s allowed on their Event Wizard block settings.

Follow along the step-by-step settings on the Event Wizard below.

1 Registration Template

A drop down with preconfigured registration templates. This will populate the Registration tab with the needed information for the type of event.

2 Campus

Choose a specific campus that the registration belongs to or choose “All”.

This option is only enabled if calendar events are enabled in the block settings.

If this option is enabled and a specific campus is selected (rather than “All”), it will also set the campus for the group created in step 3.

3 Contact

Use the person picker to choose the primary contact for the registration. This will be the logged in person automatically.

1 Registration Name

This is the name that will be shown during the registration process. It’s used to describe the event that you are registering for.

2 Registration Starts

The date the registration is open.

3 Registration Ends

The date the registration is closed.

4 Send Reminder Date

The date and time a reminder will be sent.

5 Maximum Attendees

The total number of people allowed to attend the event.

6 Cost

Registration Cost. This will only appear if the cost is not set on the template.

7 Minimum Initial Payment

The minimum amount a person must pay to register for the event. Leave this blank if the full amount is due at the time of registration. This will only appear if the cost is not set on the template.

8 Account

The account where the payments will be collected. This can be set by default in the template. It is a required field.

9 Default Payment Amount

Setting an amount here will default the payment amount for the person who is registering to the amount you choose. Often, you'll want the Minimum Initial Payment and Default Payment Amount to be the same. This will only appear if the cost is not set on the template.

10 Public Name

This section will autofill from the registration name. It can optionally be changed to something different from the registration name.

11 Slug

A slug is a standard web term that refers to a part of a web address that identifies a page or component of a page using human-readable keywords. In most cases the slug can be whatever you want but try to use only letters and numbers if possible because some special characters may cause issues with browsers. Dashes are okay to use in slugs if needed.

12 Registration Customization

Contains the Registration instructions, additional reminder details, and additional confirmation details. Review the Registration Instances chapter in this manual for more details.

1 New Group

You can either create a new group, or use an existing group. In this image we're creating a new group.

2 Existing Group

Alternatively, you can use an existing group into which registrants will be placed.

3 New Group Name

Create your event group that the registration will place registrants into.

4 Parent Group

Choose a parent group for the new group to be under.

1 Event

Dropdown to choose a preconfigured Event Item from the calendar list.

2 New Event

If the block setting allows for it, you can create a new event on this page.

1Location Description

The description of where the event will be held.

2Schedule

When will the event occur? Check out the Event Occurrences section for more details.

3Occurrence Notes

This note will be shown on the calendar details screen on the public website.

The rest of this document provides more details for the steps above with some additional settings that can be set. However, this tool will get any event off the ground and ready for registrants.

Event Wizard Block Properties

1 Name

Block property name.

2 Default Account

Selects the financial account which will be pre-filled on page two if the cost is set on the instance.

3 Default Calendar

This calendar will be pre-selected by default if the staff person is permitted to create new calendar events.

4 Available Registration Template

The list of templates the staff person can pick from.

5Root Group

The start of the group tree for the staff person to pick a parent group.

6 Registration Instance Page

Determines which page the "View Registration Instance" link in the final confirmation screen will take you to.

7 Group Viewer Page

Determines which page the "View Group" link in the final confirmation screen will take you to.

8 Require Group

Yes or No to require a group for created event registrations.

9 Set Registration Instance Active

If set to "No", the new registration instance will be created, but marked as inactive.

10 Enable Calendar Events

If calendar events are not enabled, registrations and groups will be created and linked, but not linked to any calendar event.

11 Allow Creating New Calendar Events

If set to “Yes” the staff person will be offered the “New Event” tab on page four and will be able to create both a new event and a new occurrence for that event.

12 Require Calendar Event

Select "Yes" or "No" to require the staff person to put this registration in an event.

13 Include Inactive Calendar Items

Show inactive calendar items to choose from in the list.

14 Completion Workflow

A workflow that will be launched when a new registration is created.

15Check-in Group Types

Select group types which should enable check-in. If the selected registration template is one of these types, check-in options will be enabled for the group.

16Display Link to Event Details Page on Confirmation Screen

Set this to "Yes" to show the link to the event details page in the wizard confirmation screen.

17External Event Details Page

Determines which page the link in the final confirmation screen will take you to if the Display Link option (above) is enabled.

General Settings

1 Template Name

The name of your template.

2 Active

When a template should not be used anymore you can deactivate it. You could also delete it, but that would also delete all the registrations that use it.

3 Category

To help organize registrations, you can organize and secure them by category.

4 Description

You can optionally provide a description for the template.

5 Group Type / Group Member Role / Group Member Status

These fields help tell Rock what settings to use when it drops the person into a group. In this case they will be placed into the group with the Role of Member and the Status of Active.

6 Allow Multiple Registrants

Fairly straight forward.

7 Max Registrants Per Registration

This indicates how many people you can register at one time. This only applies if Allow Multiple Registrants is enabled.

8 Registrar Options

This option allows the event coordinator to auto-complete the registrar's information with the first registrant's information as well as hide the registration form altogether. This is useful and streamlines the process when the person registering is also the registrar (say, for example when someone is registering themselves for an event). The options for this setting are:

• Prompt for Registrar - This default setting displays the standard registration form and process.
• Prefill First Registrant - This setting auto-completes the registration with the first registrant's information. This is helpful when the registrants don't log in to register for the event, but you still want to auto-complete their information.
• Use First Registrant - This setting also auto-completes the registration with the first registrant's information, but it also hides the registration panel during the Review Registration step of the process unless the form doesn't collect the registrant's email address. In this case, the registration panel will be displayed during the Review Registration step since that information is required for registration communications.
• Use Logged In Person - This setting will use the information of the person who is currently logged in to your website. Any information that is known about the registrar will be "locked" and unable to be edited, but any missing information (for instance, if their email address is blank on their record) will be able to be filled in during the Review Registration step, as above.

9 Registrants In Same Family

Creating the family structures during the registration process can be tricky. This setting allows you to give Rock hints about the people who are registering for the event. If you're hosting a pastors' conference, you'll probably want to enter No since the registrants are most likely not in the same family. Rock will then create new families for each registrant. Yes will assume that all the registrants are in the same family. Ask enables the cool functionality you saw during the walk-thru above. It provides a very elegant way for the registrar to tell you about the family make-up.

10 Show Family Members

Selecting Yes or Ask on the previous Registrants in same Family option, will enable this setting. Checking Yes here allows people who are logged in to select one of their existing family members for each registrant in a convenient drop down list -- a real time saver for family events. If you choose Ask, the family list will not be available until you indicate that the current registrant is in the same family as the currently logged in person.

11 Show SMS Opt-in

When enabled a checkbox will be shown next to each mobile phone number allowing the registrar to enable SMS messaging for this number.

12 Connection Status

If a new person record is created as part of the registration process, this is the Connection Status that will be assigned. Selecting a status here will override the Connection Satus setting in the Registration Entry block's settings.

13 Enable Wait List

Checking this box will enable the wait list functionality. See the Wait Lists chapter below for more details.

14 Notify

When someone registers for an event, we often can't wait to find out. This setting allows you to notify several different parties.

1. Registration Contact: This is configured on the registration instance.
2. Group Followers: The groups that the registration is linked to can be followed by people with view permissions.
3. Group Leaders: All of the individuals that have roles that are marked Is Leader in the group linked to the registration will receive an email.

15 Add Person Note

When checked, registrars and registrants will have a note added to their timeline that denotes that they have registered for the event.

