The Basics of Event Registration

Before getting too deep, let's establish some of the key terms and concepts related to event registration.

A Typical Event Registration

Hang in there - we're almost to the meat. First let’s make a quick overview of what an event registration will look like to your members. The example below uses the default registration out of the box. While you'll see that this experience is simple and mobile-friendly, we plan to create even simpler experiences for very basic registrations (think: give me your name and we're done).

Let's get some background on the registration we're walking through below. In this case Ted Decker will be registering his two children Noah and Alexis, as well as Alexis' best friend Katie for camp. The camp costs $200 but also has an optional fee for a t-shirt.

1

Step one: Tell us how many people you plan on registering. Technically, you'll only see this screen if you've enabled Allow Multiple Registrants. Otherwise you'll be limited to a single registrant. As you can see, Ted has selected three registrants.

2

And we’re off! We'll start by entering the information required for the first child. In this case Ted has entered Katie's information.

3

Now we see the entry form for the next child. Let's pause here for a second and mention that while this case has one form for each registrant, Rock allows you to configure multiple entry screens for each registrant. OK, back to the registration. You'll see that Ted has entered Alexis' information. Notice how we've put an asterisk marking part the page. Since the registration was configured to Ask if registrants are in the same family, that's exactly what it's doing. This will help make sure that the data that is entered into Rock is consistent with the actual family structure of the individuals being registered.

4

Now it's Noah’s turn. Again notice the family selection. Ted has selected that Noah is in the same family as Alexis.

5

Now it's time to pay up! Here we see a nice break down of the costs and fees. We have the opportunity to enter a discount code as well as enter the amount we wish to pay today. You'll also note that the registrar can enter their information here also. Like the registrants, they can select which family they belong to.

6

Done!

General Settings

1 Template Name

The name of your template.

2 Active

When a template should not be used anymore you can deactivate it. You could also delete it, but that would also delete all the registrations that use it.

3 Category

To help organize registrations, you can organize and secure them by category.

4 Group Type / Group Member Role / Group Member Status

These fields help tell Rock what settings to use when it drops the person into a group. In this case they will be placed into the group with the Role of Member and the Status of Active.

5 Allow Multiple Registrants

Fairly straight forward.

6 Maximum Registrants

This limits how many people can register on a single registration.

7 Registrar Options

This option allows the event coordinator to auto-complete the registrar's information with the first registrant's information as well as hide the registration form altogether. This is useful and streamlines the process when the person registering is also the registrar (say, for example when someone is registering themselves for an event). The options for this setting are:

• Prompt for Registrar - This default setting displays the standard registration form and process.
• Prefill First Registrant - This setting auto-completes the registration with the first registrant's information. This is helpful when the registrants don't log in to register for the event but you still want to auto-complete their information.
• Use First Registrant - This setting also auto-completes the registration with the first registrant's information, but it also hides the registration panel during the Review Registration step of the process unless the form doesn't collect the registrant's email address. In this case, the registration panel will be displayed during the Review Registration step since that information is required for registration communications.

8 Registrants In The Same Family

Creating the family structures during the registration process can be tricky. This setting allows you to give Rock hints about the people that are registering for the event. If you're hosting a pastors' conference, you'll probably want to enter No since the registrants are most likely not in the same family. Rock will then create new families for each registrant. Yes will assume that all the registrants are in the same family. Ask enables the cool functionality you saw during the walk-thru above. It provides a very elegant way for the registrar to tell you the family make-up.

9 Enable Wait List

Checking this box will enable the waitlist functionality. You must have a value for the maximum registrants to enable the waitlist. See the chapter on waitlists below.

10 Notify

When someone registers for an event we often can’t wait to find out. This setting allows you notify several different parties.

1. Registration Contact: This is configured on the registration instance.
2. Group Followers: The groups that the registration is linked to can be followed by people with view permissions.
3. Group Leaders: All of the individuals that have roles that are marked Is Leader in the group linked to the registration will receive an email.

11 Add Person Note

When checked registrars and registrants will have a note added to their timeline that denotes that they have registered for the event.

12 Login Required

Requiring the guest to login ensures that a duplicate record is not created for the registrar, but it does come at the cost of requiring the guest to login (and possibly register for a login) on your site.

13 Allow Group Placement

Rock provides tools to help place your registrants into groups for you. This is helpful when creating teams or when working with camps. See the Registration Group Placements chapter for more information on this tool.

14 Set Cost On

This setting determines where the cost will be set, on the template where all registration instances will share it, or on the instance.

