program configuration questions

Lauren Norvell

Can you tell me what works for you?


I am having trouble grasping best practices for configuring program categories.  I understand we can assign only one category to a program.  We are a zoo and do onsite and offsite programs for family, adult, scout, schools, etc.  I want to track onsite versus offsite programs, but that isn't very descriptive. I also want to track family programs vs. adult programs vs. scout vs. school, etc. and we do those both on and offsite.  I started to configure the categories for the later more detailed levels, but then can I track onsite vs. offsite programs in reports somehow?


I am having the same problem with level of details in configuring group types.  Will I use this for both on and offsite programs too, or just groups coming onsite and being taken care of in group sales?


If I could get past these configuration dilemas, I feel I can configure programs no problem.  Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Lauren 

Tony Millet

Hi Lauren-


There were two steps we took at the Natural History Museum of Utah that helped us solve the problems you;re facing. The first one that I would suggest is that we created a single Altru Location called "Offsite". Doing this allows you to later query for all of the program events held at that location to identify your offsite attendance/reach. (We then put the actual location of the event in the event description if it is an event that is open to the public so that people know where to actually attend the event.) This also has the nice side benefit of keeping your locations list shorter. 


The other suggestion is to consider using a category hierarchy within the actual category name. So perhaps instead of "Summer Camps" you use "Summer Camps - Kindergarten" and "Summer Camps - First Grade" etc. Then when you look at the list of categories you can easily visually interpret the data, and you can sort that out in a query using selected categories rather than a single category. The only drawback that we've found to this approach is that in Altru's reports you get subtotals by category, so in my example if you were looking at a report for all programs, instead of having one subtotal for "Summer Camps" you might have five different subtotals by age, which you'd then need to add up by hand since it would not appear on the report.  


Hope that helps!

Tony

Lauren Norvell

Thank you!  Do you configure a new scheduled program each year, i.e. "summer camp 2020", or just use the same one as event for the next year?  Do you list school programs, scout programs, family programs as categories or do you get more specific?


Lauren 

 

Tony Millet

The year question is a little complicated and uneven. For Summer Camps, yes we do similar to what you've described. For School Programs, we use the generic "School Field Trip" etc until after the school year is over, and then we change the name of the program to "2019 School Field Trip" to shorten the results in the future when reports and queries are run. Changing the name after the year is over means that teachers looking to book programs don't need to understand the nuances of our fiscal years and how we divide up our program visits. And in answer to your second question, yes we do have different program categories for the broad categories, it's only the subsets like Summer Camp age breakouts and family program types. Here's a screenshot of part of our program category list as an example.


 

Lauren Norvell

thank you!

 

Breanne Leach

Hi Lauren,


You may have already started your configuration, but I thought I'd reply in case you were still looking for feedback.


We start at the end for all of our configuration -- what do we need to report? So, for summer camp, we have one category (camp) which allows us to report at a high level and then separate programs for each camp program (Summer Camp - Pre-K/K and so on) which allow us to report at more specific level. 


For school programs, our group types are built on grade level so that our instructors can see what grade is coming (we use location and program for off-site). Whereas for facility rentals, our groups are based on how we report revenue (corporate, weddings, etc... as that makes the group sales canned report easier to use).


Hope this helps and happy to answer any other questions!


-Breanne

Lauren Norvell

Thank you. 


For scheduled programs, do you use the same scheduled program every year and only the events tell you which year you are reporting on, or do you close our and recreate a new program name for the new year? For example, "Summer Camp"  or "Summer camp 2020"?  And how specific do you get? "School Programs" or by "name of school program"?


For group sales & itineraries - Do you use programs and prices in "resources" or scheduled programs and price types? 


Thanks!

 

Breanne Leach

We keep the same program names year over year and differentiate year over year based on program date. For school programs, we have different programs based on the way we map for Accounting (self-guided, educator-led at the museum, docent-led outreach, etc). 


For Group Sales, every reservation gets a scheduled program with a price type count to help with visitor counts. But, it depends on the program whether we use price types or resources to calculate the balance (as it depends on whether it's something we charge a flat fee for or whether we charge per person). For the reservations that are charged based on resource, the price types are $0 price types.


For school groups coming to the museum, it's all price types that generate the cost of the program. We charge per person. For school outreach, we charge per class, so we use resources. Our special events team uses resources entirely for facility rentals as there may be some *things* that are charged per person (such as alcohol) while others (X space for 2 hours) are flat fees no matter how many people attend. The freedom to override pricing for resources also gives our team the flexibility to adjust pricing as needed (and not needing to base it on a per price type basis).


Hope this helps! If you have any other questions, let me know

Lauren Norvell

This is exactly what I needed.  Thanks so much!

 

Breanne Leach

You're welcome!