The following steps will help you to get your event up and running by setting basics such as the contact email address for the event, the opening and closing of ticketing/RSVP availability, and setting up your ticket blocks. Not all of the information and options explained in the getting started guide will be relevant to your event, depending on the format of the event and types of tickets or invitations or “distribution methods” as we call them. REMEMBER that if you must leave “configure event” or have to close your browser window to click the “save and close” button at the bottom of the tab. This will preserve your settings and selections.
The following items must be addressed before you make your Event Farm event active and begin distributing or selling tickets or invitations.
If others need access to your account and Event, begin by adding those users to your Event Farm account AND your Event (if necessary) and forward them this getting started guide!
Fill out the “event email address” in Tab 1 “Event Details”!
Create relevant ticket types and set opening/closing of ticket availability in Tab 2 “Ticketing”!
Create ticket block(s) and add any invite-type tickets you have created into them. Do so in Tab 4 “Ticket Blocks”!
Preview and if necessary modify the default email designs and language on the event page, and then select the appropriate ones in Tab 3 “Correspondence”!
There is nothing to install to use Event Farm! Event Farm is entirely a web-based application which you may access through your browser. The ipad check-in app must be downloaded and installed on your ipad or iphone and then you may login in the usual manner using your email address and Event Farm password.
You can add a user to your Event Farm account so that they can work with your Address Book, but in order for them to have access to a specific event you’ll need to add them to that event as well. OR you can add a user directly to an event and they will automatically be added to your general Event Farm account. To add a user simply click on “add new user” in the “My Users” widget on your Event Farm home page. You’ll need at least their first name, last name, and email address. To add a user to an event click on that event name, then click on “add user to event” in the “Users for Event widget”. If the user exists already in your Event Farm account you can select them from the user drop down menu and click the “add user to event” button. If the user is new, click “add new user” to the right of the “user” drop down menu. Fill out their information and click the “add user” button. You will then have to click “add user to event” again, and select the new user from that drop down menu and click the “add user to event” button.
NOW, to get started with your new event, log in and click on the new blank event or the name of the event if it’s been labeled already. In the upper left of your browser window you’ll see the “Event Details” widget, click on “configure event” in the upper right of that widget.
In Tab 1 “Event Details” fill out the start and end times of your event, list the venue, and paste in a map link to the venue from mapquest or google maps if you’d like. This map link will appear in the confirmation emails sent to your guests after they purchase, register, or RSVP.
Important: fill in your Event Email Address. This address will not appear as the “from” email address when invitations, confirmations, or other messages are sent from your event through Event Farm. However, if a guest replies directly to one of those emails instead of using a response link in the email or if someone uses the “contact organizer” link on your event’s website their email will be forwarded to your Event Email Address. The Event Email Address doesn’t need to be your personal email address, but it should be an email account you check regularly. We often recommend setting up a generic events@yourorganization.com address for this.
Venue: Fill in the name of your venue
Venue Map Link: Go to mapquest or google maps and enter the address of your venue. Then copy the URL mapquest or google maps produces and paste it into the venue map link field in Event Farm.
In “Configure Event” go to Tab 2 “Ticketing” Set your maximum # of tickets. You can use this as a limit to make sure you don’t then create and distribute too many tickets/invitations. Remember that you can always edit this number later but a good number to start with is the maximum capacity of your venue.
Click “add new ticket type”. Name the ticket you are creating, remembering that the ticket name will be visible to guests. You may add a description of that ticket, invitation, or registration, which will appear underneath publicly available tickets on the public-facing web page.
Fill in amount available, you may increase or decrease this number any time. If this is a publicly available ticket Event Farm will automatically shut down sales or registrations of each ticket type when the total number of sales or registrations hits this number. You may also set the maximum per person to prevent one person from taking too many tickets.
The “Availability” is the way in which this ticket type will be made available. The different types of availability of ticket types is as follows;
NOTE: The “order” is the order that the ticket type will appear on the public web page.
Click the “Add Ticket Type” button at the bottom. You may edit that ticket type using the pen icon to the right of its name at any time, or delete it by clicking the recycle icon.