15 Cost

The cost of the registration.

16 Minimum Initial Payment

This is the minimum amount that must be paid at the time of registration. Leaving the field blank will have the effect of requiring full payment.

17 Financial Gateway

The financial gateway you would like the financial transactions to be processed with.

18 Batch Name Prefix

Optional prefix to add the the financial batches. If left blank the prefix from the registration block will be used.

19 Registration Workflow

This setting allows you to set a workflow to be run with each registration. A similar setting exists on the instance if you need a different workflow per instance.

20 Allow External Updates to Saved Registrations

This setting keeps individuals from editing a registration once it has been saved. It's common that someone may come back to a registration to make a remaining payment. While there they can change any of the registrant information. Disabling the feature keeps these edits from occurring.

21 Required Signature Document

Here you can set a digital signature document to be sent out after each registration. The 'In-line Signature' setting determines if the digital signature should occur during the registration process (after filling in each registrant) or if the request for a digital signature should be sent via email after the registration is complete.

21 Show Communication Settings

Since the communications settings for a template are rarely changed we've hidden them from everyday viewing. Select this checkbox to view these settings.

Forms

Now for the fun part - creating the entry form. When you see the power here you'll have no choice but to smile.

At a minimum you must collect the registrant's first and last name. But in most cases you'll want to add at least a couple more fields.

When adding fields, you have your choice of where and how they're stored. Let's look at each type.

• Person Field: These fields come right off the person's record. They include things like:
• Campus
• Address
• Email
• Birthdate
• Gender
• Marital Status
• Phone Numbers
• Connection Status
• Person Attribute: This type allows you to take what they've entered and place it into a person attribute.
• Group Member Attribute: This allows you to store their entered values into a group member attribute of the linked group.
• Registration Attribute: The final type allows you to configure new attributes that will be stored within the registration.

You'll notice a few other settings on the add screen. These settings allow you to:

• Common Value: Filling out forms can be tedious. This setting allows you to take the entered value from the first registration and auto-populate the same field for the subsequent registrants.
• Internal: This setting allows you to define the attribute, but keep it from being displayed on the external registration form. It will be made available however when editing the form internally. This is used for internal fields that will be entered after the registration takes place, or for simply displaying, for example, an existing person attribute on the grid for event-administration purposes.
• Use Current Value: In an effort to reduce the amount of data that must be entered, this setting takes the current value from the registar's record. This is especially helpful for attributes like 'Address'.
• Show On Grid: This will place this attribute on the grid of registrants. It can be very helpful as long as you limit the number of items you put on the grid.
• Pre-Text / Post-Text: Like the workflow entry forms, these fields allow you to surround your entry fields with custom HTML markup. With some basic web design knowledge you can use these fields to create richer experiences.

Confirmation Email

After completing the registration, you can set up a confirmation email. This email also acts as an emailed receipt.

While you're free to modify this email, we've provided a template that should work in most cases. Below we've shown what this sample email will look like. Note that the highlighted section comes from the Additional Confirmation Details field of the registration instance.

Reminder Email

We all appreciate reminders. Especially for events we may have registered for long ago. On this screen you can edit the reminder emails. When you create the registration instance (discussed next), you will configure when this email will be sent.

Again, we’ve provided you with a capable template (shown below). One thing of note here is that the template relies on the registration instance's Additional Reminder Details to set when the event will occur. We've highlighted this part in the email below.

Payment Reminder Email

Allowing partial payments is great, but getting the remaining balance has always been difficult. That was until Rock came around. There's now several tools for getting the remaining balance quickly and easily. The configuration items in this section help setup the communication tools for these reminders. For the most part you can leave them as is. You can read more about these tools in the section below.

Terms / Text

Event registrations can be used for several different kinds of events. To help fit different types of events, we allow you to customize many of the terms used during the registration process. In this section you can also configure the success text that displays on the final page of the registration screen.

Instance Settings

Clicking the from the instance grid will bring up the instance editor show below.

1 Registration Instance Name

This is actually an important field that will be shown during the registration process. It will be used to describe the event that you are registering for (e.g. Thank You for Registering for "_______").

2 Active

This determines if the registration instance is currently active.

3 Registration Starts

The date and time that the registration starts.

4 Registration Ends

The date and time that the registration ends.

5 Account

The financial account that the registration costs/fees should be tied to.

6 Contact Name / Phone / Email

The information that should be displayed as the contact for the registration process.

7 Registration Workflow

You can optionally configure a workflow to run at the end of each registration. The registration will be passed in as the entity on the workflow. A similar setting exists on the template if you would like to ensure that all instances have the same workflow.