16 Login Required

Requiring the guest to log in ensures that a duplicate record is not created for the registrar, but it does come at the cost of requiring the guest to log in (and possibly register for a login) on your site.

17 Set Cost On

This setting determines where the cost will be set, on the template where all registration instances will share it, or on each individual instance.

18 Financial Gateway

The financial gateway you would like the financial transactions to be processed with.

19 Enable Payment Plans

If you want people to be able to pay for registration costs over time, you can enable this to allow the creation of Payment Plans. We discuss Payment Plans in the Payment Plans chapter.

20 Batch Prefix

Optional prefix to add to the financial batches. If left blank the prefix from the registration block will be used.

21 Cost

The cost of the registration.

22 Minimum Initial Payment

This is the minimum amount that must be paid at the time of registration. Leaving the field blank will have the effect of requiring full payment. A minimum initial payment amount is required to allow partial payments.

23 Default Payment Amount

This is an optional setting that lets you specify the amount to be filled in by "default" when registering for an event. The amount you configure here will be filled in automatically, but the registrar will have the option of changing the amount down to the Minimum Initial Payment, if they wish. Note: this only works if the Minimum Initial Payment is greater than zero.

24 Registration Workflow

This setting allows you to set a workflow to be run with each registration. A similar setting exists on the instance if you need a different workflow per instance. Note that the workflow is only launched if the registration is done through the Registration Entry block on the external site. The Registration entity is passed to the workflow.

25 Registrant Workflow

Here you can specify a workflow to be launched for each registrant within a registration. Both the 'RegistrationRegistrantId' and the 'RegistrationId' will be passed to the workflow. Note that the workflow is only launched if the registration is done through the Registration Entry block on the external site.

26 Required Signature Document

Here you can set an electronic signature document to be signed for each registration. Currently all signature documents are "in-line" and will appear as their own step within the registration process. You'll want to use Rock's native Electronic Signature Document functionality, as well as the Obsidian version of the Registration Entry block, for this to work.

27 Allow External Updates to Saved Registrations

This setting keeps individuals from editing a registration once it has been saved. It's common that someone may come back to a registration to make a remaining payment. While there they can change any of the registrant information. Disabling the feature keeps these edits from occurring.

28 Show Communication Settings

Since the communications settings for a template are rarely changed, we've hidden them from everyday viewing. Select this checkbox to view these settings.

Forms

Now for the fun part - creating the entry form. When you see the power here, you'll have no choice but to smile.

At a minimum you must collect the registrant's first and last name. But in most cases, you'll want to add at least a couple more fields. When adding fields, you have your choice of where and how they're stored. Let's look at the options.

1 Source

Your selection here drives what you ask on the form for this question, and how it's stored. There are four options:

1. Person Field: These fields come right off the person's record. They include things like:
• Campus
• Address
• Email
• Birthdate
• Gender
• Marital Status
• Phone Numbers
• Connection Status
2. Person Attribute: This type allows you to take what they've entered and place it into a person attribute.
3. Group Member Attribute: This allows you to store their entered values into a group member attribute of the linked group.
4. Registrant Attribute: The final type allows you to configure new attributes that will be stored with the registrant.

2 Internal Field

This setting allows you to define the attribute but keeps it from being displayed on the external registration form. It will be made available however when editing the form internally. This is used for internal fields that will be entered after the registration takes place, or for simply displaying, for example, an existing person attribute on the grid for event-administration purposes.

3 Common Value

Filling out forms can be tedious. This setting allows you to take the entered value from the first registration and auto-populate the same field for the subsequent registrants.

4 Use Current Value

In an effort to reduce the amount of data that must be entered, this setting takes the current value from the registrar's record. This is especially helpful for attributes like 'Address'.

5 Required

This simply indicates whether the person must fill out this field before proceeding with the registration.

6 Show on Grid

This will place this attribute on the grid of registrants. It can be very helpful as long as you limit the number of items you put on the grid.

7 Lock Existing Value

If you enable this setting, the person's record will not be updated to reflect what they enter for this field. How this looks to the person registering can vary (see below).

8 Pre-HTML / Post-HTML

Like the workflow entry forms, these fields allow you to surround your entry fields with custom HTML markup. With some basic web design knowledge, you can use these fields to create richer experiences.

Lock Existing Value

As noted above, when adding a form field you can choose to Lock Existing Value. This simply means the person's existing record in Rock will not be changed to match what the person enters during the registration process for the given field.

Let's say you enable this feature on the Birthdate field, and Ted Decker is registering his son Noah for camp. Noah has a record in Rock already, with a birthdate of 3/10/2014. If Ted gives a birthdate of 3/11/2014 during the registration process, it will essentially be ignored and Noah's birthdate will remain locked at 3/10/2014.

Enabling Lock Existing Value on a form field will sometimes mean the field can be seen but not changed. In the example pictured below, this applies to the First Name, Last Name, and Birthday fields.

In the image above it's important to note that Ted used the Family Member to Register drop-down, where he selected Noah Decker. This means Rock knows right away who the registration is for, so the fields with Lock Existing Value are not editable.

However, if the registration template is not configured to Show Family Members then Ted won't have that drop-down list to choose from. In that case, the Lock Existing Value fields will be editable so Ted can provide Noah's information manually. But just because they can be edited on the form doesn't mean the Lock Existing Value setting is ignored for these fields. When the registration is submitted and Noah's record is found, his existing data will still be unchanged. The same is true if Show Family Members is enabled, but Ted is registering someone outside of his family, as pictured below.

Just remember that in the example pictured above, Katie's name and birthdate will not be changed if that information is already in Rock. Those fields can be edited during the registration process, but that's only to allow Ted to complete the form for people outside his family. The Lock Existing Value functionality remains in effect.

Conditional Registration Fields

In many cases unique information will apply to each registrant. Event registration form fields have conditions that control whether they are shown/hidden based on the registrar’s selection of a prior form field value.

The conditional field options will be different based on the Gender selection.

First, we'll have to add the form field on the event registration template. After creating the field, a filter icon-button will be shown on the forms grid.

Clicking on the icon on the Form Field List will display the criteria selection for that field.

Click save. Now you can see that the fields with conditional rules have a highlighted filter button.

Registration Attributes

While customizing the template for your event, you can add Registration Attributes directly from the same section. This would allow for the collection of attributes about the registration that do not pertain to a specific registrant. Use the icon to open the attributes page.

1 Template Name

The name of your template.

2 Registration Attributes

Attribute drop down, located on the main template section below the registrant forms.

3 Add Attribute

Clicking on the plus button opens the attribute window to configure attributes for this event template.

Below you can see the Registration Attribute window open. Here you will create the attribute for the event. In the Categories drop down, you can choose to show this attribute at the start or end of the registration. If a category is not selected, the attribute will display at the end of the registration.

Attribute visibility is mainly controlled by security settings. The 'Public' checkbox pictured above acts as an override for situations where a person has rights to view an attribute, but we want to restrict visibility to attributes on public blocks. To hide a registration attribute, update the attribute's security to staff-only.

Great, now in this event template, every instance will have the same attributes on the registration.

Confirmation Email

After completing the registration, you can set up a confirmation email. This email also acts as an emailed receipt. Remember that the below settings are only visible if you enable Show Communication Settings at the bottom of the page under the 'Terms/Text' section.

While you're free to modify this email, we've provided a template that should work in most cases. Below we've shown what this sample email will look like. Note that the highlighted section comes from the Additional Confirmation Details field of the registration instance.

