Basic Events Non-Constituent Participants Help

Aimee Holland

Hello!

We are starting to use Basic Events for the first time and set up an event to test out the functionality and come up with P&P's around events management in NXT. We ran into a few issues that I'm hoping other customers have solutions to.

1. How do we add new non-constituents as a participant and ensure they are added to the Event? In the Event Participants List, a user clicked [Add Individual], clicked on the (+) sign to create a non-constituent record from the Event itself to add them as Invited. After saving, the non-constituent is not linked inside the event and the non-constituent relationship record doesn't show the event in the Event Participation tile, stating: No events found. Ideally, I wouldn't want to create a constituent record unless an attendee becomes engaged (ie: attends at least 3 events). We also tried to [Add Guest] to an attendee who is a constituent, but will not allow us to search relationship records.
2. How do we add existing non-constituents as a participant? We created a non-constituent record from HOME instead of EVENTS (different from Step 1). Then, wanted to add them as an Event Participant as Invited. But, there is no option that we can see to then add this non-constituent as a Participant.
3. What do you use for Participation Level? We added Host, Speaker, Sponsor, and Tributee, leaving everyone else blank. Is there a best practice for NXT reporting that others use for all attendees that aren't speaking or sponsoring, etc.?
   

Thank you!

Sharon Sandberg

I'm wondering if I have a better than basic Events? I've not run into those issues. If you want to elaborate, please reply, tag me when you do, and I'll see if I can help you with it.

Austen Brown

Hi @Aimee Holland - In general you will have more options when adding participants through Database View than Web View. I am a bit confused by the “non-constituent” parts of your questions, do you mean a participant record not linked to an existing record within the database?

Miki Martin

@Aimee Holland hopefully I can help a little. I totally agree with @Austen Brown in that the database view gives you many more options. I'm not sure I do it all “correctly” but sometimes I bounce between the two depending on what I'm trying to do.

As for the non-constituent issue you're seeing in NXT, maybe what I've experienced will help. We actually have an event next week and I have had to add several spouses who just have a relationship record. What I've found is if you start typing their name to look up they come up as not found since they're not constituents (clicking “Add” to add a participant and then searching in the search field). When you click on the “+” though to add, then, and start entering their information you will get possible duplicates. If you expand that at the bottom of the screen you will see the relationship record(s) appear and can then select the proper one to include (same thing that happens if you are adding a new constituent in NXT but it also looks up relationship records). I have not found a way to do this in the DB view, though.

As for participation, I'm just starting to branch out with this. We have three honorees at this upcoming event. Each of them has a list of invitees so I've created a participation type for their lists so we know how many from each list are attending. Being a school our faculty and staff are expected to attend this so I also have a type to differentiate them from the regular attendees that are just alumnae or other friends of the school (Individual). I've also noted Vendors and then Corporate Sponsors, as our sponsors get a certain number of tickets based on their giving. Once this event is finished I'll mark the named invitations as inactive so they don't appear for our next event.

I hope this helps some! Let me know if you have any other questions. Good luck!

Heather Jacob

Miki, do you know if there is a way to merge the non-constituent participants into each other or into a constituent record? When I add a non-constituent spouse to an event, I may get 3 or 4 possible matches where the same person has been added in the same way to 3 or 4 other events. How can I merge them so that the spouse will be shown as having attended all these events?

Aimee Holland

@Miki Martin
Thank you, this helped! And sorry for the delay, it was so busy during the last event, that I forgot to reply

For anyone looking for the answer, Miki nailed it.

In NXT currently, a non-constituent can't be added as a Participant from the Event Participant list. They must be added as ‘Guest Of’ a constituent record (Named or Unnamed) or be a constituent. Using the (+) sign will allow you to search, and if a duplicate exists, select the duplicate from Miki's screenshot.

I have a separate question out to the Community on how to report on non-constituents. Ideally, I'd like to see if there are duplicates that need to be addressed OR if someone attended more than X events so we can decide to make them a constituent record based on engagement.

I have the following attendee types as of today, in case it's helpful:

Closing that this thread has been answered.

Miki Martin

@Heather Jacob I am so sorry I never saw your question last year.

In database view under Plug-ins there is a Nonconstituent Merge Utility. This allows you to find duplicate relationship records and merge them into one.

I used this several months ago to start cleaning up parishes we had listed in our database as relationships instead of them having their own constituent record and then linking them to each member we have (we are a school with feeder schools so we track this information).

There is a Knowledgebase article (41225) that helps walk you through the process. I was able to print control reports after them (I save them as a PDF on our shared drive) and they each list the constituents who were affected.

Miki Martin

@Aimee Holland happy to help!

Aimee Holland

@Miki Martin Thank you for sharing the screenshot and kb for the Nonconstituent Merge Utility! I'll be trying this out today. Much appreciated!