8 Send Reminder Date

The date and time that the reminder should be sent.

9 Additional Reminder Details

This text is used in the reminder email template defined on the registration template. It's important that you include information on when and where the event will occur. For more information on the reminder email, see the template section above.

10 Additional Confirmation Details

Like the reminder details, this field is used to provide additional, instance-specific, information to the template stored on the template.

Now that we've shown you how to make a new registration instance from this page, we should tell you that you'll rarely ever create an instance from here. More about that later in the chapter Bringing It All Together.

Fee Types

Below is a chart of the various types of fees that are available. You can use any combination of these to create the fee structure you need for each registration event.

1 Single Option Fee

You either want it or you don't.

2 Single Option Fee with Quantity

You can get as many as you want.

3 Multiple Options

Variety is the spice of life.

4 Multiple Options with Quantity

What's better than a little spice? A whole lot!

Now that we see what's possible, let's look at how to set up fees.

Setting Up Fees

You can add, edit and delete fees in the Fees section of the Event Registration screen.

Click the button to create a new fee.

1 Name

This will be used for the label that goes above the fee selection.

2 Options

Here is where you'll make the determination of whether the fee has multiple options. When selected, it will display a key/value input that allows you to enter optional text as well as the cost.

3 Enable Quantity

Pretty obvious what this does (enables the quantity picker).

4 Discount Applies

Sometimes you'll want the discount calculation to apply to fees sometimes not.

5 Is Active

Check this box to make the fee active. Inactive fees will not be displayed for new registrations, but will be displayed when viewing charges for existing registrations.

Optional vs. Required Fees

Fees can be either optional or required. To designate a fee as required select the Is Required checkbox on the Fee Editor screen. Required fees are designated by a red dot on the event registration screens. If a registration is submitted with a missing required fee value, Rock will display a message asking the registrant to select a value before proceeding.

Here's a closer look at how Rock handles each of the fee types above when they are designated as required:

• Single Option - Rock automatically checks the box and disables it to prevent changes.
• Single Option with Quantity - Rock sets the minimum quanity to "1" and prevents it from being changed to less.
• Multiple Options - Rock creates the same dropdown list as an optional fee, but displays a message if no value is selected.
• Multiple Options with Quantity - Because at least one option must have a value selected, Rock displays a warning if all options have a value of "0".

Fee Reports

All of the fees for each registration are listed under the Fees tab on the Registration Instance screen. You can use the filter options to filter the information by date range, fee name, and/or one or more of the options that apply to that fee. (Note: because the options vary with each fee, the available filter options are only displayed once a particular fee name is selected.)

To further help you track and work with fees, you also have the option of exporting fees to an Excel spreadsheet. To do this, click the button on the Fees tab on the Registration Instance screen.

Discount Codes

Discount codes allow you to give individuals a code to reduce the amount of their registration. This discount can be in the form of a percentage of costs/fees or a fixed amount. To create a discount code, enter a percentage or amount in the Discount Type and Discount Percentage fields of the Discount Code screen.

Quantity Discounts

Quantity discounts allow you to create a discount for multiple registrations in the same transaction, such as a group registration. To create this type of discount, enter the minimum and maximum number of registrants in the Discount Code screen. When Rock processes the registration, if the number of registrants entered falls within the parameters entered, the discount is applied.

Early Bird Discounts

Early bird discounts apply a discount for registrations that fall within a certain date range. That date range is entered in the Effective Dates fields of the Discount Code screen. When Rock processes the registration, if the date of registration falls within the entered timeframe, the discount is applied.

Customized Discounts

You can create your own, unique discount by combining any of these discount types. Just know that when the registration is processed, all of the criteria you enter has to be met for the discount to be applied. So, that super complicated option we mentioned above? Maybe not the best practice.

Automatic Discounts

The Discount Code screen includes an option to automatically apply the discount. If this option is selected, Rock will automatically checks the registrations against the discount codes available and apply the first discount that matches the criteria. The order the codes are listed in the Event Registration screen is the order in which Rock applies them. A registrant can override any automatic discount with a discount code entered manually during the registration process.

Maximum Usage

You can limit the number of times a discount code can be used by entering a value in the Maximum Usage field. Leave this field blank if you want the discount code to be available for use indefinitely.