Reminder Email

We all appreciate reminders. Especially for events we may have registered for long ago. On this screen you can edit the reminder emails. When you create the registration instance (discussed next), you will configure when this email will be sent. Like the other communications, these settings are only visible if you enable Show Communication Settings at the bottom of the page under the 'Terms/Text' section.

Again, we’ve provided you with a capable template. One thing to note here is that the template relies on the registration instance's Additional Reminder Details to set when the event will occur. We've highlighted this part in the email below.

Payment Reminder Email

Allowing partial payments is great, but getting the remaining balance has always been difficult. That was until Rock came around. With Rock you have several tools for getting the remaining balance quickly and easily. The configuration items in this section help set up the communication tools for these reminders. For the most part you can leave them as is. You can read more about these tools in the Payment Reminders section below. Remember that the below settings are only visible if you enable Show Communication Settings at the bottom of the page under the 'Terms/Text' section.

Terms / Text

Event registrations can be used for several different kinds of events. To help fit different types of events, we allow you to customize many of the terms used during the registration process. In this section you can also configure the success text that displays on the final page of the registration screen.

Instance Settings

Clicking the from the instance grid will bring up the instance editor shown below.

1 Registration Instance Name

This is actually an important field that will be shown during the registration process. It will be used to describe the event that you are registering for (e.g., Thank You for Registering for "         ").

2 Active

This determines if the registration instance is currently active.

3 Registration Starts

The date and time that the registration starts.

4 Registration Ends

The date and time that the registration ends.

5 Maximum Attendees

Indicate the total number of people that can register for the event.

6 Registration Workflow

You can optionally configure a workflow to run at the end of each registration. The registration will be passed in as the entity on the workflow. A similar setting exists on the template if you would like to ensure that all instances have the same workflow.

7 Send Reminder Date

The date and time that the reminder should be sent.

8 Registration Contact Information

The information that should be displayed as the contact for the registration process.

9 Account

The financial account that the registration costs/fees should be tied to.

10 Registration Instructions

These instructions will be shown to the person when they start the registration process. Remember, the template has Registration Instructions also. If you have Registration Instructions in both places, the person will only see the instructions from here at the instance level, not the instructions from the template.

11 Additional Reminder Details

This text is used in the reminder email template defined on the registration template. It's important that you include information on when and where the event will occur. For more information on the reminder email, see the template section above.

12 Additional Confirmation Details

Like the reminder details, this field is used to provide additional, instance-specific, information to the email template stored on the registration template.

13 Timeout Length

You'll typically only need this if there are limited spots available in your registration instance. Setting a timeout length ensures spots aren't being held up by someone who has stopped or walked away from the registration session. When setting a Timeout Length, be sure to remember to give registrars enough time to complete forms, particularly if they're lengthy. See the Timeout Settings section below for additional details.

14 Timeout Threshold

Timeout Threshold is intended for use with limited capacity events, in order to prevent an oversold event. This setting determines the minimum number of available slots that must be reached before the registration session functionality (like Timeout Length) becomes activated.

Clone Registration Instance

To create a registration instance you can use the process above, or you can use an alternative method described in the Bringing It All Together chapter. There is also a third way to create registration instances, which is to clone them from an existing instance. When viewing an instance, click the button to create a clone of that instance. Many of the settings will be copied from the original instance into the clone, such as Maximum Attendees, Registration Start/End Dates, Contact Information, and more.

Fee Types

Below is a chart of the various types of fees that are available. You can use any combination of these to create the fee structure you need for each registration event.

1 Single Option Fee

You either want it or you don't.

2 Single Option Fee with Quantity

You can get as many as you want.

3 Multiple Options

Variety is the spice of life.

4 Multiple Options with Quantity

What's better than a little spice? A whole lot!

Now that we see what's possible, let's look at how to set up fees.

Setting Up Fees

You can add, edit and delete fees in the Fees section of the Registration Template.

Click the button to create a new fee.

1 Name

This will be used for the label that goes above the fee selection.

2 Options

Here is where you'll make the determination of whether the fee has multiple options. When selected, it will display a key/value input that allows you to enter optional text as well as the cost.

3 Enable Quantity

Pretty obvious what this does (enables the quantity picker).

4 Discount Applies

Sometimes you'll want the discount calculation to apply to fees, sometimes not.

5 Is Active

Check this box to make the fee active. Inactive fees will not be displayed for new registrations but will be displayed when viewing charges for existing registrations.

6 Maximum Available

If a max available quantity is not specified, it is an unlimited item. Adding a number to this field will show the remaining available items when registering. Keep in mind this number applies to registration instances, not individual registrations. For example, if the fee is being used for summer camp t-shirts, and if you have a single registration instance, then you would enter the total number of t-shirts you have in stock.

7 Hide When None Remaining

You can enable this setting to hide fee items from view if you've selected Enable Quantity and there are zero remaining items. If this is unchecked, then items with zero remaining will still show but can't be selected by the person registering.

Optional vs. Required Fees

Fees can be either optional or required. To designate a fee as required select the Is Required checkbox on the Fee Editor screen. Required fees are designated by a red dot on the event registration screens. If a registration is submitted with a missing required fee value, Rock will display a message asking the registrar to select a value before proceeding.

Here's a closer look at how Rock handles each of the fee types above when they are designated as required:

• Single Option - Rock automatically checks the box and disables it to prevent changes.
• Single Option with Quantity - Rock sets the minimum quantity to "1" and prevents it from being changed to less.
• Multiple Options - Rock creates the same dropdown list as an optional fee but displays a message if no value is selected.
• Multiple Options with Quantity - Because at least one option must have a value selected, Rock displays a warning if all options have a value of "0".

Keeping the Is Required checkbox on the Fee Editor screen unchecked creates Additional Options in the registration.

Fee Reports

All of the fees for each registration are listed under the Fees tab on the Registration Instance screen. You can use the filter options to filter the information by date range, fee name, and/or one or more of the options that apply to that fee. (Note: because the options vary with each fee, the available filter options are only displayed once a particular fee name is selected.)

To further help you track and work with fees, you also have the option of exporting fees to an Excel spreadsheet. To do this, click the button on the Fees tab on the Registration Instance screen.

Discount Codes

Discount codes allow you to give individuals a code to reduce the amount of their registration. This discount can be in the form of a percentage of costs/fees or a fixed amount. To create a discount code, enter a percentage or amount in the Discount Type and Discount Percentage fields of the Discount Code screen. Individuals can then apply the discount code at the time of registration, or after registering if they haven’t yet paid in full (see Post-Registration Discount Codes).

Quantity Discounts

Quantity discounts allow you to create a discount for multiple registrations in the same transaction, such as a group registration. To create this type of discount, enter the minimum and maximum number of registrants in the Discount Code screen. When Rock processes the registration, if the number of registrants entered falls within the parameters entered, the discount is applied.

Early Bird Discounts

Early bird discounts apply a discount for registrations that fall within a certain date range. That date range is entered in the Effective Dates fields of the Discount Code screen. When Rock processes the registration, if the date of registration falls within the entered timeframe, the discount is applied.

Customized Discounts

You can create your own, unique discount by combining any of these discount types. Just know that when the registration is processed, all of the criteria you enter has to be met for the discount to be applied. So, that super complicated option we mentioned above? Maybe not the best practice.

Automatic Discounts

The Discount Code screen includes an option to automatically apply the discount. If this option is selected, Rock will automatically check the registrations against the discount codes available and apply the first discount that matches the criteria. The order the codes are listed in the Registration Template is the order in which Rock applies them. A registrant can override any automatic discount with a discount code entered manually during the registration process.

