Event Registration Forms

Sara Niemiec
Sara Niemiec Community All-Star
Kudos 3 Second Anniversary March 2026 Challenge: Answered Questions Commented in Discussion
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussions

My team has asked me to look into creating an event registration form in NXT. I've found the Getting Started docs, so I have a source for the basics. What I want to know involves the following questions:
-Can I send event invitations through NXT email which would include a link to an NXT event registration form? If so, would invitees' responses automatically update the event if they click on the link to the registration form?

If anyone has any insights or challenges they've experienced while doing this, I would be happy to hear them. I haven't done something like this before.

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Answers

  • Chris Hounsell
    Chris Hounsell
    Seventh Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Facilitator 1

    Hi Sara.

    We have been using NXT Events for some time now but not the registration form component within. But we have been testing it in recent months and are getting ready to role out our first live reg form in the next few weeks. I'll preface my response with I don't know it all but comfortable enough to respond to you.

    Yes, you can send event invitations through NXT Email providing all those you want to invite are already in the database as NXT Emails uses lists that are pulled from the database. If you want to send an NXT Email to someone outside of the system, you would have to use another avenue and just include the link to the form.

    In terms of NXT Email, you would just create the email like you would any other email and add the link to the NXT event registration form using the link option. There is no merge field option but the ability to insert a link works just fine. If the event registration form is embedded into your website then you would use that URL instead of the URL RE NXT Event form provides.

    Yes, those who complete the form would show up in the event automatically as that is the form you directed them to. No matter the avenue (NXT Email, Outlook, gmail, etc…), as long as you are providing them the link to the registration form and they fill out the registration form, they will show in NXT Events.

    To find the URL for your form, open the event you created in NXT Events. Find the "Online registration forms" tile within your event. Assuming you created a registration form for you event, click on the three dots next to your event and click the 'Share URL' and here you will find the URL to use in your NXT Email. Again, keep in mind that if you embedded the form in a web page on your website, you may want to direct folks to that URL instead.

    Either way, once they register using the form you built within NXT Events, they will show within the 'Participants' tile.

    Hope this helps. Again, I'm no export with NXT Events yet but we have tested it and will be rolling out our first live Event registration form in the near future. We have been using NXT Events for some time, just not the registration forms themselves.

    Chris

  • Lee Grisham
    Lee Grisham
    Kudos 5 Third Anniversary Name Dropper Participant

    @Sara Niemiec, there is not direct tie from the email to the event form/participant tile. What @Chris Hounsell said is correct, they will show up as a Participant with their registration along with any named guests they added and the fees they choose, if any. Due to NXT matching, they aren't going to automatically be the same constituent to whom you sent the email. If they use a different email address, name, etc. the same mismatch is possible there and cleanup may be needed.

    I believe you can use the List feature to still easily create an invite/email list and use it to populate both, which should help cut down on duplicates if they are already in the event, but even that isn't a sure thing. 🤷

  • Sara Niemiec
    Sara Niemiec Community All-Star
    Kudos 3 Second Anniversary March 2026 Challenge: Answered Questions Commented in Discussion

    @Chris Hounsell, thanks for your response. Once your form does go live, I would be very interested in hearing how it went.

    @Lee Grisham, thank you as well. It makes sense that there may be some data cleanup that has to happen with NXT matches. Do you know if, when RE thinks there isn't already a record that it creates a new full record or just an event participation record. I'm thinking of my org's record band.

  • Lee Grisham
    Lee Grisham
    Kudos 5 Third Anniversary Name Dropper Participant

    I would love to say that Blackbaud has a handy visual guide for this, but unfortunately that is not the case to my knowledge. If I remember correctly, whomever fills out the form becomes a constituent if they are not already. If they register more than one person, those will most likely only be participants and will need to be matched manually to a constituent if they exist. I think there is also some logic around if an organization registers and how that functions, but I'm not entirely sure of what that is, if both the org and the individual are created as constituents or not.

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