Table/Seat Assignment
Galas. Specially seated dinners. Or just a preference to play chess with your registrants. All require thoughtful table and seat assignment!
Features
Create as many tables as you need
Tables can be named however you like, sorted however you like
Tables can have varying numbers of seats
Seats can be 'held' which prohibits assignment
Seats can be assigned to at most one registrant
Two flavors of reports to facilitate assignment (by person and by table)
Seat assignment information included in event attendance reports
Seat assignment information included in Gatekeeper UI
Table/Seat assignment information can be printed on name tags
NEW Table/Seat assignment information can be shown on The Pass and confirmation
Configuration
Seating is managed on a per event basis; few events will be "seated" within any one master event (we hope - for your sake).
To activate seating capability for an event, edit the event and change this setting:
To make seating assignments visible to your registrants (which is RARE!), you can set the Seating Assignment Viz setting to TABLE visible or TABLE+SEAT visible. We recommend not showing this until very late (if ever) so that you have the freedom to move people around without them knowing.
Managing Tables
Once it's active, you'll see a new panel on the view event screen just below the price options block:
This is where you'll manage table and seat creation - not assignment. What you're building here is your assignable inventory.
click on Create Table(s) to do just that - and bulk-create seats at them
Tables must have at least one seat (otherwise it's just weird)
Table names (and notes) can be edited by clicking on the table name or selecting "Update Table" under the Actions button
Table ordering is also governed under that same link
Managing Seats
Seats are max capacity 1. We go to great lengths to keep you from assigning two people to the same seat.
Seats can be updated by selecting "Manage Seats" under the Actions button
Seat counts, names, and ordering are updateable under that same link
Seat Holds
For those of you who manage housing through AlumnIQ, the concept of a hold is not new. A hold blocks that seat from being assignable to an individual.
Holds are useful if you know, for example, that a donor purchased table 10 but doesn't know the other 6 people joining her at it - so you want to ensure those don't get filled in by someone else.
Holds are set and released exclusively here.
Managing Assignment
There are two reports available to you for managing seat assignment: by person and by table.
Depending on how you think, one might work better for you over the other. Both accomplish the same goal.
The assignment by table report we expect will be the more popular one - it's more object centric than person centric. To move a person from one seat to another, first release them by hitting the red X button and then click "NOT ASSIGNED" on the seat you want to move them to.
When you assign a person to a seat you can also apply a seat note that specifically pertains to that individual. This information is included in reports and Gatekeeper - and is never shown to the registrant.
Reporting
We kept reporting really simple on this one - the seating assignments are available for inclusion in the event attendance report.
When exporting to excel be sure to select the "Event Attendance - Seat Assignment" checkbox. Four columns are included: table name, seat name, combined table-seat, and the seat note.
Because you can already pick and choose which information to include in your exports, it's super simple to build a check in sheet from the event attendance report with only the information in it that you need.
Gatekeeper
And because these events almost always involve moving people around as no-shows become apparent, we include the seat assignment information in Gatekeeper both in the list of registrants and on the post-check-in screen for easy reference.
Need to remind someone where they are sitting? Simply re-scan their name tag to see it again.
The Pass
If the Seating Assignment Viz setting is set to TABLE or TABLE+SEAT, we'll show the appropriate assignment per person in The Pass. That's their check in resource, that's their living schedule of events, so it made sense to show there.
The Confirmation
If the Seating Assignment Viz setting is set to TABLE or TABLE+SEAT, we'll show the appropriate assignment per person on the confirmation page and in the confirmation email. The inclusion in The Pass is far more helpful, but we understand there may be situations you want to show it post-checkout - which kinda makes for about .002 microseconds during which you could make an assignment in time for them to see it.
(confs get re-sent all the time so that's why we put it there too)
(use The Pass)
Other ideas
Send them our way!
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