Housing

Large events generally come with the option to nostalgically re-experience the wonders of sleeping and showering in a college dorm. It's fun...once...when you're young.

AlumnIQ can help you manage the sales, assignment, and check in process for your campus housing. How effectively we are able to do that depends a lot on the complexity of what you're selling, how you're pricing it, and to whom that housing is offered.

Dictionary

This part is really, really important. No matter how you're selling places to sleep, using the same language to mean the same things will help your intra-staff communication as well as when you engage us to help you.

Inventory Item - This could be labeled as a bed, a room, or a spot on a waitlist. What's important to keep in mind about inventory items is that they are the equivalent of a promise. "You'll get one of these, somewhere" is what we're telling registrants in exchange for their money (well, except for waitlist items -- but hold that thought). Just like a hotel reservation, you don't pick your room nor which of the two queen beds you'll be sleeping in -- just that you want one of a certain thing. We'll tell you what/where exactly later on.

Roomspace - This is a real thing, usually indoors, usually containing at least something resembling a bed (or more than one of those things). Generally, these roomspaces are beds (in the simplest world), rooms (in slightly more complex ones), or suites (in the most elaborate configurations). Some schools offer one type, others offer multiple side-by-side.

Lottery - The practice of allowing registrants to sign up for a zero-charge roomspace during registration, and then you pick who from that list will get a real roomspace later on. See the lottery section toward the end of this doc for the virtues and operation of one.

Roomspace List - The set of real roomspaces available to assign people to. This has a predefined format that you are required to adhere to (scroll down to the configuration section for it). This data is typically sourced from your campus housing or conference services team, as they know the buildings, rooms, and (most importantly) maintenance schedule that can impact what you can expect to use.

Preferences - AlumnIQ can (if so configured) present two preference fields for registrants to fill in if they select to purchase an inventory item: Who they would like to room with and who they would like to room near. These preferences are not mapped against registrant data - we'd quickly find ourselves in a catch-22. These preferences are made visible to the staff member handling preassignments, for a good-faith effort at accommodation.

Preassignment - the act of assigning a human to a roomspace, which can change at the time of check in. One human can be assigned to exactly one roomspace per purcahased inventory item, and no more.

Assignment or Housing Check In - the act of putting a human in a roomspace for real.

Hold - A marker that takes a roomspace offline, meaning we cannot assign any humans to that roomspace as a preassignment nor actual assignment.

Housing Fees - the sum of roomspace costs plus linen fees (if available and purchased).

YMMV - your math may vary

The Process (Summarized)

Inventory setup > Registration > Inventory purchase > Roomspace list > Preassignment > Check In

Human registers for your event, indicating that they would like 3 nights of an inventory item that sleeps 4 people and four linen packages to go with it. AlumnIQ charges the inventory item's fee (per your rule: either flat for the weekend or times the number of nights they're staying) PLUS the cost of the four linen packages.

You watch your inventory numbers to ensure promises don't exceed what you have available. It can happen - admins have run of house to overpromise as much as they like. Limits are only strictly enforced for public self-registrants. But I digress. You're selling a dream (literally), and all is well.

Don't want to commit to specific room types or your housing sells ridiculously fast? See the Lottery section at the end of this page. It works great for Dayton, Princeton, and others!

Time goes by. You do other things.

A couple weeks before your event, your roomspace list is imported to AlumnIQ.

You (staff member or special volunteer) begin the task of methodically making preassignments to housing purchasers. Remember they've already paid; the preassignment is the first time that purchased inventory item is translated to "Rittler Hall, room B224, bed A" or "Laird Campus - Thomas McKean, room TMK101". In this case, TMK101 is a quad suite, so we've preassigned it to Human.

As part of that decision making process, you're looking at Human's preferences and those of other people to see if any proximity or cohabitation requests can be met. Again, nobody guarantees anything, but

Your roomspace list darn well better match how you've sold the inventory items, or you'll be in a WORLD of hurt. Reason being any one human can only be assigned to one roomspace. If instead of having TMK101 in the roomspace list we had TMK101A, TMK101B, TMK101C, and TMK101D, we can't put Human in all four -- so you'll either need to take those offline (with holds) or know to not use them. It's far, far easier to only import what you've actually sold.

Rinse, wash, repeat until all humans have been preassigned so you know what's committed and what's still in play for walk-ins or (ideally) movements off your wait list (if any).

At long last, your weekend begins.

The Human arrives at housing check in. The staff member responsible for key distribution brings up human's registration record, clicks "housing check in", notes that TMK101 is where they have been preassigned, and decides that's just fine - and checks them in. Keys are handed over and that's it.