Ticket Shipping Option: Most Event Farm events do not use paper tickets, but if you will be mailing tickets to guests, select either “optional for each order” or “required for each order”. If shipping is required or if a guest opts for shipping, Event Farm will offer a set of shipping address fields when the guest purchases or registers.
Promotional Codes: Promo codes may be used to market your event and/or to track the efficacy of your marketing efforts. For example, you can track how many people were exposed to different advertisements by setting different promo codes. A print ad in a magazine could encourage guests to enter the promo code “PRINT”, while a radio spot could encourage them to get a discount by entering the promo code “RADIO”.
Opening of Ticket Availability: The opening of ticketing availability is when Event Farm will begin to accept RSVP, Registrations, and Purchases, and will make public types of tickets available via a public-facing web page. Event Farm will do this automatically at the date and time to which the opening of ticket availability is set. Opening of ticket availability is on EASTERN STANDARD TIME.
Text Prior to Opening: Click on the “show/hide text prior to opening” link to display the text editor, and you can write a message that will be displayed on the event’s public ticketing web page before tickets are available.
Closing of Ticket Availability: The closing of ticketing availability is when Event Farm will stop accepting RSVP, Registrations, and Purchases. IMPORTANT: THIS APPLIES FOR ALL TICKET TYPES! A guest will not be able to respond to an invitation if ticketing availability is closed. Event Farm will automatically close ticketing availability at the date and time you set here, and it will then display the “text after closing” message. Closing of ticket availability is on EASTERN STANDARD TIME.
Text After Closing: Click on the “show/hide text after closing” link to display the text editor and you can write a message that will be displayed on the web page after ticket sales have closed. This message will display when the time that was set to close ticket availability has passed or it will display when tickets sell out, whichever comes first.
Additional Ticket/Registration Information: Click on the link to display the text editor. You can use this feature to write and display any other information pertaining to your tickets or registrations.
Ticket Pick Up Info: Click on the link to display the text editor. You can use this feature to write additional information for your guests about where they can pick up their tickets or how they should check in at the event if there are no tickets. Text written in “ticket pick up info” will appear in all confirmation or receipt emails sent automatically from Event Farm.
Can Guests be Invited More Than Once: If this feature is set to YES, It will check by first name, last name, AND email address. This means that an assistant can have their email address listed for their bosses contact, but also can have their own tickets for the same event without Event Farm deduping them out of the system.
Can Guests Transfer Tickets?: If this is set to NO guests will not be able to transfer tickets. If this is set to YES, language will automatically populate in the default confirmation emails with a link to the “ticket transfer page”. You can edit this text and hyperlink the ticket transfer page link if you need to. When a guest clicks to the ticket transfer page they will be prompted for their email address, and the page will then search and find their tickets to that event and offer them the ability to transfer them by typing in the name and email address of another person. They will then receive a TRANSFER CONFIRMATION EMAIL from Event Farm, and they MUST click on the link in this email to complete the transfer. When they click on that link they and the person to whom they are transferring the ticket(s) will both receive an email explaining that the tickets have been transferred. If a guest does not receive the email asking them to confirm the transfer, you can go to the Reports” section and click on the “Transfer List”, find that guest’s name and click on “Force” next to their name to force the completion and confirmation of the transfer.
Use Congressional RSVP: If this feature is set to YES, Event Farm will automatically generate a webpage for congressional members (normally the scheduler or assistant of the congressional member) to RSVP. This link will appear in the “Event Links” widget on the event page in Event Farm, and may be pasted (and hyperlinked) in email invitations sent to Congressional Members outside of Event Farm. The advantage of Congressional RSVP is that an assistant can only RSVP in the name of the member, and then the member’s names are populated in their own page when using the browser based will call check in. Congressional RSVPs are not transferable even if other guest’s tickets are.
Allow Congressional Guests: If this feature is set to YES individuals following the Congressional RSVP link to add a guest name for the Member of Congress.
Allow Check in Notations: If this feature is set to YES the check in notes field will appear in the browser will-call list. Event Farm administrators and Ticket Blockers will always be offered the opportunity to write a check in note when inviting individual guests, but this setting will determine whether or not they are shown in the browser will call report.