Viewing and Reporting Used Discounts

Once discounts for a particular registration event are used, they're recorded under the Discounts tab in the Registration Instance screen. You can filter these records by:

• Date Range - Displays all of the discount codes used during the dates specified.
• Discount Code - Displays the discounts matching the code selected from the dropdown menu.
• Discount Code Search - Displays all discount codes that match the search criteria, whether it be a word, partial word or number. For example, if you search for "ly", Rock will display any codes with names that contain "ly". If you create discount codes with specific prefixes, such as numbers or abbreviations, the search function can help you quickly locate all of the codes matching a particular prefix. Note: If you select a discount code from the dropdown menu, the discount code search option will be disabled.

The amounts displayed in the Totals for Results section of the screen are based on the discount codes displayed. If you filter the discounts, the totals will be recalculated and updated based on the filter parameters.

Promoting Your Registration

The easiest way to give your guests access to an event registration is through a calendar event. The Bringing It All Together chapter below covers the process of linking calendar events to registrations. Once linked, the event detail will display the Register button as show below.

You can also link directly to an event registration using a URL. The formats for doing so are:

• http://www.yourexternalsite.com/page/999?RegistrationInstanceId=999 (where the page id and registration instance id match the appropriate values)
• http://www.yourexternalsite.com/Registration/<slugname> (you can find more on slugs in the Bringing It All Together chapter below)

Managing Registrations

You can manage the registrations by going to the Event Instance Detail Page (Tools > Event Registration > Registration Detail > Registration Instance). At the top of this page you'll see the details of the registration with an Edit button to modify its settings. You'll also notice a number of tabs toward the bottom of the page, each relating to a different component of the registration process (registrations, payments, etc.). The content on each of the tabs can be filtered using the Filter Options link.

Registrations Tab

The Registrations Tab shows all of the registrations that have been entered into the system. Remember these are registrations that could have multiple registrants.

From this tab you can view and edit an existing registration or manually add a registration yourself (great if you also allow paper registrations).

1 Registration Details

This shows the details of the registration including information on the Registrar. You can easily resend the confirmation email from here.

2 Registrant Details

Next you will see a panel for each registrant on the registration. You can also edit their registration details from this screen.

3 View Edit Payments

This link allows you to view and edit payments. We'll discuss this further below.

4 Audit Log

This button allows you to view information about how the registration was entered and any financial changes that were made.

5 Move Registration

Sometimes a registration needs to be moved. Perhaps the person registered for the wrong instance of the event, or maybe they just changed their mind. Don't worry, moving a registration is easy! You can however only move the event to an instance using the same registration template (moving them across different templates would be rather difficult as there would be different fields, costs, fees and discounts.) This button allows you to complete the move of the registration.

6 Add New Registrant

Notice that at the bottom of the screen you can add more registrants to the registration if needed.

Registrants Tab

The next tab shows a listing of all registrants for the event. This list is also filterable. Clicking a row will show you the registrant's details as well as the rest of the related registration information. If this screen seems familiar, it's because it's the same screen as the one above except that we scroll down to the selected registrant's information.

Payments Tab

The payments tab allows you to view all the payments that have been made for registrations for this instance. Clicking on one of these tabs allows you to view the financial transaction for the payment. From this transaction detail screen you can process a refund for the payment.

Fees Tab

This tab displays all of the registration fees associated with the event. The information can be filtered and exported to a spreadsheet. Be sure to read the Registration Fees chapter to learn how fees work with event registration.

Discounts Tab

This tab displays all of the discounts used during registration, as well as a lot of useful information about the discounts used. You can view which codes were used, who used them, how many times each discount was used, and the total costs of the discounts. As with the other tabs, the information provided in this tab is filterable and can be exported to a spreadsheet.

Linkages Tab

This tab will make more sense once you read the Bringing It All Together section. Basically, it shows all of the related calendar events and groups that are linked to this registration.

Wait List Tab

This tab displays any registrants placed on the wait list as well as allows you to move them off of the wait list. To learn more about wait lists, see the Wait Lists chapter below.

Group Placement Tab

If the Allow Group Placement option is selected in your registration template, you'll also see a Group Placement tab. This is where you can place registrants into groups. See the Registration Group Placements section to learn more.

Registration Entry

You can enable the wait list features on registration templates. Then, you'll configure the maximum number of registrants on registration instances. When the event is full, individuals will see the message below when they attempt to register.

At this point, the individual can decide not to register or to add themselves to the waitlist. Let's look at a slightly more complex scenario. What if there is only one spot left and the person is hoping to register two individuals? When they arrive at the page they'll see a normal registration page. But, when they select more people than there are slots available, they'll get the message below.