Maximum Usage

You can limit the number of times a discount code can be used by entering a value in the Maximum Usage field. For example, you might use this to grant a discount to the first 100 people who register. Leave this field blank if you want the discount code to be available for use indefinitely.

Viewing and Reporting Used Discounts

Once discounts for a particular registration event are used, they're recorded under the Discounts tab in the Registration Instance screen. You can filter these records by:

• Discount Date Range - Displays all of the discount codes used during the dates specified.
• Discount Code - Displays the discounts matching the code selected from the dropdown menu.
• Code Search - Displays all discount codes that match the search criteria, whether it be a word, partial word or number. For example, if you search for "ly", Rock will display any codes with names that contain "ly". If you create discount codes with specific prefixes, such as numbers or abbreviations, the search function can help you quickly locate all of the codes matching a particular prefix. Note: If you select a discount code from the dropdown menu, the discount code search option will be disabled.

The amounts displayed in the Total Results section of the screen are based on the discount codes displayed. If you filter the discounts, the totals will be recalculated and updated based on the filter parameters.

Starting a Payment Plan

Registering for an event with a Payment Plan is simple. The registration process stays the same as it is without Payment Plans. There's only a slight change during the final step, where you’ll have the option to create a Payment Plan.

When you reach the payment step, you can either pay in full or set up a Payment Plan by clicking the Set Up Payment Plan button. From there, you’ll be asked to choose:

1. Payment Frequency: How often you want to make payments (weekly, monthly, etc.)
2. Start Date: When you’d like your payments to begin.

Once you’ve made your selections, you’ll move to the next screen where you can customize your Payment Plan further.

1 Total and Due Date

The total amount you owe and when it needs to be fully paid.

2 Payment Frequency

Choose how often you’d like to make payments (the available options may vary depending on your payment gateway).

3 Start Date

This affects how many payments you’ll make before the due date. A later start date usually means fewer payments.

4 Amount To Pay Today

You can choose to pay part of the cost upfront, and the rest will be spread out over the remaining payments.

5 Number of Payments

This is based on the frequency and the time left until the deadline. For example, if you’re making weekly payments and the deadline is two months away, you can make up to eight payments.

6 Payment Schedule

A summary of your payment plan, showing how much each payment will be, how many payments there will be, and how often they’ll happen.

Please note that Payment Plans can only be created during the registration process. Your staff or volunteers won’t be able to set one up on behalf of someone else. While administrators can modify payment plans, they can't create them.

Once your plan is set, you can manage it by going to the Recent Registrations section from your My Account page. You’ll have the option to cancel your Payment Plan if needed.

If you want to make changes to your Payment Plan, you’ll need to cancel the current plan and set up a new one. Again, you can do this on your My Account page under Recent Registrations.

If a new fee is added after you’ve set up your Payment Plan (like an additional t-shirt), the plan won’t automatically adjust to cover the new amount. The additional fee will need to be paid separately.

Configuring Payment Plans

Now that you’ve seen how a Payment Plan works, let’s talk about how to configure it. Payment Plans are enabled in the registration template settings (under Tools > Event Registration).

1 Enable Payment Plans

To enable Payment Plans, simply check the box labeled Enable Payment Plans in the template settings. This will unlock more options. Check with your gateway provider to ensure their service is compatible with Payment Plans.

2 Selectable Payment Frequencies

Choose which payment frequencies (weekly, monthly, etc.) are available for people to use when creating their plans. If you select none, all options will be available. If you select all, new options added later won't be automatically available.

Next, set a Payment Deadline for the registration. This is the date by which all payments must be completed. The number of payments available will depend on the frequency selected and the time remaining before this deadline.

Payment Plan Administration

Payment Plan management happens in the same screens used for managing event registrations, with added features. If a Payment Plan is in place, you’ll see a calendar icon next to the Balance Due on the Registrations tab.

Administrators can make changes to existing Payment Plans by accessing the registration details.

Deleting a plan will cancel the plan and any remaining payments will not be made. If the person wants to continue to use a Payment Plan after it’s been deleted, they must create a new plan. Note that the Change and Delete options pictured below are only available if the block's security is updated to allow Edit Payment Plan access.

The Number of Payments field, pictured below, differs for administrators. While registrars can only select a certain number of payments based on frequency, start date and payment deadline, administrators can choose any number. This allows extending the Payment Plan beyond the deadline, which can help if someone is worried about making the current payments.

Please note that changes cannot be made on the date a payment is due. Also, if additional fees are added, the Payment Plan won’t automatically update to reflect the new total, so the person will need to pay the fee separately. However, administrators can adjust the Payment Plan manually to reflect the updated balance.

Promoting Your Registration

The easiest way to give your guests access to an event registration is through a calendar event. The Bringing It All Together chapter below covers the process of linking calendar events to registrations. Once linked, the event detail will display the Register button as shown below.

You can also link directly to an event registration using a URL. The formats for doing so are:

• http://www.yourexternalsite.com/page/999?RegistrationInstanceId=999 (where the page id and registration instance id match the appropriate values)
• http://www.yourexternalsite.com/Registration/<slugname> (you can find more on slugs in the Bringing It All Together chapter below)

Managing Registrations

You can manage the registrations by going to the Event Instance Detail Page:

Tools > Event Registration > Registration Detail > Registration Instance.

At the top of this page, you'll see the details of the registration with an Edit button to modify its settings. You'll also notice a number of tabs toward the bottom of the page, each relating to a different component of the registration process (registrations, payments, etc.). The content on each of the tabs can be filtered using the Filter Options link.

Registrations Tab

The Registrations Tab shows all of the registrations that have been entered into the system. Remember these are registrations that could have multiple registrants. If any of the registrations are tied to a campus (e.g., because there is a Campus linkage configured, see below) then a campus column will also appear.

From this tab you can view and edit an existing registration or manually add a registration yourself (great if you also allow paper registrations).

1 Registration Details

This shows the details of the registration including information on the Registrar. You can easily resend the confirmation email from here.

2 Registrant Details

Next you will see a panel for each registrant on the registration. You can also edit their registration details from this screen.

3 Financial Information

These tabs allow you to view and edit account, fee and payment information. We'll discuss this further below.

4 Audit Log

This button allows you to view information about how the registration was entered and any financial changes that were made.

5 Move Registration

Sometimes a registration needs to be moved. Perhaps the person registered for the wrong instance of the event, or maybe they just changed their mind. Don't worry, moving a registration is easy! However, you can only move the registration to an instance that uses the same registration template (moving them across different templates would be rather difficult as there would be different fields, costs, fees and discounts.) This button allows you to complete the move of the registration.

6 Add New Registrant

Notice that at the bottom of the screen you can add more registrants to the registration if needed.

Registrants Tab

The next tab shows a listing of all registrants for the event, including summary information about groups, fees and placements. This list is also filterable. Clicking a row will show you the registrant's details as well as the rest of the related registration information. If that screen seems familiar, it's because it's the same screen as the one above except that we scroll down to the selected registrant's information.

You may notice a icon at the top and bottom of the list of registrants, in addition to the other grid actions. Clicking this will start a new communication, sent to the registrar of any selected registrants. This allows you to filter the list of registrants and then easily contact the associated registrars.

Payments Tab

The payments tab allows you to view all the payments that have been made for registrations for this instance. Clicking on one of the rows in the list opens a financial transaction for that payment. From this transaction detail screen, you can process a refund for the payment.

Fees Tab

This tab displays all of the registration fees associated with the event. The information can be filtered and exported to a spreadsheet. Be sure to read the Registration Fees chapter to learn how fees work with event registration.