Allow Pre-Registration for Auction: If this feature is set to YES a paragraph will be added to the confirmation emails with a link that will allow a guest to fill in their billing address and credit card info which will be available in the “complete registration information” report. This will allow you have it on file in advance of an auction at your event so that guest’s can skip that step when they arrive at your event.
Registration Questions (Found in Tab 3: “Correspondence”) Registration questions will be posed to guests when they purchase, register, or RSVP for an event. It is important to remember that all ticket types will see the same Registration Questions.
You can create as many registration questions as you’d like, and you can choose to make them free response, multiple choice response, and whether or not they will be required for guests to register, purchase, or RSVP.
To add a question, click the “Add Question/Answer Combination” link and type your question. Choose the type of response, the order in which you’d like it to appear (if you have multiple questions), and whether or not it will be required. Then click the “Add Question” button. If the question is a multiple choice question you can then add answer options.
To Edit an Email:
WE RECOMMEND:
In “Configure Event” go to Tab 3 “Correspondence”. In the email section of this tab you may set the emails that will be sent out in each situation for which an email is required. The green titles on the sides represent the categories for which Event Farm will generate emails. The drop down menus next to each one allows you to select which email will go out in each situation. For example, when you create an invitation and send it to a guest, Event Farm needs an “invite to RSVP email”. Every category is set to a default email which includes basic text and information which is important and/or necessary. You can preview the content of the default emails by clicking on the “preview” link to the right of each email. NOTE: You can choose to edit the default email text or to create a new email from scratch on the Event Page. If you edit and save the default email you do not need to change the setting here in the Correspondence tab. However, if you create and save an entirely new email on the Event’s Page the name of the new email you created will appear in these drop down menus, and you may select it here. For example, if you created a new email you wanted to use as your invitation email, and saved it as “my new invite to RSVP email” you would select that in the drop down menu next to the Invite to RSVP category and Event Farm would then send your new email whenever you, another administrator, or a ticket blocker created and sent an invitation to a guest.
To create peripheral pages with information about your event or organization (such as agenda, schedules, directions to the venue, etc) you can add as many site pages as you would like. In the Site Pages box click “add new site page”, and write a title for the page. This page title will be displayed in the set of links to your tickets/registration page, contact form page, and any other site pages you create, appearing at the top of all your pages so guests can navigate between them.
Then, in the box below that you can add all your content. We don’t recommend copying and pasting your text or other content since the text editor that interprets it and makes it into a web page for you can get confused with additional formatting that sometimes comes along with a copy and paste.
For information on how to use the text editor tools and uploading/inserting images, click refer to the Cheat Sheet.
To invite an individual guest:
PLEASE NOTE : IF YOU ARE INVITING THIS GUEST TO MULTIPLE EVENTS BUT WANT THEM TO RECEIVE ONLY ONE EMAIL INVITATION FOR ALL OF THEM, SELECT “CREATE INVITATION (EMAIL WILL NOT BE SENT).” If this is the last of a series of invitations for the guest, please select “Send Invitation By Email”, and the guest will be sent an invitation with a link to their full invitation page allowing them to RSVP to all of their invited events.
To invite an entire group:
NOTE : All members of a group will receive the same number and type of tickets if invited through the following steps.
PLEASE NOTE : IF YOU ARE INVITING THIS GUEST TO MULTIPLE EVENTS BUT WANT THEM TO RECEIVE ONLY ONE EMAIL INVITATION FOR ALL OF THEM, SELECT “CREATE INVITATION (EMAIL WILL NOT BE SENT).” If this is the last of a series of invitations for the guest, please select “Send Invitation By Email”, and the guest will be sent an invitation with a link to their full invitation page allowing them to RSVP to all of their invited events.
Click the “Invite Whole Group” button ONCE and please be patient.
To watch a short video about how to use your ticket block, click below!
In “Configure Event” go to Tab 4 “Ticket Blocks”. Ticket blocks allow you to delegate set numbers of tickets of varying types to individuals, partner organizations, sponsors, etc. It is also important to remember that any “invite” type of ticket must be sent or assigned from a Ticket Block, so you if you have any ticket types which are “invite to purchase”, “invite to register”, or “invite to RSVP” you’ll need to create a ticket block for yourself and add any of those tickets/invitations you wish to distribute to your own ticket block.