In this case, let's assume that they would like to continue with registering both kids for camp. You'll notice that the registrant entry screen below looks fairly normal but has an additional notice at the top reminding them that this individual will be fully registered for the event.

As they move to register the second child they will notice that the reminder is now warning them that this individual will be on the wait list. Careful observers may have noticed that the number of entry fields has changed. (We're not asking for Leader Preference, etc.) You have the option to configure registration form fields for the wait list or to hide them.

As they move to the payment screen, note that those on the wait list are not charged for the registration. They are simply holding a spot.

It's very important that we're clear about who is on a wait list and who is a full registrant. To this end, both the confirmation screen and the email reflect the individual's registration status.

Wait List Administration

Now that we're familiar with the process of registering for a wait list, let's look at how you can administer wait lists.

From the registration instance screen, you'll notice that registrations with individuals on a wait list are clearly noted on the list. There is also a Wait List tab to help you view and manage the wait list.

The Wait List tab allows you to view those on the wait list with their placement order. If you would like to move an individual from the wait list to a full registrant, simply select the checkbox in front of their name and select the Move From Wait List button at the bottom of the grid.

After you select to move them you'll see the screen below confirming that they have been moved. At this point the new full registrant will be added to any groups that were configured. If you'd like to send them an email to confirm the move and request additional fields simply select the Send email to individuals checkbox.

The email that is sent will remind them if any payment is due and also ask them to complete the registration if any additional fields are needed.

While this feature makes moving people from the wait list a simple process, you can also convert a full registrant to a wait list member or a wait list member to a full registrant from the registration details screen.

Manual Reminders

One way to remind individuals of remaining balances is to manually send them a reminder. You can do this from the Registration Instance page.

Once you click the Send Payment Reminder link you'll see the page below. This page allows you to customize the reminder text and who should receive the email.

1

The "from" name and email as well as the subject should be filled in for you based on the values supplied from the registration template. You can edit these values to suit your needs.

2

Next you see a preview of the email the individuals will receive. The preview uses the information for the first person on the grid below to give you a precise view of what the person will receive in their inbox.

3

You can choose to edit the email template if you wish by clicking the Source toggle. This will display the Lava template that creates this email.

4

Below the preview you'll see a list of those with a remaining balance. When creating the list, Rock looks at the Payment Reminder Time Span setting for the registration template. If the registration has already received a reminder or was created within this timespan, the registration is greyed out and is not selected (the checkbox is checked). You can, however, override this and select specific registrations or all registrations.

5

Click the Send Reminders button and you're off to the races!

Automatic Reminders

Manual reminders are nice, but automatic ones…well they're even better! If you provide a Payment Reminder Time Span on the registration template, Rock will send an automatic reminder to the registrations based on that timeframe. So for example, if you provide the value of 30 for the Payment Reminder Time Span, they will receive a reminder every 30 days until their balance is paid.

This sending is done through the Event Payment Reminders job under System Settings > Jobs Administration. This job does have one configuration parameter you should be aware of. The job Cut-off Date is the number of days past the registration close date to send reminders. After this cut-off, reminders will need to be sent manually to prevent eternal reminders.

Placement

Once the placement feature is enabled, you will see an extra tab under your registration instance. From this tab you can quickly place the registrants into groups of your choosing. Let's see how this works.

The first thing you'll notice is the parent group drop-down. This setting allows you to pick a group that will become the top level or container group for all of the placement groups. When you select a parent group, you may notice that some of the registrants disappear. Don't worry, this just indicates that that registrant is already in a child group under the parent. Hiding them allows you to focus solely on the registrants who have not yet been placed. If you'd like to change a registrant's placement group, simply remove them from the group and they'll re-appear.

After selecting the parent group it's time to select the placement group for each child. Note that the registrant list shows all the attributes that are selected as Show On Grid. During the placement process you may wish to adjust which attributes are shown.

Note the Set Group Member Attributes checkbox above the registrant list. This option allows you to copy registrant attribute values to the group member attribute values if both have the same key. For example, say your summer camp registration has a registrant attribute value for shirt size, and that attribute's key is "shirtsize". If your cabin groups also have a shirt size attribute with the key "shirtsize", when you process group placements with the Set Group Member Attributes option checked, the shirt size values of the registrants will be copied over to the groups they are placed in.

Once you have selected the placement groups, select Place to add the individuals to the groups.

Adding Payments

While most of the time payments for events will be handled by the registrar during the registration process, you can manually enter payments on their behalf from the registration details page Tools > Event Registration > Registration Template > Registration Instance > Registration (ok... that seems complex, but it's really not as bad as it look on paper...)

