Is it best to keep editing a TR each year or creating a new TR for each new year?

Joey Shevlin

We have traditionally always created a new TR event for each year, which involves creating a new donation form each year.  Is this a best practice?  Or is it better to keep re-using and updating an existing TR event?

Brian Mucha

One reason to change donation forms is for recurring gifts, and the campaign, fund and appeal mapping.

 

If you reuse the same donation form, then last year's recurring gifts will start to be credited to the new version, rather than honoring the previous fund. Also the email autoresponders they receive will also presumably be changed.

 

"Hey I didn't donate to this year's event. Those jerks! I only agreed to 12 months for the 2011 event." <<CANCEL>>

 

(We did get a nasty email at least once from someone on their 12th installment thinking we started taking their money for another year.)

 

A reason do change the TR is so you can be developing the new version while the current version is winding down. This is so you can open registration for next year immediately following the current event, while your participants are still wound up and interested. Use a follow-up coaching email, announcing race results or something, that includes a pitch for early registration for next year. (Much harder to recover those participants months later. We also offer a lower registration fee for early registrations.)

 

The new team-recovery features makes migrating much less painful for users than before.

Stacy Clinton

I have a follow-up question.  We copied last year's teamraiser and edited it to make it appropriate for this year's event (some re-branding of the wrapper, a few changes to functionality like allowing multiple registrations and using Participant Center 2, created new donation form, etc).  Does anyone have any thoughts about whether we should unpublish or close last year's teamraiser?  The old one is coming up in web searches so people are getting confused.

 

We use the URL www.summerscamper.org in all of our outgoing materials, which I have permanently forwarded to the new teamraiser's URL, but people still search it by name in their browser and come up with last year's content. 

 

Is there any way to set up redirects for pages within Convio, or would unpublishing take care of this problem? 

 

Also, I'm assuming that "unpublish" means that none of the pages will be accessible, and "close" means that some sort of message comes up in the content that says the event is closed?  If anyone has more info on that distinction, I would appreciate some clarification.

 

Many thanks,

Stacy Clinton

Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health

Brian Mucha

Stacy Clinton:

I have a follow-up question.  We copied last year's teamraiser and edited it to make it appropriate for this year's event (some re-branding of the wrapper, a few changes to functionality like allowing multiple registrations and using Participant Center 2, created new donation form, etc).  Does anyone have any thoughts about whether we should unpublish or close last year's teamraiser?  The old one is coming up in web searches so people are getting confused.

 

We use the URL www.summerscamper.org in all of our outgoing materials, which I have permanently forwarded to the new teamraiser's URL, but people still search it by name in their browser and come up with last year's content. 

 

Is there any way to set up redirects for pages within Convio, or would unpublishing take care of this problem? 

 

Also, I'm assuming that "unpublish" means that none of the pages will be accessible, and "close" means that some sort of message comes up in the content that says the event is closed?  If anyone has more info on that distinction, I would appreciate some clarification.

 

Many thanks,

Stacy Clinton

Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health

We have had this exact problem as well.

 

If you unpublish, turning off registrations and donations, the TR does not become unavailable or forward like a donation form does. Instead you get a note (in the wrapper) saying somethign about it being closed.

 

But you CAN do a redirect.

 

Edit your PageWrapper, and on Step 2 you will see the AdditionalHTML Tags for HEAD Element field. Enter this:

 

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url=http://www.yourdomain.org/site/TR?fr_id=1234&pg=entry" />

 

This will forward the user in 0 seconds to the url of the new version.

Derek Martin

Stacy Clinton:

I have a follow-up question.  We copied last year's teamraiser and edited it to make it appropriate for this year's event (some re-branding of the wrapper, a few changes to functionality like allowing multiple registrations and using Participant Center 2, created new donation form, etc).  Does anyone have any thoughts about whether we should unpublish or close last year's teamraiser?  The old one is coming up in web searches so people are getting confused.

 

We use the URL www.summerscamper.org in all of our outgoing materials, which I have permanently forwarded to the new teamraiser's URL, but people still search it by name in their browser and come up with last year's content. 

 

Is there any way to set up redirects for pages within Convio, or would unpublishing take care of this problem? 

