FAQ: Inviting Guests

How do I invite someone to attend my event?

Go to the 'Emails' page. From here you can create and send three types of emails - Invites, 3rd Party Invites (Silver Level subscriptions and above only) and Custom Emails. To invite an individual or list of individuals to an event you create an 'Invite'.

Note: before you can click the + Invite button you must have opened, checked / edited and saved your default Invite and Confirmation emails. Click the buttons at the top of the Email page to do this. Once opened and saved, they will display a green edited icon.

 

Open

The default Invite and Confirmation email buttons

Click the + Invite button. Give your invite a name.

Note: when naming Invites, it's useful to make the name reference the individuals or contact lists included in the Invite. This might be something like 'John Brown', or 'New Target Member List'. For 3rd Party Invites this is usually the name of the Company or Group who will be managing those guests. Naming invites in this way makes them much more useful and easier to track in the Email History table, especially when you are sending out many emails.

Open

Create your Invite using the options above

Add recipients to your invite. You can add individual contacts or contact lists (or Salesforce lists if you have Salesforce integration).

Add a Package to your invite. Packages contain the number of seats / places / registrations you are offering each guest in your invite. The default Invite Package contains one seat per guest. You can create Packages containing more than one seat to add to your Invites.

Edit the email if you want to for this Invite only. By default all your Invites will use the default Invite and Confirmation emails you opened and saved at the top of the Emails page. If you need to though you can edit the Invite email here and your edits will apply only to this specific Invite.

Set a Launch time for your Invite. To send out the invite(s) immediately, choose 'Immediately'. To set your invite(s) to go out at a later date / time, select your preferred times from the dropdowns.

Clicking the green 'Launch' button will put your instructions into action. Clicking 'Hold' will save your invite in the History Table until you decide to launch it.

Can I invite more than one guest at a time?

Yes. To invite a number of individuals, click on the 'Add A Contact' button. Select a contact and add them to the invite. To add more individuals one at a time, repeat this process as needed.

To add a whole list of contacts at one time from your Contacts database, click on the 'Add Lists' (or Salesforce: Add Smartlists) button and select the contact list(s) you want to send the invite to.

Tip: When giving your Invite a name, it's useful to name it something to do with the contact(s) you've included in the Invite.

Can I offer guests more than one seat each?

Yes. By default when you set up an event, Seatrobot creates a Package of one individual seat which you can add to any Invite. This gives each person you invite the opportunity to Accept or Decline one seat / place / admittance at your event.

You can create your own Packages which can include any number of seats / admittances you like, as well as descriptions of other benefits etc. Click on Packages. Click ‘Create New' to build your own Package. Give it a name, like ‘2-Guest Invite’ and when the Packages detail box opens, check the 'Invite’ selector.

Following this method, any Package you create here will be available to add to any of your Invites. (If you check the ‘Register Page’ selector instead, the Package you’re creating will be available to toggle ON / OFF your event’s Register Page instead).

If you mark a Package you create as '3rd Party' (Silver Level subscribers and above only), it will be available only to add to a 3rd Party Invite.

Remember - Seating Packages are offered to each individual you invite - so if you create a Seating Package of 5 seats, every single person you invite will be given 5 seats / places at your event to fill.

My event is sponsored / I’m selling tables. How can my sponsors / guests manage their own guest lists?

Seatrobot calls these types of Invites 3rd Party Invites (Silver Level subscriptions and above only). In a 3rd Party Invite you invite an individual to be in charge of a group of seats or invites at your event (like a table). In their invite they receive a link to create their own login to a special page in Seatrobot where they fill those seats by inviting and confirming other people themselves. In a 3rd Party Invite therefore you invite someone to be the Coordinator for that group. This individual may not be attending the event themselves.

Tip: Note: 3rd Party Invites will only appear if you have checked the '3rd Party Invites' checkbox in Event Setup > Event Info, or if you have created a Seating Package in Event Setup > Packages / Tickets and marked it as a '3rd Party' package.

Go to Emails. You must open / edit / save all the default emails in the '3rd Party Email Setup' panel. Once done, you can click the + 3rd Party button to create a new 3rd Party invites.

You'll choose a 'Co-ordinator'. The Co-ordinator is the 3rd party contact who will be in charge of inviting / filling their guest list on behalf of your event. They will receive a Coordinator Welcome email with a link to their own page where they can fill add / invite guests into the places you have given them. (The number of places they have to fill will depend on the number of seats that were contained in the Package you added to their Invite).

For more info on 3rd Party Guest Management click here.

How do I sell tickets to my event?

*Note: Ticketing is only available after you have registered your account for the Seatrobot ticketing module with a linked Seatrobot Stripe account. If you need help to implement Seatrobot ticketing to your account please contact us.

When you create a new event, Seatrobot automatically creates a Ticket for you in Packages. By default it is set to $0 and is not toggled to appear on your event’s Registration page.

In Packages, click on the Ticket Package. This will allow you to edit the details of the Ticket Package, add a price and description and specify how many tickets of this type in total are available for sale, as in the example below:

Once you have created your Ticket Package and clicked Save, the final step is to toggle the Package on to appear on the events Registration page. (Toggle off any Packages you do not want to appear on the page as well):

Now if you refresh your event’s Registration page, you’ll see the Ticket Package you created is available for people to purchase.

You can create as many different Ticket Packages as you wish, and toggle them on or off the Registration page at any time. To create ‘Early Bird’ tickets, create Ticket Packages to toggle on first and others at different prices to toggle on in their place later.

I just want to fill my event. How can I get people to register?

If you are organizing a free event and just want to publicize it to the general public, or friends of friends, select ‘Allow Free Registrations’ when you first create your event. This will toggle on the default ‘Free Registration’ Package on your event’s Registration page. This is what it looks like in Packages:

Copy the 'Register Page' URL from Setup or the Dashboard and include it in emails, on your website, Facebook page etc.

How do I put my Contacts into Seatrobot so I can invite them to events?

Seatrobot contains a database of all your contacts, with powerful contact management tools. You can build this database by adding one contact at a time, or by uploading lists of contacts (from Excel files) or by linking your Seatrobot system with your CMS system (like Salesforce).

The Seatrobot contacts database is not event-specific (your contacts may be invited to any event you create). Therefore you manage contacts from your organization-level admin controls on the purple navigation bar. Click on the 'people' icon  in the top dark purple bar to access your contacts.

From here you can add individual contacts (click the single contact+ icon), or upload contact lists (click the cloud upload icon), and manage your contacts as you wish.

For more information on Contacts in Seatrobot click here.