Discounts Tab

This tab displays all of the discounts that have been used, as well as a lot of useful information about the discounts. You can view which codes were used, who used them, how many times each discount was used, and the total costs of the discounts. As with the other tabs, the information provided in this tab is filterable and can be exported to a spreadsheet.

Linkages Tab

This tab will make more sense once you read the Bringing It All Together section. Basically, it shows all the related calendar events and groups that are linked to this registration. You can also include a Campus linkage, which will associate registrations with that campus. The Calendar Item campus ("All Campuses" in this example) comes from the calendar item event occurrence's campus.

If you don't have a Campus linkage set up, you can pass a CampusId parameter in the URL during registration and the registration will instead be associated with that campus. If you do have a Campus linkage set up, the registration will be associated with the linkage campus regardless of URL parameters used during the registration.

Wait List Tab

This tab displays registrants on the wait list and allows you to move them off of the wait list. To learn more about wait lists, see the Wait Lists chapter below.

Group Placement Tabs

If you've set up Placement Configuration in your registration template, you'll also see one or more tabs related to those placements. This is where you can sort registrants into groups. See the Registration Group Placements chapter to learn more.

Registration Entry

You can enable the wait list features on registration templates. Then, you'll configure the maximum number of registrants on registration instances. When the event is full, individuals will see the message below when they attempt to register.

At this point, the individual can decide not to register or to add themselves to the waitlist. Let's look at a slightly more complex scenario. What if there is only one spot left and the person is hoping to register two individuals? When they arrive at the page, they'll see a normal registration page. But, when they select more people than there are slots available, they'll get the message below.

In this case, let's assume that they would like to continue with registering both kids for camp. You'll notice that the registrant entry screen below looks fairly normal but has an additional notice at the top reminding them that this individual will be fully registered for the event.

As they move to register the second child, they will notice that the reminder is now warning them that this individual will be on the wait list. Careful observers may have noticed that the number of entry fields has changed. (We're not asking for Leader Preference, etc.) You have the option to configure registration form fields for the wait list or to hide them.

As they move to the payment screen, note that those on the wait list are not charged for the registration. They are simply holding a spot.

It's very important that we're clear about who is on a wait list and who is a full registrant. To this end, both the confirmation screen and the email reflect the individual's registration status.

Wait List Administration

Now that we're familiar with the process of registering for a wait list, let's look at how you can administer wait lists.

From the registration instance screen, you'll notice that registrations with individuals on a wait list are clearly noted on the list. There is also a Wait List tab to help you view and manage the wait list.

The Wait List tab allows you to view those on the wait list with their placement order. If you would like to move an individual from the wait list to a full registrant, simply select the checkbox in front of their name and select the Move From Wait List button at the bottom of the grid.

After you select to move them, you'll see the screen below confirming that they have been moved. At this point the new full registrant will be added to any groups that were configured.

If you'd like to send them an email to confirm the move and request additional fields simply select the Send email to individuals checkbox.

The email that is sent should remind them if any payment is due and also ask them to complete the registration if any additional fields are needed. This email might be crafted already in the Registration Template, but if not, you can click the Source toggle to create it here. Don't forget you can use Lava to personalize the content.

While this feature makes moving people from the wait list a simple process, you can also convert a full registrant to a wait list member or a wait list member to a full registrant from the registration details screen.

Manual Reminders

One way to remind individuals of remaining balances is to manually send them a reminder. You can do this from the Registration Instance page.

Once you click the Send Payment Reminders link, you'll see the page below. This page allows you to customize the reminder text and who should receive the email.

1From Name

The From Name, From Email and Subject should be filled in for you based on the values supplied from the registration template. You can edit these values to suit your needs.

2Message

Next you see a preview of the email the individuals will receive. The preview uses the information for the first person on the grid below to give you a precise view of what the person will receive in their inbox.

3Template Toggle

You can choose to edit the email template if you wish by clicking the Source toggle. This will display the Lava template that creates this email.

4People

Below the preview you'll see a list of those with a remaining balance. When creating the list, Rock looks at the Payment Reminder Time Span setting for the registration template. If the registration has already received a reminder or was created within this timespan, the registration is greyed out and is not selected (the checkbox is not checked). You can, however, override this and select specific registrations or all registrations.

5Button

Click the Send Reminders button and you're off to the races!

Automatic Reminders

Manual reminders are nice, but automatic ones…well they're even better! If you provide a Payment Reminder Time Span on the registration template, Rock will send an automatic reminder to the registrations based on that timeframe. So, for example, if you provide the value of 30 for the Payment Reminder Time Span, they will receive a reminder every 30 days until their balance is paid. Reminders will not be sent if the Payment Reminder Time Span is set to "0" or left blank.

This sending is done through the Event Payment Reminders job under System Settings > Jobs Administration. This job does have one configuration parameter you should be aware of. The job Cut-off Date is the number of days past the registration close date to send reminders. After this cut-off, reminders will need to be sent manually to prevent eternal reminders.

Placement Configuration

Registration templates have a panel called Placement Configuration where you can define areas into which registrants should be sorted. Ultimately this will mean placing registrants into groups, but those groups can be created and added later in the process. For now, let’s look at the Placement Configuration options available in the registration template.

From the Placement Configuration panel pictured above, you can see the list of the template’s placements and a summary of their setup. After your template is configured, each of the items in this list will appear as a tab within the registration instance. Click the button to add new placements to the list.

1 Name

Provide a name for the placement. This name will appear as a tab within the registration instance.

2 Group Type

When adding a new placement, you are required to select a Group Type. This controls what type of groups registrants can be placed into.

3 Icon CSS Class

You can optionally set an icon for the placement.

4 Allow Multiple

If you select this box, then a single registrant can be placed into more than one group in this placement type. In the example pictured above this option is selected because registrants can participate in more than one activity. You probably wouldn’t want to enable this for something like bus assignments, because each person should only be assigned to a single bus.

5 Shared Groups

Use the button to add groups to the Shared Groups list. This will be the list of groups into which you can place registrants, which we’ll explore in detail below. These groups are shared across registration instances that use this template. Only want a group for a single instance? Read on, we’ll cover that soon.

Once the placement feature is configured, you’ll see an extra tab for each placement group you’ve defined. From these tabs you can quickly place the registrants into groups. Let's see how this works.

1 Placements

In the example pictured above, there are three Shared placement areas. This matches the Placement Configuration list defined on the template.

2 Add Group

Click this button to add a group to this registration instance. You can either create a new group directly from this page or you can add an existing group. The Archery group was added to the registration instance this way.

3 Placement Configuration

Click the icon to access additional placement configuration options. There are a lot of options here, so we’ll discuss them in detail below.

4 Registrants

A searchable list of registrants lets you easily drag and drop individuals into the group placements on the right. If applicable, you can update the configuration (from the icon) to display registrant attribute values such as “Cabin Preference”.

5 Placement Groups

Each group into which a person can be placed is listed here. Group requirements and limits are enforced when adding individuals into these groups, so you can leverage the group’s configuration to help ensure people are placed appropriately.

6 Labels

Placement groups that have been added to the registration template will appear with a “Shared” label. This is a handy reminder that the group is shared across registration instances. You can also use the Add Group button to add groups to this instance only, which assigns a label based on the instance name.

7 Capacity Count

If a group has a capacity, then this label will appear and will be updated automatically as registrants are placed. In the example pictured above, “Swimming” has a limit of 10 registrants with two spaces already taken by Brian Jones and Alex Decker.

Next, let’s look at some of the placement configuration options available within the instance. These settings are used in addition to the registration template’s placement setup. Click the icon to access them.