TMK101 is occupied and all is well.

What you're selling, and how you're selling it

What we are selling are inventory items; what people will eventually sleep in are roomspaces.

And herein lies one of the complexities of housing management. How you sell your housing impacts how we get from a promise to an actual roomspace.

Examples:

1. Cornell sells, quite simply, "a bed in a room" - and makes no promise beyond that. The cost for adults is a straight multiple: fee * number of nights. There's also, just to make it less than simple, the concept of "0 bed nights" for children who will sleep in the same room as their parents but will sleep on the floor. In some cases, grown adults select this option too in a (semi)futile attempt to avoid paying for the second bed in a room. The staff have grown savvy to this and spot it really easily.

2. St. Olaf sells, also generally simply, "a bed in a room." The cost for everyone is a straight multiple: fee * number of nights - with one exception. One of their packages INCLUDES housing so for those people, the fee = $0 no matter how many nights.

3. Delaware offers different types of inventory items: rooms (sleeping one or two) and suites (sleeping 2, 4, or 6 people) (assuming they all sleep in beds) (we don't judge). Each of these inventory items is sold for a different fee (some buildings are more desirable than others), and the cost is fee * number of nights PLUS an optional linen package - which itself can be ordered in multiple quantities.

4. Princeton offers different bed and room combinations, some of which are on the Princeton campus and others which are leased space at other nearby schools. The fees are for the entire weekend (not multiplied per night like the others), in some cases plus a linen fee (some inventory items include the linens in the fee).

Other sales restrictions

Some schools (Delaware, Scranton) require you to register for a specific paid event or one from a certain set of packages in order to be eligible to purchase campus housing. This serves as a deterrent to those who would simply come back to luxuriate in the dorms throwing their own private parties rather than engage with the community assembled for the weekend.

We take no position on the wisdom of this approach; the necessity of it is entirely dictated by your community, programming, and philosophy.

Get to the point!

Those are but a few of the configurations we've supported through the AlumnIQ registration system. Each brings with it some nuance that we hadn't (until it was requested) supported, but found a way to add in.

When we wade into the weeds of housing with you, it is from a place of empathy. Housing supplies are limited and interest can at times be extreme. That, combined with an expectation that you'll be able to put my three very best friends next door to each other on the same floor facing south and near an elevator (not an entirely made up scenario), can add even more stress to what is meant to be a convenience.

So how do you sell? And what do you sell?

If it's beds in rooms and location is unimportant during the purchase process, that's easy -- assuming your pricing is similarly straightforward.

If it's a mix of beds, rooms, and suites, then things get a little hairier.

Are you selling to the primary registrant only to purchase on behalf of their entire party, or are you offering inventory items to each party member? Adults only or children too? And will children (within a predefined age range) pay a different rate or be presented different options?

What we need to open up registration:

• your inventory items (label for sales, description blurb for sales, number of them to sell (which should be slightly less than what's physically available), type [bed,room,suite], # of people this item can sleep, fee, and fee multiplier [night or weekend])

• whether you want to open up a wait list

• who is allowed to purchase housing (which is a loaded question), and are they only buying for themselves or for their entire party?

• are there limits on the number of inventory items or nights people are permitted to purchase? are they conditioned on other registration selections or information?

What we need so you can start preassignments:

• your roomspace list, matching your inventory sales approach, whether it's beds, rooms, or suites.

You'll be eager to start preassignments well before your roomspace list is available. We cannot preassign people to things which we do not have, so just be cool - it'll come together once we get it.

Housing Configuration

At the master event level there's one decision you need to make known to the AlumnIQ team:

** Do you sell housing per person or to the primary registrant only? **

If it's per person, then the only acceptable unit of sale is the bed. If instead you wish to do quantity-based sales and the spaces you're offering in inventory are rooms, suites, or apartments, then the primary only option is more appropriate.

We do suggest that the per person option is far, far easier from a management perspective - particularly when handling preassignments and attempting to cluster parties and preferences.

Inventory Items

Housing inventory items (see dictionary way up at the top) have considerable influence over the registrant's selection process and how they are charged.