From the Registration Details page you can manage payments using the View/Edit Payments Link (highlighted below).

Once you click the link you will see the Payments Edit Panel. The screenshot below shows you all the options on this screen.

1 Payment Detail

Clicking on the date of the payment will take you to the financial transaction detail page for the payment. From here you can get more information about the payment and process a full or partial refund.

2 Process A New Payment

Selecting this option allows you to run a new payment through Rock.

3 Add Manual Payment

This optional allows you to enter the details of a manual (off-line) payment.

4 Cancel

To go back to the view mode simply select the cancel button.

Refunds

Processing full or partial refunds through Rock is simple. Simply click the Payment Detail link show in call-out #1 above to proceed to the financial transaction detail page for the payment. From here you will see the screen below. Note the refund button at the bottom of the page.

Clicking the Refund button will show the refund modal below.

1 Amount

This tells Rock how much the refund should be for. By default the full amount of the financial transaction is entered into the box.

2 Refund Reason

This dropdown allows you to pick from a standard set of refund reasons. You can modify this list under Admin Tools > General Settings > Defined Types > Refund Reasons

3 Summary

This field allows you to enter specific notes about the refund.

4 Process Refund Through Gateway

This checkbox determines if the refund should be automatically run through the payment gateway or just entered into Rock (unchecked).

Partial Payments

Partial payments are a popular feature for events with higher costs, like camps. The age ol' problem with them comes when it's time to complete the payments. Many times people want to pay off the balance, but they're not sure how. Other times... well... they just need a reminder. Let's look at several strategies on how to make partial payments work for you.

Recent Registration Block

Rock also ships with a Recent Registration block on the My Account page of the external website. This block lists any recent registrations and notes if a payment is due. Clicking the link will take them to a page where they can complete the payment.

Event Calendars

Every organization has the need for multiple calendars. Even a small organization will have a public and private (internal) calendar. Most will have several more. You can administrate calendars under Tools > Calendars.

Out of the box Rock ships with two pre-configured calendars:

• Internal: Used for internal events like staff meetings retreats, etc.
• Public: For events targeted towards your members and attendees.

You can add additional calendars by selecting the add button in the upper right of the panel. When adding or editing a calendar you will see the screen below:

1 Name

The name of the calendar.

2 Active

Whether the calendar is currently active.

3 Description

A quick reminder of what the calendar is for and how it should be used.

4 Icon CSS Class

The Font Awesome icon class the calendar should use.

5 Event Attributes

Each calendar can define custom attributes available to the events that are on them. This is where you define these attributes.

6 Content Channels

We'll cover content channels later in the Bringing It All Together chapter. For now just know that you can link content channels to events to allow you to easily promote them.

Calendar Security

You can set up security for each calendar you define. This allows you to delegate the management of these calendars and their events. You set security from the Calendar Details Page by pressing the button.

Events

Once you've created your calendar, you're ready to place events on them. The Calendar Details Page (Tools > Calendars > Calendar) shows a list of the current events for a calendar. As you get more and more events you'll want to start using the filters on this grid to help you manage the events that are displayed.

The event add/edit screen below shows you how to manage the events on the calendar.

1 Name

The name of the event.

2 Active

Whether the event is currently active.

2 Approved

If you have 'Approval' permission to the calendar you'll be able to approve the event here.

4 Summary

A quick description of the event that will display on the calendar when listing multiple events.

5 Description

A more complete description of the event that will be displayed on the event detail page.

6 Audiences

This helps to categorize the events by those who would be most interested. These are the same audience choices that are used for the other web content channels.

7 Photo

A picture is worth a thousand words right? So don’t skimp - include one on your event.

8 Additional Calendars

As we mentioned above, you can place your event on as many calendars as you'd like.

9 Details URL

If you provide a web address here it will be used instead of the Rock event details page when your guests click 'More Information' from the calendar.

10 Attribute Values

Remember how we could define custom attributes for the events on custom calendars? This is where you'll add the values for these attributes. The attributes are grouped by calendar.

Event Occurrences

We have our calendar and now, events. All that's left is to add the event occurrences that determine when these events occur. Some events may only occur once, while others apply often. Either way, you'll add the occurrences from the Event Details Page.

1 Campus

First we must select which campus this event will occur on (single campus organizations can select either all or the main campus).

2 Contact Information

Next we select who the contact will be and provide their email and phone number.

3 Location Description

Now we can describe the location where the event will be held. Instead of using a location picker, we decided to allow you to enter a more descriptive text of where the event is being held.