1 Campus Filter

Selecting a campus here will only show placement groups for that campus. Placement groups without a campus assigned will always be shown.

2 Highlight Genders

If enabled, registrant names will be highlighted pink or blue according to the person’s gender.

3 Show Fees

Enabling this option is useful for cases where a person should only be placed into a group if they have paid certain fees.

4 Displayed Registrant Attributes

Choose which attributes should be displayed for each registrant on the placement screen. This makes it easy to place camp registrants into their desired locations. You can choose whether or not to show these attributes on placed registrants on the right side of the screen by setting the Display Registrant Attributes on Group Members option.

5 Filters

You can restrict the list of registrants by adding filters here. In the example pictured above, a filter can be added according to a registrant's fees. You can also add a person filter to, for example, filter by age or grade.

6 Apply Registrant Filters to Group Members

Here you can choose whether filters used for the registrants listed on the left should also apply to placed registrants on the right.

7 Group Configuration

You can choose to display Group and/or Group Member attributes if any are configured. You can also choose to Hide Full Groups if you don’t want to display groups that have reached capacity. The filters listed in this area come from group and group member attributes.

Registration Template Placement Page

This page is a lot like the group placement tabs described above, with one key difference. This page references a template, combining the registrants from different instances. This is ideal for placing large volumes of registrants quickly and easily.

This page can be accessed from the registration template detail page by clicking the icon as pictured below.

Adding Payments

While most of the time payments for events will be handled by the registrar during the registration process, you can manually enter payments on their behalf from the registration details page:

Tools > Event Registration > Registration Template > Registration Instance > Registration (ok... that seems complex, but it's really not as bad as it looks on paper...)

From the Registration Details page, you can manage payments using the Payments tab pictured below.

Once you click the link you will see the Payments Edit Panel. The screenshot below shows you all the options on this screen.

1 Payment Detail

Clicking on the date of the payment will take you to the financial transaction detail page for the payment. From here you can get more information about the payment and process a full or partial refund.

2 Process New Payment

Selecting this option allows you to run a new credit card payment through Rock. In order for this to work, the registration type's financial gateway must support the "hosted" mechanism. For the NMI Financial Gateway, this can be enabled by setting the "Tokenization Key" in the gateway (see below for details).

3 Add Manual Payment

This option allows you to enter the details of a manual (off-line) payment, like cash or check.

Adding Payments through NMI

As noted in the screenshot above, you might need to add some configuration to Rock to process new payments. For NMI, you'll need to navigate to Admin Tools > System Settings > Financial Gateways > Network Merchants (NMI). From the screen pictured below you can add your Tokenization Key. If you don't already have this key, instructions for getting it are below.

When Configuring The "Tokenized" Gateway

When you update your financial gateway to have a Tokenization Key you will also want to configure the Scheduled Transaction List Liquid block's "Scheduled Transaction Edit Page for Hosted Gateways" block setting to be a page that has the Scheduled Transaction Edit (V2) block. That V2 block is able to edit transactions created with the tokenized gateway.

If you need to obtain your Tokenization Key from NMI, you'll start by logging into your NMI portal. Once logged in, navigate to My Settings > Security Keys. In the Security Keys screen you'll see a section called Public Security Keys. From there you'll click the Add a New Public Key button to add a new Public Key. Be sure to select "Tokenization" for the Key Permission.

With your new token generated, all you'll need to do is click the Copy button to copy the key to your clipboard. Then, you can navigate to Admin Tools > System Settings > Financial Gateways > Network Merchants (NMI) and paste the key into the Tokenization Key field as shown previously above.

Refunds

Processing full or partial refunds through Rock is simple. Simply click the Date / Time link shown in call-out #1 above to proceed to the financial transaction detail page for the payment. From here you will see the screen below. Note the refund button at the bottom of the page.

Clicking the Refund button will show the refund modal below.

1 Amount

This tells Rock how much the refund should be for. By default, the full amount of the financial transaction is entered into the box.

2 Refund Reason

This dropdown allows you to pick from a standard set of refund reasons. You can modify this list under Admin Tools > General Settings > Defined Types > Refund Reasons.

3 Summary

This field allows you to enter specific notes about the refund.

4 Process Refund Through Gateway

This checkbox determines if the refund should be automatically run through the payment gateway (checked) or just entered into Rock (unchecked).

Partial Payments

Partial payments are a popular feature for events with higher costs, like camps. The age ol' problem with them comes when it's time to complete the payments. Many times, people want to pay off the balance, but they're not sure how. Other times... well... they just need a reminder. Let's look at several strategies on how to make partial payments work for you.

Recent Registration Block

Rock also ships with a Recent Registration block on the My Account page of the external website. This block, located under the Assessments list along the right of the page, shows registration information and notes if a payment is due. Clicking the link will take them to a page where they can complete the payment or apply a discount code. Note: this block only displays registrations that have an attached Calendar Event Item.

You'll want to review this block's settings. It can display registrations based on various criteria: recent registrations, future events, balances due, or any combination thereof. It's not limited to recent registrations only. There's also a Lava Template, which means you can customize how the block appears and what information it shows.

Post-Registration Discount Codes

Not only does the Recent Registration block allow individuals to make payments against an outstanding balance, they can also apply a discount code (see Discounts). This is great if they find out about the discount after registering, or if they simply forgot to apply the code when they first registered.

To apply the discount code the individual needs to access the Review Registration page from the Recent Registration block, the same way they would to make a payment as described above.

1 Discount Code

Individuals enter a discount code here to apply the discount toward their remaining balance.

2 Apply

If a valid discount code has been entered, pressing the Apply button will immediately apply the discount to the individual’s balance (pressing Finish is not required).

Individuals who have already paid in full will not be able to enter a discount code after registering. Similarly, individuals who have already used a discount code can’t apply an additional discount code.

If the discount ends up deducting more than the individual owed, the result will be a negative balance on their account. In that case you’ll need to manually issue a refund (see Refunds) to get the balance back to zero.

Event Registration Matching

If you need to match event payments to transactions in a batch, Event Registration Matching is exactly what you’re looking for. You’ll find it under Finance > Event Registration Matching.

This lets you select a batch and a registration instance, then match transactions from that batch to individual registrations. This can be particularly helpful if you’re using Check Scanning to process a set of registration payments, but it works with any transaction from any open batch.

1 Open Batches

You can select any open batch from this list. Keep in mind that the batch must be Open and not Pending.

2 Registration Template

Select a registration template from the list. This is needed to select a registration instance of that template in the next field.

3 Registration Instance

Event Registration Matching works with a single registration instance at a time. The registration instance is used to identify the registrations that you’ll be matching payments to.

4 Hide Fully Paid Registrations

It’s unlikely that you’ll be processing payments for registrations that have already been paid in full. Selecting this option lets you hide those registrations from the list. If you uncheck this box, all registrations for the selected instance will be made available for matching, even if they are paid in full.

5 Matched Registration

In this example screenshot we have already matched the first check to Noah Decker’s registration. After selecting his registration, the drop-down menu is replaced by the name of the registrant and the date of the registration, for informational purposes. You can click the 'X' to un-match this payment from the selected registration.

6 Select Registration

This row in the example screenshot has not yet been matched to a registration. The drop-down lets you search for a registration to match with the payment. The registrations you’ll see here are controlled by the Registration Instance and Hide Fully Paid Registrations settings described above.

You’ll notice there is no Save button on this page. As soon as a transaction is matched to a registration, the registration itself is updated behind the scenes in real time. For instance, we could view Noah Decker’s registration right now and see that it has been paid in full. If we were to un-match that transaction from Noah’s registration, that too would be updated in real time and anyone viewing the registration would see a balance owed.

