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Lucinda Dalrymple
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January 28, 2013 at 7:32 pm
I’m new to Event Espresso, and I’m setting up a registration form for a kids’ summer camp. I need to collect the names of the kids who will be attending the camp.
I’m setting up some additional questions, and I’m wondering if the name fields in the Personal Information group should be used for the kids’ names or the parents, who will be getting email updates and, of course, paying for the camp.
I want to be sure that we get the kids’ names for session assignments and roll call, but that the parents get emails and their names are used for billing.
Any advice on how to set this up?
Thanks!
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Dean
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January 29, 2013 at 2:03 am
Hello Lucinda,
I would say that it is probably best to have the Parent as the primary attendee as they are the main point of contact.
You have a choice in how you want to set up for the kids, either as separate (additional) attendees or just via questions.
Both have a pros and cons in this situation.
As additional attendees they will be logged into the system, so you can track them and so forth. However they will need to provide at minimum name and email and will receive some email notifications.
As questions they are just extra info on the the parents account, so finding a particular child in the data could prove difficult especially if they use a different name to their parent and they are not separate items on the spreadsheets so perhaps difficult to create a roll call. However you can remove the email aspect in this situation.
Of course both situations can use additional questions to get everything else you need such as ages, illnesses/conditions etc etc
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Lucinda Dalrymple
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January 29, 2013 at 3:39 am
I’ve been setting it up with the kids as the primary attendee, in the hopes that it will make more sense in the long run. One of the reasons I did it that way was for the tracking capability. But maybe as additional attendees…
What would that do to the price, though? Would the parent then be billed for two camp registrations if they’re the primary attendee and they add a kid as a second attendee? And what would it do to my Attendee Limit? I don’t want to include parents in the total attendees, as the camps usually sell out and require a wait list.
I’m guessing I’m probably better off with the kids as the primary attendee. I just wish I could move the email field to a different group — one for the Parent’s Contact Info. That’s not possible, is it?
Thanks!
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Dean
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January 29, 2013 at 3:53 am
Hi Lucinda,
Hmm yeah you have a good point about the attendee limit and pricing.
I think you would have to go with the kids as primary or take a hit on the tracking and have them as questions.
Currently every attendee needs to provide an email. One option would be to add a note for the primary attendee to use their email with the additional attendees, but they would receive multiple emails.
The system isnt built for having attendees who arent involved in the process, like these kids arent.
I dont think we will ever change the fact that all attendees need an email address as the core functions of the plugin use that system.
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Lucinda Dalrymple
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January 29, 2013 at 9:57 pm
I think I have to stick with the kids as primary registrant. But that’s why I’d like to be able to move the required email address to a different question group — I could at least put it with the parent’s info group. I guess they’d still get emails with their child’s name, but maybe that would be OK. Or can I use the parent’s name field in emails. Can I make a custom email for all emails that might be sent with the parent’s name in the body instead of the kids?
I’m getting concerned now that this isn’t the plugin for our organization.
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Josh
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January 30, 2013 at 4:14 pm
Hi Lucinda,
If you can post a link to the registration page one of can take a look and possible make some recommendation on how to order and display the questions. We’ll do our best to help you work with the way Event Espresso requires an email address for each attendee.
You can use the parent’s name in the emails. You can create custom emails for each event by using the email manager, or change the email message in Event Espresso>General Settings>Email Settings to change the default email.
In the custom email tags documentation there’s a shortcode that’s listed there you can use to display the parent’s name.
As an example, if the field for the parent name question is “Parent’s name”, the shortcode in the email would be:
[answer_Parent’s name]
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Lucinda Dalrymple
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January 31, 2013 at 12:32 am
Hi Josh.
Thanks for your answer. The registration form is a work in progress — We have a lot of questions, and I’m still deciding where some of them should go. I’ll post a link to the page as things become more clear.
I don’t want to have the parents as attendees, so the fact that the kids are the registered attendees, but their parent’s email address is the one being used should be OK.
One issue with that, though: I assume the email messages will have the kids’ names in the “To” section of the email that gets sent to the parents. If so, is there any way to change that? If it could even say “Parent of [kid’s name]”, that would be great.
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Josh
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January 31, 2013 at 9:48 am
Hi Lucinda,
I checked and the To: section of the registration email sends the email address only.
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