Have a Safe Memorial Day Weekend! May 24, 2013
In honor of Memorial Day on Monday, the country will be remembering the men and women who died while serving in the US Armed Forces. And this weekend typically serves as the unofficial start of the summer. AAA auto club estimates that 31.2 million Americans will travel by car at least 50 miles from home this weekend. Wherever your plans take you, stay safe on the roads out there!
Pit Stop- Was My Email Blaster Email Actually Sent? May 22, 2013
Q: How do I know my email was sent when I’m using the Email Blaster?
A: After you press “Send Message Now”, you will see a notification on the screen that tells you how many recipients the email was sent to. It’s also a good idea to “Copy Sender” so that you receive your own copy of the email.
Keep Registration Flowing with our Check-in Tool May 20, 2013
Attendee: Hi, my name is Jim Wilk…
Registration volunteer: Wilkerson, James … you’re registered for two days of HPDE as well as time trials for Saturday only right?
Attendee: Um, well… yeah, that’s me!
Registration volunteer: Great, glad you made it here safely! I see that you’re all paid up, just sign the waiver and you’re good to go to head on over to tech.
Attendee: That’s it? But I just got here! I was expecting a small social while everyone waited in line to get checked in. Now I can relax a bit… you guys are the BEST!
Wouldn’t that be nice? Well… it IS when you use MotorsportReg.com’s Check-in feature!
Built in to our premium plan accounts for organizers, this tool gives your registration team a quick and easy online, real-time check-in process. Combined with online payments, it makes checking in your attendees as easy and quick as a couple of mouse clicks.
No more multiple attendee list printouts, no more manually searching down a list of names and trying to figure out if they are paid, no more trying to keep track of check-in notes… it’s all at your fingertips. In fact, it’s at everyone’s fingertips! The check-in tool allows you to have multiple check-in screens open at the same time to allow for different check-in lines.
The simple layout of the check-in box lets you easily see the most important data:
- What the attendee is registered for (segment, class, group)
- Do they owe any money?
- Vehicle info, transponder number, and car number
The check-in notes field lets you enter any additional pertinent information (crew members, notes about changes, personal info to update, etc.) And online payments are a snap with the ‘Pay Now’ button right from the check-in box.
Whether you want to go paperless for the environment, or because you simply don’t want to cart 57 file boxes back and forth to every event… get started with online check-in powered by MotorsportReg.com.
Click here for more details on this premium-plan feature.
Registration Form Co-Drivers, Text & Photos May 14, 2013
For the past few weeks we have been quietly testing some enhancements to the registration form. Co-Driver Pickers, while not glamorously named, let attendees indicate when they are sharing a vehicle with another participant so you, as the organizer know about it. Text Blocks, one of the form layout options, let you embed rich text including links and photos anywhere on the registration form for more descriptive text and endless merchandising opportunities.
You can find both of these under the wrench icons at the top of the Form Builder.
Co-Driver Picker
The Co-Driver Picker is all about forming teams. It could be a traditional team, like an endurance race where more than one racer will be driving a car, kart or riding a bike. The team members should be included in the timing and scoring data for MyLaps Orbits and displayed on entry lists. It could also be when two racers will be using the same vehicle in two different classes and the organizer wants to assign the same number for convenience. Or it could be an educational event like a high-performance driving school (HPDE) or Tire Rack Street Survival event where two students are sharing their street car but can’t participate simultaneously (at least not comfortably!)
We refer to all of these cases as teams. Once the primary person has registered, the new Co-Driver Picker allows subsequent participants to join the team which is displayed in several sections of the EventMaster 360:
- Registration screen (in Assignments under “Co-Driver” column)
- Assignment reports have a new “Co-Driver” column available
- Attendee and Driver Experience detail reports
- Label generator
Participants can select their own teammates once a Co-Driver Picker is placed on the registration form and registrars can manually assign a teammate on the attendee screen.
Text Blocks
Our core registration form components of Questions, Packages and Assigners each allow organizers to provide some help text which is displayed in a lighter color gray text under the related item on the registration form. Unlike these “hint” fields, the new Text Block is a full blown HTML editor (just like you’re used to for Text & Waiver) so you can include links, images, bulleted lists, tables and more.
Want to sell more t-shirts as part of your entries online? A great photo of your super cool shirt would probably do better than two sentences telling me it’s super cool! Do you think your participants would benefit from additional instructions or clarification around what they’re signing up for? Experiment with adding directions like in the image.
Just be careful to preview your form and make sure you don’t scare people away with a wall of words or long scrolling page of photos. Remember: the registration form is for getting registered! Brevity and conciseness will be your best friend here.
Unlike the other options for the form, the text block has no form field so it has no value. It should only be used at the bottom of any nesting you might create and should not have any children items on the form layout.
Pit Stop- Restricting Visibility Date May 8, 2013
Q: When should I use the Restrict Visibility by Date function on the Form Layout?
A: You ONLY need to use that function when you have an item on the Registration Form Layout that you want to show up for a limited period of time. A good example of when you want to use this feature is a late fee that you want to kick in 5 days before online registration closes.
You do NOT need to have the visibility of every item on the Registration Form Layout restricted by date if the items are available for the same time period registration is open. This creates issues and extra work when the event is cloned and the dates need to be updated.
You can find examples and more information in our help documentation found here.