Field	Purpose
Label	What shows up on the housing selection screen. Want to group inventory items by type or by building? Build your labels with a hyphenated name. The first part will be the group. Ex: "Founder's Hall - Double" and "Founder's Hall - Quad" will appear on the selection screen as "Double" and "Quad" under a shared heading of "Founder's Hall".
Pool Owner	In almost all cases, you'll select open pool so that anyone regardless of which 'org' they're registering with is permitted to select against this inventory item. If that's not your situation (again, rare), you can attach a given inventory item to a specific org for limited visibility.
Waitlist Trigger	When the inventory item in this dropdown reaches capacity we'll activate the item you're working on, which should be configured to be $0 and nearly unlimited capacity -- and be really, really clear in the label and description that it is NOT A ROOM - just a spot on the waitlist for one.
Max Available	always leave a gap to allow for administrative reallocations. Don't try to publicly sell every bed you have or you'll be in a world of hurt.
Bed/Sleeps/Unit	Relatively self explanatory. Governs our ability to speak intelligently about the space and also to (in the near future) allow for a fixed set of roommate name capture fields appropriate for the space.
Fee and Per	Fee is what you charge per "Per", which can be a night or for a weekend. Choose wisely - we will do the multiplication at the time of selection if you pick night.
Linens	If you offer linen packages as an add-on or simply need to know the quantity the registrant desires, activate it and specify the fee. Why is the fee on the inventory item? Because some schools offer the linens bundled with the inventory item fee and others do not. Disabling it hides it on the selection form.

Roomspace List

This is the feed of actual, real, physical assignable spaces. These are usually beds but can sometimes also be entire rooms. Either way, one per line, uniquely identified by xroomspaceid. An example feed is linked below.

Field	Purpose
xroomspaceid	REQUIRED. string. a unique identifier for this building, room, and bed combination.
building	REQUIRED. string. example: Founder's Hall, McClintock and Marshall House, Trembley Park
room	REQUIRED. string. represents the room number example 0100, 0224, 1042. We recommend padding with leading zeroes to preserve sort/display order.
location	REQUIRED. string. represents the composite building and room or building room and bed depending on what your unit of assignment is. example of the former where the assigned unit is the entire room: TP-028A, SAPV-B130. Example of the latter where the assigned unit is the BED (typically beds are labeled A, B, C, etc.): MM-B224A, MM-B224B
type	string. what this room is - typically Single, Double, Triple, Apartment, Single/Accessible, etc.
roomdescription	string. if additional notes about the space are needed
isheld	REQUIRED. integer. 0 (default), 1 (if this should not be an assignable space at this time)
heldreason	string. if isheld = 1, space to put a comment about why it's being held aside.

An example feed is available here.

Reports for each step of The Process

housing requests - each inventory item purchased by a human. In some cases, a human may purchase multiple inventory items on behalf of others in their praty. Depends on your configuration and business rules.

preassignments - where you assign humans to roomspaces before check in, filling out your available entries on your roomspace list.

housing status - where you can apply holds (and remove them) to make roomspaces unavailable (or available again) for maintenance, support space, or other purposes.

A Few Words about Housing Lotteries

If your housing sells at very high velocity - or interest far exceeds capacity - you may choose to run a housing lottery instead. This lottery mechanism is extremely good at relieving front-end registration pressure while also granting you unparalleled discretion for who the winners are.

Lottery Setup

• create your actual inventory items representing real beds/rooms

• mark them all INACTIVE

• create a new inventory item "Housing Lottery" with an excessively high capacity, $0 cost, and activate it

Open registration. Make sure your housing intro makes it clear folks are signing up to be in a lottery and no bed/space is guaranteed.

Lottery Winners

Time goes by.

You have two choices for how you go about making your lottery picks:

1. Click methodically through each and every registration record, manually re-assigning the registrant from the lottery inventory item to a real bed/room space.

or

1. Use the new Lottery Draft report.

Reports > under the Housing header, "Lottery Draft"

This report generates a set of housing purchasers, randomized on each run, for you to choose from.

Note that we make select warehouse data visible (which is where you'd typically stash donor society info) as well as registration date and class year. You can click on column headings to sort the table.

Here's the fun thing: you don't have to do everybody at once! You can select only as many folks to "move" to an actual bed as you wish in each run by checking the boxes next to their names and scrolling to the bottom:

Pick the room type the selected individuals are going to be shifted over to and click the Apply Changes button.

1. These changes are immediate.

2. The registration record will show an updated balance due.

3. If you leave the box checked, we'll send an updated confirmation email which will indicate if they owe money for you.

No, we don't automatically charge a card on file - partially for reasons of complexity, partially for reasons of making a bad decision instantly magnified.

(by the way: make a bad choice and mass move people you didn't want to? just lottery draft them out of the wrong inventory type back into the correct one. at least we didn't charge them immediately, right?)