Event Module - Adding children as registrants

Beth Romano

We have the event module and hold classes for children as well as adults.  I was wondering how you enter the children in the evnet, do you enter the child as the registrant or the parent..Currently we enter the child as the registrant, but we have a new staff member that wants us to enter the parent and use attribute to list the child's name.  

 

Karen Diener

As a general rule, use the database as it was designed and that will allow you to make use of other features.  I would not recommend adding the child as an attribute - they should have their own participant record.  If you want to see the connection between the child and the parent, you can add a participant record for the parent (mark as "do not register") and then add the child as their guest, marking the child as Registered.  Then you'll be able to see a count at the bottom of the event record screen that indicates how many are Registered.


It does depend on some other factors though.  Do you need to communicate to class participants, are there fees associated with the class, do the children have constituent records in your database, how do people sign up (or sign their child up) for the class?  The answers to those types of questions might change the decision-making.  People are very quick to choose attributes.  And while they have an important role, they should never be used in place of an existing field.


Karen