4 Schedule

Ok, now for the important part. When will the event occur? Hopefully by now you've had a chance to use the Rock Schedule Builder tool in other features. It's a powerful tool for defining complex re-occurring schedules. It also does simple one-time schedules too.

5 Registration Instance / Group

Most often, you'll want to create a registration for your calendar event. Instead of having to leave the screen to create the registration instance, you can do it right here. We'll talk more about how to do this in the Bringing It All Together chapter.

6 Occurrence Note

This note will be shown on the calendar detail screen on the public website. It's used to provide custom notes about the specific occurrence.

You might be thinking, "Hey! Reoccurring schedules? I thought we were supposed to create a new occurrence each time the event occurred?" Yes... and no... Some occurrences of an event may last two to three weeks (say a single occurrence of a three-week stewardship class). In this case, make a single occurrence with a reoccurring schedule.

Once you save your calendar occurrence, you'll be taken to the occurrence detail screen. From here you'll see that you can click the button to add a new content channel item, or you can click the button to link to an existing content channel item. Adding and connecting with content channel items allows you to enter and track promos for your event.

Event Occurrence Attributes

You can create specific attributes to assign to event occurrences. For example, you could create a "Lunch Provided?" attribute to use with recurring staff meetings. Then for each meeting assign that attribute a value of "Yes" or "No". As with all attributes, the possibilities are endless and completely customizable for your organization's needs.

To create an event occurrence attribute value, click the button on the main Event Calendars screen to access the Calendar Attributes screen.

Calendar Blocks

Below is what the calendar looks like on the external website. These blocks have a ton of settings (much of the page is rendered in Lava so the possibilities are endless).

Calendar Settings and Formatting

There are a couple of things about the iCalendar feed you should know before going forward. First of all, any security added to calendars is enforced, so you need to have access to any non-public calendars you want to use with the iCalendar feed. Second, Rock takes care of providing and formatting the calendar content. You can, however, customize the calendar's description by adding the following Lava to the Lava template:

                {{ EventItem.Description }}

                {{ EventItemOccurrence.Note }}
            

(Remember, Lava templates can be found at Admin Tools > General Settings > Defined Types > Lava Templates.)

OK, let's take a look at the iCalendar URL itself.

Calendar URL

The format of the URL has a specific format:

http://rocksolidchurch.org/GetEventCalendarFeed.ashx?calendarid=1

There are three parts to the URL: the organization's domain name (i.e., rocksolidchurch.org), the GetEventCalendarFeed function, and the calendar parameters (i.e., calendarid=1). The domain name and the parameters will change according to the organization and the desired calendar options, but the GetEventCalendarFeed.ashx portion must remain unchanged in order for the feed to work.

Let's take a closer look a the parameters available for customizing the calendar feed. You can use parameters to tell the feed to pull only events from a specific campus, specified dates, or even from a certain Lava template. The following parameters are available with the iCalendar feed:

So, using our same URL sample above, if you want to grab the feed for events on the public calendar from April 1, 2018 through July 7, 2018, the URL feed would be:

http://RockSolidChurch.org/GetEventCalendarFeed.ashx?calendarid=1&startDate=20180401&enddate=20180707

To filter the above URL for two audience types, the URL would be:

http://RockSolidChurch.org/GetEventCalendarFeed.ashx?calendarid=1&startDate=20180401&enddate=20180707&audienceIds=147,1698

Now, you could build the iCalendar feed URL yourself; but to make things super easy, you can also quickly grab the URL for the event calendar you want to use by going to the Event Calendar screen and clicking the Export Calendar Feed button.

Securing Calendars

While those in the RSR - Staff Workers and RSR - Staff Like Workers roles can view and add new events only those in the RSR - Calendar Administration can approve events and create new calendars.

Securing Event Registrations

Like calendars those in the RSR - Staff Workers and RSR - Staff Like Workers roles can create new instances of registrations but only those in the RSR - Event Registration Administration can create new registration templates.

From a financial perspective anyone in the staff/staff-like roles can add payments to a registration but out of the box you will need to be in the RSR - Finance Administration role to process refunds.

Calendar Block

This block is the basic calendar list block for your external calendar. The screen shot below shows the block in its default form, however this block comes with a ton of settings to change the way it is displayed. Below is a list of settings that this block provides.

