[ellie070906]

My organization (PK-12th Independant Day School) is considering adding the event tab to help us manage events like our golf tournament and auctions that we have. We also think it may help us with smaller functions, gatherings and have a full time person dedicated to special events. I am interested in hearing from others who have used this and how it works for them. We have been using RE since the DOS days, we use FE and EE but RE is not integrated yet with FE/EE but that is coming too... Thank you.

[Melissa Siobhan]

I may be speaking out of turn because I am still on 7.71 and the newer versions have some improvements that I have not used so I apologize if i say anything in error.

I would check the archives on event module because I'm sure we have discussed this before. The event module has some really great features and my favorite is the seating wizard. I also like the global update feature which is hidden but once you learn it it can be so useful (like marking 1000 people as "attended" after the event!)

What the event module is lacking is reporting. Some of the reports are close but not customizable enough to add that "one extra thing" you need to have.

The event reports do not report on finances well and the financial reports do not sufficiently report on events well so sometimes you need to creatively use attributes on gifts so you can use gift queries (instead of participant queries) to report on event finances.

Definitely check the archives because I am sure there are more pros/cons that I am not mentioning.

[ellie070906]

Thank you for your thoughts. I will do a search on the event tab.

[Harriet]

" I also like the global update feature which is hidden but once you learn it it can be so useful (like marking 1000 people as "attended" after the event!)"

Melissa, please share the how to on globally marking participants as "attended"

[Melissa Siobhan]

You first create a participant query for the group (it can simply be a participant query of everyone registered for the event)

Through Records - open the event in question.

Go to Tools on the menu and select Update Participants.

Enter your participant query and then select "attended" from the list.

I am on 7.71 so I think this is not what i used to do but you can go through and click the attended check box for those who came. I had thought there was a check all option (can someone on a more recent version verify) and then I unchecked those who did not show.

Nonetheless - this is at least faster than opening each participant record to check the attended check box.

[Jo Ward]

I do a participant query of those who are registered. First, I use that query in a global change to replace unchecked with checked for Attended. Then I do what Melissa mentioned - Update Participants and just uncheck those who were registered but did not attend. Quite a bit faster for our large events with 1,100+ attendees.

[Melissa Siobhan]

AHA - yes, that's probably what I did.

[nothinkingbehind]

I am new to this forum, but I wanted to throw my two cetns in here as well. I work for a college where we do about 70 events every year. I use the event module for all of them, and it works pretty well. Lots of ways to manipulate data for your purposes. I agree that the seating chart is invaluable! I do everything from register people for a small gathering to registering 1000 people for a weekend with 20+ activites to choose from. I've only had minor glitches along the way, specific to our needs.

Excellent tool!

Melissa