Event Calendars

Every organization has the need for multiple calendars. Even a small organization will have a public and private (internal) calendar. Most will have several more. You can administrate calendars under Tools > Calendars.

Out of the box Rock ships with two pre-configured calendars:

• Internal: Used for internal events like staff meetings, retreats, etc.
• Public: For events targeted towards your members and attendees.

You can add additional calendars by selecting the add button in the upper right of the panel, as pictured above. When adding or editing a calendar you will see the screen below:

1 Name

The name of the calendar.

2 Active

Whether the calendar is currently active.

3 Description

A quick reminder of what the calendar is for and how it should be used.

4 Icon CSS Class

The Font Awesome icon class the calendar should use.

5 Indexing Enabled

Event Items can be indexed for use by Universal Search. This is set here at the calendar level.

6 Event Attributes

Each calendar can define custom attributes available to the events that are on them. This is where you define these attributes.

7 Content Channels

We'll cover content channels later in the Bringing It All Together chapter. For now, just know that you can link content channels to events to allow you to easily promote them.

Calendar Security

You can set up security for each calendar you define. This allows you to delegate the management of these calendars and their events. You set security from the Calendar Details Page by pressing the button.

Events

Once you've created your calendar, you're ready to place events on them.

Tools > Calendars > Calendar

Shows a list of the current events for a calendar on the Calendar Details Page. As you get more and more events, you'll want to start using the filters on this grid to help you manage the events that are displayed.

The event add/edit screen below shows you how to manage the events on the calendar.

1 Name

The name of the event.

2 Active

Whether the event is currently active.

2 Approved

If you have 'Approval' permission to the calendar, you'll be able to approve the event here.

4 Summary

A quick description of the event that will display on the calendar when listing multiple events.

5 Description

A more complete description of the event that will be displayed on the event detail page.

6 Audiences

This helps to categorize the events by those who would be most interested. These are the same audience choices that are used for the other web content channels.

7 Photo

A picture is worth a thousand words, right? So don’t skimp - include one on your event.

8 Additional Calendars

As we mentioned above, you can place your event on as many calendars as you'd like.

9 Details URL

If you provide a web address here it will be used instead of the Rock event details page when your guests click 'More Information' from the calendar.

10 Attribute Values

Remember how we could define custom attributes for the events on custom calendars? This is where you'll add the values for these attributes. The attributes are grouped by calendar.

11 Event Occurrence Attributes

Define an attribute on an Event Item where the value is set on each of its Event Item Occurrences.

Event Occurrences

We have our calendar and now, events. All that's left is to add the event occurrences that determine when these events occur. Some events may only occur once, while others apply often. Either way, you'll add the occurrences from the Event Details Page.

1 Campus

First, we must select which campus this event will occur on (single campus organizations can select either all or the main campus).

2 Contact Information

Next, we select who the contact will be and provide their email and phone number.

3 Location Description

Now we can describe the location where the event will be held. Instead of using a location picker, we decided to allow you to enter a more descriptive text of where the event is being held.

4 Schedule

Ok, now for the important part. When will the event occur? Hopefully by now you've had a chance to use the Rock Schedule Builder tool in other features. It's a powerful tool for defining complex re-occurring schedules. It also does simple one-time schedules too.

5 Linkages

Most often, you'll want to create a registration for your calendar event. Instead of having to leave the screen to create the registration instance, you can do it right here. You can also link to an existing registration instance, or simply link the event to a slug without linking to any registration instance. We'll talk more about how to do all this in the Bringing It All Together chapter.

6 Occurrence Note

This note will be shown on the calendar detail screen on the public website. It's used to provide custom notes about the specific occurrence.

You might be thinking, "Hey! Reoccurring schedules? I thought we were supposed to create a new occurrence each time the event occurred?" Yes... and no... Some occurrences of an event may last two to three weeks (say a single occurrence of a three-week stewardship class). In this case, make a single occurrence with a reoccurring schedule.

Once you save your calendar occurrence, you'll be taken to the occurrence detail screen. From here you'll see that you can click the button to add a new content channel item, or you can click the button to link to an existing content channel item. Adding and connecting with content channel items allows you to enter and track promos for your event.

Event Occurrence Attributes

You can create specific attributes to assign to event occurrences. For example, you could create a "Lunch Provided?" attribute to use with recurring staff meetings. Then for each meeting assign that attribute a value of "Yes" or "No". As with all attributes, the possibilities are endless and completely customizable for your organization's needs. Keep in mind when creating these attributes, they will be available for every calendar event.

To create an event occurrence attribute value, click the button on the main Event Calendars screen to access the Calendar Attributes screen.

In the Event Occurrence Attributes section, click the button to create the new attribute. Once saved, the attribute is available in the Attribute Values section of the event's Edit Event Occurrence screen.

Event Item Occurrence Attributes

Hang on, what if I know an attribute will ONLY be used for one event occurrence? Well, in this case, you can set your attributes within the Event Details, such as your staff meetings. Scroll to the bottom of the Event Details page for the Event Occurrence Attributes panel and expand it. Click the button to add a new attribute.

Now in the Attribute Values section of the event's Edit Event Occurrence screen, you will see all the specific event attributes along with the global attributes created in the Calendar Attributes screen.

Calendar Blocks

Below is what the calendar looks like on the external website. These blocks have a ton of settings (much of the page is rendered in Lava so the possibilities are endless).

Calendar Settings and Formatting

There are a couple of things about the iCalendar feed you should know before going forward. First of all, any security added to calendars is enforced, so you need to have access to any non-public calendars you want to use with the iCalendar feed. Second, Rock takes care of providing and formatting the calendar content. You can, however, customize the calendar's description by adding the following Lava to the Lava template:

                {{ EventItem.Description }}

                {{ EventItemOccurrence.Note }}
            

(Remember, Lava templates can be found at Admin Tools > General Settings > Defined Types > Lava Templates.)

OK, let's take a look at the iCalendar URL itself.

Calendar URL

The calendar URL has a specific format:

http://rocksolidchurchdemo.org/GetEventCalendarFeed.ashx?calendarid=1

This sample URL provides the feed for a calendar located at rocksolidchurchdemo.org with an ID of "1".

There are three parts to the URL: the organization's domain name (i.e., rocksolidchurchdemo.org), the GetEventCalendarFeed function, and the calendar parameters (i.e., calendarid=1). The domain name and the parameters will change according to the organization and the desired calendar options, but the GetEventCalendarFeed.ashx portion must remain unchanged in order for the feed to work.

Let's take a closer look at the parameters available for customizing the calendar feed. You can use parameters to tell the feed to pull only events from a specific campus, specified dates, or even from a certain Lava template. The following parameters are available with the iCalendar feed:

So, using our same URL sample above, if you want to grab the feed for events on the public calendar from April 1, 2018 through July 7, 2018, the URL feed would be:

http://RockSolidChurchDemo.org/GetEventCalendarFeed.ashx?calendarid=1&startDate=20180401&enddate=20180707

To filter the above URL for two audience types, the URL would be:

http://RockSolidChurchDemo.org/GetEventCalendarFeed.ashx?calendarid=1&startDate=20180401&enddate=20180707&audienceIds=147,1698

Now, you could build the iCalendar feed URL yourself; but to make things super easy, you can also quickly grab the URL for the event calendar you want to use by going to the Event Calendar screen and clicking the Export Calendar Feed button. This will copy the URL to your clipboard.