• Event Calendar: The calendar (public, internal, etc.) to pull events from.
• Default View Option: Which view option (day, week or month) to initially show .
• Details Page: The page to navigate to, to show the event's details.
• Campus Filter Display Mode: Options to show a campus filter (Hidden, Plain, Panel Open, Panel Closed)
• Audience Filter Display Mode: Options to show an audience filter (Hidden, Plain, Panel Open, Panel Closed)
• Filter Audiences: Allows you to filter which audiences you'd like to show as filter options.
• Show Date Range Filter: Determines whether a date range filter should be displayed.
• Show Small Calendar: Determines whether the small calendar in the upper left should be shown.
• Show Day View: Determines whether the day view should be shown as an option.
• Show Week View: Determines whether the week view should be shown as an option.
• Show Month View: Determines whether the month view should be shown as an option.
• Enable Campus Content: Determines whether the campus context should be used to filter the events (assumes that a campus context is in use on your site.)
• Lava Template: The Lava template that will be used to format the list of filtered events.
• Start of Week Day: Determines what day is the start of a week.
• Set Page Title: Determines if the block should set the page title with the calendar name.
• Enable Debug: This setting helps you create your Lava template by allowing you to view the Lava objects available.

Event Item Occurence Detail

Once you pick an event from the calendar, this is the block that displays the details for the event occurrence. This page is formatted entirely using Lava, so customize at will.

• Registration Page: The page to navigate to for registration.
• Set Page Title: Determines if the block should set the page title with the event item name.
• Lava Template: The Lava template that will be used to format the list of filtered events.
• Set Page Title: Determines if the block should set the page title with the calendar name.
• Enable Debug: This setting helps you create your Lava template by allowing you to view the Lava objects available.

Event Item Occurence List

This is more of a specialty block. It lists upcoming occurrences for a specific event item. This is helpful for events like specific classes (e.g. Starting Point, Stewardship Class) or events that routinely happen (e.g. Baptisms).

• Event Item: The event item to show occurrences for.
• Campuses: Which campuses to show occurrences for.
• Use Campus Content: Determines whether the campus context should be used to filter the events (assumes that a campus context is in use on your site.)
• Date Range: You can filter the occurence list by a sliding date range (e.g. upcoming two weeks).
• Max Occurrences: The maximum number of occurrences to show.
• Registration Page: The page to navigate to for registration.
• Lava Template: The Lava template that will be used to format the list of filtered events.
• Set Page Title: Determines if the block should set the page title with the calendar name.
• Enable Debug: This setting helps you create your Lava template by allowing you to view the Lava objects available.

Calendar Item Occurence List By Audience

This is another specialty block. It lists upcoming occurrences for a specific audience (All Church, Youth, Children, etc.). This is helpful for pages devoted to these audiences.

• Audience: The audience to filter on.
• Calendar: Which calendar to use.
• Use Campus Content: Determines whether the campus context should be used to filter the events (assumes that a campus context is in use on your site.)
• Date Range: You can filter the occurence list by a sliding date range (e.g. upcoming two weeks).
• Max Occurrences: The maximum number of occurrences to show.
• Registration Page: The page to navigate to for registration.
• Lava Template: The Lava template that will be used to format the list of filtered events.
• Set Page Title: Determines if the block should set the page title with the calendar name.
• Enable Debug: This setting helps you create your Lava template by allowing you to view the Lava objects available.

Event Calendar Item Personalized Registration

This is a quirky, but insanely cool little block. Its main use is to faciliate internal registrations for special classes from an individual's Person Profile page. Let's dig into a sample to understand this better.

Say your organization has a special orientation class called Starting Point. Previous attendance in this class is really important to you so you've created a special badge to show if someone has attended this class. But... you also want to easily be able to register people for upcoming classes when they call or email you. You can then set the markup of your badge to link to a page with this block if they have not attended Starting Point. This block takes the person and looks up upcoming class dates based on their campus. Once you select a date you can select other members of the family and create a registration to add them to the class.

It should be noted that this block creates an online registration and then redirects to the registration block to complete the process. This allows for the collection of extra fields configured for the registration and also allows for things like confirmation and reminder emails.

• Include Family Members: Determines if a list of family members should be displayed to include in the registration.
• Days In Range: The number of days in the future to filter event occurrences for.
• Max Display Events: The maximum number of occurrences to show.
• Registration Page: The page to redirect to, to complete the registration.
• Start Registration At Beginning: You can optionally choose to redirect to the beginning of the registration process (a good option if you expect additional custom fields to be needed) or the end (a good option if additional fields are not needed as you can quickly complete the registration).

The block requires the following inputs through the URL:

• PersonGuid: The Guid of the person to be registered.
• EventItemId: The Id of the event item to process the registration for.