Has anyone else been struggling with processing event registrations from the new enrollment management event module? The look and feel and features of the new module are wonderful, so we are excited about the change, and we are slowly letting go of the older event module. However, one issue that has been a significant problem for us is that duplicate emails prevent the forms from being processed. I created a case with Support, and they indicated that the system does not like duplicate email addresses on different users as these will be the users BBID log in for the future, so it restricts event registrations from being processed if this is the case. They had me open some of the records in Core and delete the email from the record, and then the event registrations were able to process normally.
However, our current dilemma is that we often have parents that will register for admissions events and register their children. In the case of preschoolers, kindergardeners, and really young kids, they don't have email addresses of their own, so the parent will often insert their own parent email for each of these candidates. Previously, this has not been a problem for us. We communicate with the candidate record, and our official notes and other correspondence on the candidate record is being delivered to the parent email address, and all is well. Once the candidate becomes a student, then we assign a school-based email to replace the parent email. This is also when we turn on BBID for the student.
In summary, we always insist that parent records have unique emails from the beginning and we use BBID right from the start with them. However, when these parents have multiple children candidates, we are having trouble with how to populate the email for these children. Using the parent email has worked well previously but is now a duplicate problem with the new module. Using a unique personal email would be ideal, but these kids are too young to have an email of their own. Using a school-based email address would work, but we don't assign that to candidates until they become a student. (And many candidates don't end up becoming students, so we don't want to create needless school email accounts.)
Anyone else have a creative solution for addressing the above? Support suggested I created an “idea” in the bank, but that often takes many years to gain traction, so I thought I would start with the Community. Anybody know what Blackbaud's intentions were in how this is supposed to ideally function in a best-practice environment?
Thanks!