To add a ticket block, click the “Add Ticket Block” link. The “Ticket Administrator” is the company or organization to delegate the ticket block to. The important thing to remember is that if you select your own company here when you assign a ticket block to one of your colleagues (which is completely acceptable!) that they will have access to your Event Farm account as well as their ticket block.
You may search for and select an existing company in the Ticket Administrator list, or click “Add New” next to the drop down menu to add a new company. You may then select an existing user for that company/organization from the “Existing Users” drop down menu, or add a new one. Any text you add to “Message for Email” will appear in the notification email that Event Farm sends to inform the Ticket Blocker that they’ve been given the ticket block. You could use this feature to explain that you are sending them the ticket block (or that you’re sending them the ticket block on someone else’s behalf) and that they can get in touch with you if they have questions. Then you can type in the number of any or all of the invite-type tickets you already created, and click the “Add Ticket Block to Event” button!
You may add as many ticket blocks as you’d like, and you can edit a ticket block at any time by clicking on the pen icon to the right of the ticket block to adjust the number(s) of invite-type of tickets in that block. You can also adjust the numbers of tickets, resend the notification to the ticket block user, and add users to the ticket block by clicking on that ticket block on the Event Page.
BE SURE TO CLICK ON THE “SAVE AND CLOSE” BUTTON BEFORE YOU EXIT THE CONFIGURE EVENT SECTION!
General Event Statistics are listed in the “Event Statistics” box on the main event page in Event Farm. Below is an explanation of each of the statuses listed. You may also view or download the Reports listed in the “Reports” box at any time. If you want to view guest statuses by ticket block you can click on any of the ticket blocks and guests will be listed along with their status. You can get a quick look at the response rates for each ticket block by downloading the “Ticket Block Users List” in the “Reports” box. This will show the contact for each Ticket Block, and the number of each ticket type they have been allotted and of those how many they have used.
To view your guest’s responses to your Registration Questions (if you’ve created Registration Questions) you may click on the CSV icon next to the “Complete Registration Information” list to download a list of guest names and contact info along with their responses to any registration questions, OR you can click on the HTML icon next to the “Guest Responses List” to view this in your browser. You may also click on the CSV icon next to the “Guest Responses List” to download the list with only the guest names and registration questions responses.
Unconfirmed Guest: A guest who has been invited to an event but who has not replied to the invitation by RSVP. A user with access to an event or the ticket blocker who invited the guest may edit this invitation or recycle it to invite another guest instead.
Confirmed Guest: A guest who has been invited to an event and replied by RSVP or been manually confirmed by an event user or ticket blocker.
Declined Guest: A guest who has been invited to an event but replied NO by RSVP. They appear as DECLINED in the invitation log on the manage invitations page.
Current Exposure: The number of confirmed guests and outstanding invitations since guests may RSVP to those outstanding invitations at any time.
Potential Exposure: The current exposure number plus the number of tickets/invitations that have been allocated in ticket blocks but not necessarily sent out to invitees. Those tickets are considered to be out of the control of you as the event organizer and therefore they represent potential guest exposure.
Picked Up: When a guest checks in they are considered to have “picked up” their ticket(s). After an event the number of “picked up” reflects the number of guests who checked in at the event.
To send a message to your guests after you have sent out invitations and/or opened up public ticket availability, you can use the “send a message to event guests” feature, which you’ll find in the “Event Utilities” box. Click on the green envelope icon and on the next screen you’ll be able to choose which subset(s) of guests you’d like to send a message to, write your subject, and compose the body of your message.
This feature is very useful for reminding guests about your upcoming event, and can also be used to communicate specific information about parking, getting to and from the event, dress codes, entrances, etc. You can also reach out to people who have joined your waiting list.
We highly recommend copying and pasting the [GUEST_FIRST] [GUEST_LAST] placeholders or “slugs” from the bottom of that screen. This will mail merge the guest information so that the guest names appear in the emails, which helps the email avoid being caught in spam filters. PLEASE NOTE: If you click on the “send myself a test message” link at the bottom of that screen your name will not fill in where you’ve added [GUEST_FIRST] [GUEST_LAST], but your guest’s names will fill in when you send the real message.