 

Also, I'm assuming that "unpublish" means that none of the pages will be accessible, and "close" means that some sort of message comes up in the content that says the event is closed?  If anyone has more info on that distinction, I would appreciate some clarification.

 

Many thanks,

Stacy Clinton

Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health

The default functionality for closed vs. unpublished events is the same: visitors see a message "

The event you requested is not currently published."

 

You can configure a redirect URL in the Customize Event URLs step in the Process Navigator (or do what Brian said).

 

Once you've closed your event, you can archive it, which will allow you to release any shortcut URLs that participants created.  That will allow those URLs to be used for subsequent events.

Brian Mucha

Derek Martin:

The default functionality for closed vs. unpublished events is the same: visitors see a message "

The event you requested is not currently published."

 

You can configure a redirect URL in the Customize Event URLs step in the Process Navigator (or do what Brian said).

 

Once you've closed your event, you can archive it, which will allow you to release any shortcut URLs that participants created.  That will allow those URLs to be used for subsequent events.

Wow. "Closed Event Redirect URL"

 

Is that field a new addition? I'm sure we looked all over for that when we first ran into this problem.

Derek Martin

Stacy Clinton:

I have a follow-up question.  We copied last year's teamraiser and edited it to make it appropriate for this year's event (some re-branding of the wrapper, a few changes to functionality like allowing multiple registrations and using Participant Center 2, created new donation form, etc).  Does anyone have any thoughts about whether we should unpublish or close last year's teamraiser?  The old one is coming up in web searches so people are getting confused.

 

We use the URL www.summerscamper.org in all of our outgoing materials, which I have permanently forwarded to the new teamraiser's URL, but people still search it by name in their browser and come up with last year's content. 

 

Is there any way to set up redirects for pages within Convio, or would unpublishing take care of this problem? 

 

Also, I'm assuming that "unpublish" means that none of the pages will be accessible, and "close" means that some sort of message comes up in the content that says the event is closed?  If anyone has more info on that distinction, I would appreciate some clarification.

 

Many thanks,

Stacy Clinton

Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health

Also, I did a little digging, and found this (not exactly comprehensive) Event Shutdown Checklist:

 

Remove all links to the TeamRaiser from your website.

 

If you’ll continue entering any donations toward your walk, you’ll need to disable all related autoresponder e-mails so walkers do not think they’re eligible for new incentive prizes. Log in to Walk 360, edit your TeamRaiser, go to step “10. Manage Autoresponders” and click the “Disable” link for the following messages:

• Offline Gift Thank You
• Congratulations for Reaching 50% Goal
• Congratulations for Reaching Your Goal
• Someone Made a Donation on Your Behalf
• Congratulations for Reaching a Fundraising Milestone

Plan an e-mail to your users, thanking them once again, explaining that the walk site is now closed, and announce next year’s walk date.  Consider setting up a survey to capture interest for early registration for next year’s walk, or announce your chapter’s next upcoming event or program.

 

Ensure that all offline gifts have been recorded; while you can still enter offline gifts to a closed event, you cannot register any new participants to enter the gift on behalf of.

 

Run your final reports and download them for your records.  If you’re able, spend some time calculating the % of walkers that fundraised, the average amount raised per fundraiser, and the average online gift amount; compare them to the national average and consider whether there are any new ideas or programs to improve these metrics next year.

 

Edit the TeamRaiser, go to step “15. Publish.” Change the status to “Closed” and click “Finished.”

Noah Cooper

Brian Mucha:

Wow. "Closed Event Redirect URL"

 

Is that field a new addition? I'm sure we looked all over for that when we first ran into this problem.

Yep, it's new in the Winter release. Don't you read my blog posts?!

 

http://www.connectioncafe.com/posts/2011/12-december/5-nerdiest-upcoming-convio-features.html

Brian Mucha

Noah Cooper:

Yep, it's new in the Winter release. Don't you read my blog posts?!

 

http://www.connectioncafe.com/posts/2011/12-december/5-nerdiest-upcoming-convio-features.html

301 Redirects!! My propeller is spinning!

 

\\Just subscribed via feedburner.

Stacy Clinton

Brian Mucha:

301 Redirects!! My propeller is spinning!

 

\\Just subscribed via feedburner.

Thanks everyone for your awesome tips!  The new redirect feature is super awesome as we have had some trouble in the past too.  Appreciate it!