How to Add - Cannot Attend to an Online Express Form

Nick Sinclair

Hi All, We are going to be sending out an invite via OE for our Friends and Supports dinner. I cannot see how we can get a “I cannot Attend” response. It would obvs save time chasing people that can't attend if we knew already. The response from BB has been “we can't do that” or “you can only have one £0 ”fee" - i suggested a £1 fee with a bill me later but that sounds awkward. Any ideas

Thanks, Nick

Christine Robertson

@Nick Sinclair Could you use an Attribute/Custom Field for the attendance information?

Austen Brown

@Nick Sinclair - RE Event forms are not set up for RSVPs = No. You can get around it by doing a zero fee registration with additional work on the back-end; your team will have to complete a manual step to mark these as “not attending”, the system will automatically bring them in as “attending”.

Jennifer Calderone

@Nick Sinclair In case you still need ideas, the workaround we've done a couple of times is to make a ticket type of “Unable to attend” which is free. We've used this for small events. We clean those up after they are in the event, changing them “not registered.” It's been helpful, but I'm not sure we'd use it for large scale events. The other downside is that the person registering will receive the “thank you for registering” email right away.

Alex Wong

@Nick Sinclair
What is the purpose of having option to “I cannot attend"?

We do a lot of events, big (2000) to small (50). Our event process never had a need for this “I cannot attend” situation.

If donor is eblasted about the event that is happening, they will ignore the email if they have no intention of attending, they are very unlikely going to click on your registration link, go to your registration form, and then select to “I cannot attend”.

Nick Sinclair

@Alex Wong


Hi Alex,
This isn't an Eblast but a targeted invite to 250 specific individuals.
If someone tells me they cannot attend, I won't follow up. If I have no indication that they can, cannot, are thinking about it then I will make another attempt to contact via email and again via telephone. things get missed / overlooked but if someone is a definite no then I would like to know that.

Nick Sinclair

@Christine Robertson
Thanks Christine,

Not really. What I have found is that it appears to be far better to send an email via NXT and link it to an MS Forms which appears to be far better at being able to track info such as cannot attend, dietary and access arrangements. I know these can be field options in RE but if it cannot provide the main function of a Can / Can't then I have to find another way.

Nick Sinclair

@Jennifer Calderone
Hi Jennifer,

Yes, I hadn't thought of that with the £0.01 fee option. Totally makes sense that you wouldn't want people to receive a thank you for attending as there is only one response for the OE forms.

Thanks so much for pointing that out.