Adding Calendar Linkages

As noted in the section above, you have different linkage options available to you when creating a new calendar event and occurrence. In this section we’ll look at each option in detail.

No Registration Required

Select this option when you don't need a registration but still want to have a URL slug associated with an event.

In the example pictured above we’re not linking the calendar occurrence to any registration instance. However, we can still create a handy URL slug.

URL Slugs: Say what?!

A "slug" is a common web term that refers to a part of a web address that identifies a page, or component of a page, using human-readable keywords. If you're not Noah Webster, that means instead of saying Registration?RegistrationInstanceId=153 you can say Registration/SummerCamp2021. In most cases the slug can be whatever you want but try to use only letters and numbers (e.g., SummerCamp2021) if possible because some special characters may cause issues with browsers. Keeping that in mind, dashes are commonly used (e.g., Summer-Camp-2021) without causing problems.

Keep in mind when using the No Registration Required option that you might need to add some page routes on your external site. To get the URL slug to work, you’ll need a page route similar to events/{slug} or campinfo/{slug} on the page that has the Calendar Event Item Occurrence Lava block. The route must include {slug} because this tells the system where to look for the linked event occurrence.

Create Registration Instance

You would use Create Event Registration Instance if you want to link the event occurrence to a registration instance that hasn’t been created yet. This means you can create a registration instance directly from the calendar instead of creating it separately and having to link them later.

If the screen pictured above looks familiar, that’s because it’s the same information you’d use to create a registration instance from outside of the calendar. Just like any time you add a registration instance, you need to have a registration template set up first. If a template doesn’t exist for the instance you’re trying to create, you’ll have to go back and add one.

Use Existing Registration Instance

You’ll use this option if you already have a registration instance that just needs to be linked to this calendar occurrence.

As you can see in the example pictured above, all you’ll need to do is pick the template and instance, and then give it a Public Name. Like the other options, you can also create a slug and link to a group from here.

Linking Content Channel Items

After saving the event occurrence, you can optionally create or link to any content channel items you need for your event. This is a great way to get the word out about the event. When viewing the occurrence, there is an area at the bottom of the page for Content Channels.

1 Event Occurrence

Content channel items are added to the event occurrence. For details on how to get to this point, see the Calendars chapter above.

2 Content Channels

You can only add content channel items to the content channels listed here. The list of available content channels is configured at the Calendar (e.g., Public, Internal) level.

3 Add New Item

Clicking the button lets you add a new content channel item to the corresponding content channel.

4 Link Existing Item

You can click the button to link the event occurrence to a content channel item that has already been created.

For more details on creating and working with content channels, check out our Designing and Building Websites Using Rock manual.

Securing Calendars

While those in the RSR - Staff Workers and RSR - Staff Like Workers roles can view and add new events, only those in the RSR - Calendar Administration can approve events and create new calendars.

Securing Event Registrations

Like calendars, those in the RSR - Staff Workers and RSR - Staff Like Workers roles can create new instances of registrations, but only those in the RSR - Event Registration Administration can create new registration templates.

From a financial perspective anyone in the staff/staff-like roles can add payments to a registration but out of the box you will need to be in the RSR - Finance Administration role to process refunds.

Calendar Block

The Calendar Lava block is the basic calendar list block for your external calendar. The screen shot below shows the block in its default form, however this block comes with a ton of settings to change the way it is displayed. Below is a list of some of the settings that this block provides.

• Event Calendar: The calendar (public, internal, etc.) to pull events from.
• Default View Option: Which view option (day, week or month) to initially show.
• Details Page: The page to navigate to, to show the event's details.
• Campus Filter Display Mode: Options to show a campus filter (Hidden, Plain, Panel Open, Panel Closed).
• Audience Filter Display Mode: Options to show an audience filter (Hidden, Plain, Panel Open, Panel Closed).
• Filter Audiences: Allows you to filter which audiences you'd like to show as filter options.
• Show Date Range Filter: Determines whether a date range filter should be displayed.
• Show Small Calendar: Determines whether the small calendar in the upper left should be shown.
• Show Day View: Determines whether the day view should be shown as an option.
• Show Week View: Determines whether the week view should be shown as an option.
• Show Month View: Determines whether the month view should be shown as an option.
• Enable Campus Context: Determines whether the campus context should be used to filter the events (assumes that a campus context is in use on your site).
• Lava Template: The Lava template that will be used to format the list of filtered events.
• Start of Week Day: Determines what day is the start of a week.
• Set Page Title: Determines if the block should set the page title with the calendar name.

Event Item Occurrence Detail

Once you pick an event from the calendar, the Calendar Event Item Occurrence Lava block displays the details for the event occurrence. This page is formatted entirely using Lava, so customize at will. Below are the options you have in the block's settings.

• Registration Page: The page to navigate to for registration.
• Set Page Title: Determines if the block should set the page title with the event item name.
• Lava Template: The Lava template that will be used to format the list of filtered events.

Calendar Item Occurrence List Lava

This is more of a specialty block. It lists upcoming occurrences for a specific event item. This is helpful for events like specific classes (e.g., Starting Point, Stewardship Class) or events that routinely happen (e.g., Baptisms).

• Event Item: The event item to show occurrences for.
• Campuses: Which campuses to show occurrences for.
• Use Campus Context: Determines whether the campus context should be used to filter the events (assumes that a campus context is in use on your site).
• Date Range: You can filter the occurrence list by a sliding date range (e.g., upcoming two weeks).
• Max Occurrences: The maximum number of occurrences to show.
• Registration Page: The page to navigate to for registration.
• Lava Template: The Lava template that will be used to format the list of filtered events.

Calendar Item Occurrence List By Audience Lava

This is another specialty block. It lists upcoming occurrences for a specific audience (All Church, Youth, Children, etc.). This is helpful for pages devoted to these audiences. Below are some of the options available in the block's settings.

• Audience: The audience to filter on.
• Calendar: Which calendar to use.
• Use Campus Context: Determines whether the campus context should be used to filter the events (assumes that a campus context is in use on your site).
• Date Range: You can filter the occurrence list by a sliding date range (e.g., upcoming two weeks).
• Max Occurrences: The maximum number of occurrences to show.
• Registration Page: The page to navigate to for registration.
• Lava Template: The Lava template that will be used to format the list of filtered events.

Event Calendar Item Personalized Registration

This is a quirky, but insanely cool little block. Its main use is to facilitate internal registrations for special classes from an individual's Person Profile page. Let's dig into a sample to understand this better.

Say your organization has a special orientation class called Starting Point. Previous attendance in this class is really important to you so you've created a special badge to show if someone has attended this class. But... you also want to easily be able to register people for upcoming classes when they call or email you. You can then set the markup of your badge to link to a page with this block if they have not attended Starting Point. This block takes the person and looks up upcoming class dates based on their campus. Once you select a date you can select other members of the family and create a registration to add them to the class.

It should be noted that this block creates an online registration and then redirects to the registration block to complete the process. This allows for the collection of extra fields configured for the registration and also allows for things like confirmation and reminder emails.

• Include Family Members: Determines if a list of family members should be displayed to include in the registration.
• Days In Range: The number of days in the future to filter event occurrences for.
• Max Display Events: The maximum number of occurrences to show.
• Registration Page: The page to redirect to, to complete the registration.
• Start Registration At Beginning: You can optionally choose to redirect to the beginning of the registration process (a good option if you expect additional custom fields to be needed) or the end (a good option if additional fields are not needed as you can quickly complete the registration).

The block requires the following inputs through the URL:

• PersonGuid: The Guid of the person to be registered.
• EventItemId: The Id of the event item to process the registration for.