We also recommend using the “preview” link at the bottom of the screen, AS WELL AS the “send yourself a test” link, so that you can verify that the message is formatted correctly when viewed in your inbox.
Resending a purchase confirmation/receipt: To resend a receipt click on the event and scroll down to the “Reports” box. Then click on the HTML icon next to the “Purchase List”. Find the guest’s name (you can use the control/command-F find function on your browser if necessary) and click on the envelope with a blue arrow icon next to their name. You may either send to the original email address or you can enter a new email address to which the receipt will be sent. This is useful if the guest did not receive their original receipt because it may have been caught in a mail filter, so it’s a good idea to try using another email address.
Issuing a refund: To issue a refund, click on the event and scroll down to the “Reports” box. Then click on the HTML icon next to the “Purchase List”. Find the guest’s name (you can use the control/command-F find function on your browser if necessary) and click on the “$” to the right of their name. You can then enter the dollar amount you’d like to refund and click the button ONCE and be patient! You will see the amount refunded listed below the original transaction.
Responding on behalf of a guest: To RSVP or register on behalf of a guest you should click on the ticket block from which their invitation was issued, then locate the guest’s name. You can do this by typing in their email address to the search box and clicking the filter button. You will see several icons to the right of the guest’s name. Click on the one that looks like a chain link, and it will take you to the same page that guest would see if they were to follow the link in their invitation email. This allows you to send their response AND to reply to all registration questions.
Resending an invitation: You may only resend an invitation if the guest has not yet responded to it. To do so you should click on the ticket block from which their invitation was issued, then locate the guest’s name. You can do this by typing in their email address to the search box and clicking the filter button. You will see several icons to the right of the guest’s name, click on the envelope with a blue arrow to resend their invitation email. They will be able to click on their unique link in either of the emails they have been sent and the system will still correctly track their RSVP, and it will not let them RSVP more than once even though you have resent the invitation.
Changing guest information: To change any and all information relating to a guest’s invitation and response EXCEPT for responses to registration questions, you can use the “view/modify full guest list” feature in the “Event Utilities” box. In “view/modify full guest list” you can find the guest’s name using the control or command F function on your browser, and click on the pen icon to the right of their entry and you can edit the guest’s name, type and number of tickets/invitations, their RSVP status, etc.
How to complete a transfer: Many times when guest uses the ticket transfer function (if allowed by the event organizer) they will fail to click on the link in the confirmation email to complete their transfer. To complete the transfer on behalf of a guest you can click on the event, scroll down to the “Reports” box, and click on the HTML icon to the right of the “Transfer List”. Find the guest’s name and if the transfer status is listed as incomplete you can click the “Force” link to the right of that entry to force complete the transfer. This means that the ticket(s) or invitation(s) will be transferred and the original ticket/invitation holder will no longer have control over it.
As you are checking your guests in sometimes their name may not appear during the initial search. If this is the case it is best to verify the spelling (it may have been misspelled) and also to ask if their ticket or invitation was transferred to them. If so, try searching for the original ticket/invitation holder’s name as sometimes they will have ignored the email sent to them asking them to confirm the transfer. If you have access to a web browser you can even check the “Transfer List” (available in the “Reports” box) to see if the transfer was initiated but not completed.
PLEASE NOTE: If you are using the dymo nametag printing feature, you must check guests in from a web browser. You must make sure that the appropriate dymo driver has been installed on every computer you will use to check-in guests, and that you have the appropriate sized labels loaded in the dymo printers. When you check a guest in you may then click once on the printer icon next to their name and the system will print it for them.
NOTE: You will need to contact us at Event Farm to make sure that the guest names are formatted correctly to fit your chosen size of label and also to ensure each guest name will print correctly if you have a preprinted insignia or logo on your labels.
To use the event farm mobile check-in app, go to the app store on your iphone or ipad and search for “event farm”. Select either the iphone or ipad app and download it to your device. Launch the app and use your regular email address and event farm password to log in, the same as you would on the browser.
You may select whether or not you’d like the app to keep you logged in, then click the “Log In” button.
