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Events in RE NXT - how do you like it and would you recommend?

Chris Vaz

Hello there! We have the event module in RENXT but do not use to its potential. We host a few events, like a breakfast and a gala dinner. We've tried different tools and none were very effective in terms of interface. They are not the friendliest to an aging community. I'm interested in learning from RENXT event module users how you like the tool, if it works well to host dinner like events, what is your impression on the interface and what tips would you have to new users. Thanks in advance!

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Comments

Lee Grisham

@Chris Vaz As someone who doesn't dedicate a majority of their time to it and since we only run a limited number of events with around 100 invitees, it isn't great. lol

The functionality maybe works if you can spend many hours per event to get it set up an create the proper table entries for how you need to use it, but out of the box it isn't clear. Set up a standard operating procedure and get some people to spend time trying it out with non-paying events.

Definitely wished it allowed you to add non-constituents easily as lots of spouses and other family members of constituents sign up and can clutter up our record band. Also, you can't merge within an event, so if they sign up with a different email, new constituent. You also run into the email issue with NXT and constituents as well.

Chris Vaz

@Lee Grisham thanks for your comments. I can see the duplicate being an issue. How your constituents like the interface? I assume you set everything up in database view?

Alex Wong

@Chris Vaz
we have hundreds of event through RE Event module, so can speak a little about i.

Event such as gala dinner, mission (aboard), parlor meeting, golf, casino night, paid event, free event etc.

We used RE before we moved to RE NXT, so we started out in database view of event management, using Online Express for registration, now try to use webview more, but yes, there are issues to overcome.

database view is slow, but you can only do seating module in database view, and Blackbaud currently has no plan to bring that into webview, so our seated event, when doing seating will have to be done in database view
Online Express is older technology, and works with participant attribute, and b/c we still have to use seating module in database view, we still have to work with participant attribute.
database view does not support participant option that webview support, and webview doees not support participant attribute (custom field) that database view support, this is a huge pain currently
huge problem with non-constituent spouse registration, since our org have spouse as non-constituent spouse
Since Blackbaud introduced “sponsorship” (1 “thing” that comes with multiple ticket), we are investigating and planning to move to RE NXT Event registration form, instead of Online Express, Nothing to report on this yet.

Tristan McKee

@Chris Vaz
Hi, Chris! The Events module is a great tool for the events that you listed… Here are a few resources that I think may help you learn more about using the module overall.

Webinar: RENXT Events Management Overview– (8 minutes)
Event Best Practices
Suggested Training: If you have a LearnMore training subscription, check out the Events training classes we have

Lee Grisham

@Chris Vaz Just like other NXT forms, they don't look pretty. We had an issue one time where someone signed up for an event that was free 8 times as it didn't show a “registered” screen, just the BB circle. Would love to be able to customize them with at least an image…

We set them up in NXT as that is where a majority of our staff work. Don't currently use a lot of the database features that were not planned on being used in NXT like @Alex Wong mentioned. I think it would be hugely helpful to have a separate email solution for the Event section so it is easier to isolate those from Marketing emails and schedule them to go out X days prior or after.

Chris Vaz

@Alex Wong thank you so much Alex. Great overview and comments. I think we are at the same spot, we use the database view event module and want to start using RENXT registration forms.

Miki Martin

@Chris Vaz my former organization utilized the Event module frequently, as we had many free events (we host a monthly rosary for alumnae as an example, although this was keyed after the event by us so we could track attendees) and we also have paid events. Overall I was very pleased with it. Like just about anything, there are pros and cons.

Registering non-constituents is definitely a challenge, but if you have a constituent registered and need to also register the spouse NXT allows that easily when you're adding a guest. If they need to not show as a ‘guest of’ you can still add them, it's just a little more convoluted but doable. If it's a paid event, though, a constituent must be the one paying.

Duplicates can definitely be an issue, but this is also the case with donation forms. I had two monitors at my desk so I had database view on one and web view on the other and had a system where I would quickly manage any duplicates by bouncing between the two when necessary.

I found some things were just easier to manage in web view, like adding participants, although if you had one person paying for multiple people crediting their individual participant records had to be done in database view.

As for emailing participants, you can always create a constituent list in web view to send a reminder, although again that will only go to constituents. If you want to email everyone, including non constituents, that would have to be done through your personal email.

I do like the seating wizard in database view. I have found, though, that if you re-order table numbers after the initial set-up it keeps the original order of tables. For example, if you rename Table 1 to Table 12 and then print off a report of tables and seats, Table 12 will list first. This is a bit annoying and maybe I just have overlooked how to correct this.

I know they have made several updates recently to the registration forms, allowing a registrant several more options than previous. This is a very welcome addition. I had just started using it before I had to leave my position and had set up table registrations, sponsorships and individual tickets for an upcoming event.

The only thing my organization did not use RE Events for was our annual gala because there was no auction capability. We used a different vendor. This past year I ended up adding all the registrants to RE as they came in through the other platform so I could still have the information and set up seating. The org is a small one and we had less than 200 attendees so it was easier to do it this way than try and import it by looking up constituent IDs and such.

Overall I think our constituent base was OK using the forms. We easily set up the color scheme to match our org so things flowed well on our web site. For those older constituents that did not utilize the web much they either called us to register and we would enter it or they mailed in a paper form, which we of course used to enter the information.