Select the appropriate event. If your event has under 3,000 people on the guest list (note that this may include unconfirmed guests) you may press “Settings” and turn Local Search to “on”, which will download the list to the Ipad to display it. This will make the search faster. You may also choose to have the local search refresh the guest list each time you check someone in, though this can slow down the process a bit, depending on the speed of your internet connection because each time it refreshes it will update any other check-ins or other modifications to the guest list.
If your event has over 3,000 people the app will default to “network search” meaning it will send a specific request to search the guest list on the server each time you search. The speed of this search depends on your internet connection.
You may choose to filter the results that the app will display by clicking on the “Filters” button at the bottom of the screen. You can filter by any available ticket types and/or by status (confirmed, unconfirmed, assigned, etc). The app will only display guest list entries of the ticket statuses and type(s) that have been selected (meaning they show a GREEN check mark).
TO SEARCH: Press in the “search guest” field and begin typing the guest’s name. You may only need to type 3-4 letters of the guest’s name before the name will display on the screen. Press in the box to the left of the name to check the guest in, you may press the check mark again to un-check them in if necessary.
If the guest has arrived without all the members of their party you may press on the number of tickets to the right of their name and reduce it to the number you want to check in now. Then, when you press the box to the left of their name to check them in you will automatically be offered the option of leaving behind the remaining number of tickets in someone else’s name. Do so if necessary.
Press the “X” at the right of the search field to clear the previous search and begin searching for the next guest name.
NOTE: To add a guest name to the list click “Add Guest” at the bottom of the screen and fill out all necessary information, then click the “Add Guest to List” button.
NOTE: You may edit an existing guest list entry at any time by pressing the “Edit” button to the right of that entry. This will allow you to edit the guest’s information, ticket numbers or type, or add check in notes or an arrival alert.
NOTE: You may view the up to the minute check in numbers at any time by pressing the “Analytics” button at the bottom of the screen at any time.
To check in guests using your browser, simply log in, click on your event, and scroll down to the “Reports” box. You can then select either one of the “will call” lists. The “grouped A-Z” list will require you to click on the first letter of each guest’s last name so that the browser will display that section. This can be faster if you have a very large list because you don’t have to wait for the browser to display every name. If you select the “Grouped by 1000” option the browser window will display the first 1000 names on your guest list, if your guest list has more than 1000 names you may have to click through to the next screen to be able to search for your guest’s name.
Click on the HTML icon next to your preferred list, and then you can use the control or command F function on your browser to find your guest’s name. Check the box next to their name and then you MUST HIT AN UPDATE STATUS BUTTON TO CHECK THEM IN! There is an update status button listed every few entries, you may click any of them.
The reports widget consolidates your guest and invitation data in Event Farm in several different Reports. Depending on the Report you may view them in your browser window by clicking on the HTML icon, or download them to your desktop by clicking on the CSV icon. When you download a report it is exported to your computer (to whatever location you have selected as the destination for your downloads) as a CSV file, or “comma separated value” file. This allows it to be viewed with a variety of applications but most commonly Excel.
When using the Will call list one must find the guest’s name, click the check box next to their name, and then click the “update status” button.
If a guest with multiple tickets wishes to leave behind a ticket in someone else’s name simply click “leave behind”, fill out the appropriate fields and their name will be added to the list and made searchable on all computers or ipads being used for check-in.
To resend a receipt click on the HTML icon to the right of the Purchase list, use control-F (command-F on Macs) to find your guest’s name, and then click on the envelope with the blue arrow to the right of that guest’s name.
To issue a refund click on the HTML icon to the right of the Purchase list, use control-F (command-F on Macs) to find your guest’s name, and then click on the “$” symbol to the right of that guest’s name. You can then type in the amount (in dollars) you want to refund, and click the “Process Refund” button ONCE. The system will issue a refund to that guest for that amount, though you may want to let them know that it may take up to 24 hours for the credit to appear on their card’s statement. PLEASE NOTE: issuing a refund does not adjust the number of tickets under a guest’s name. You must go to the “Event Utilities” widget and click on “view/modify full guest list”, find that guest’s name and adjust the number of tickets manually, or you may click on the “Recycle” icon to the right of their name to completely recycle that ticket.