E-mail non-constituent event guest participants

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Steven Cianciarulo
Steven Cianciarulo ✭
Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 1 Name Dropper
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussion
Hi there,


We're new to OLX and want to be able to send event information (e.g. a Zoom link) to all registered participants. Because of the way OLX works, guests were registered as non-constituent records. It's easy enough to query the e-mails entered during registration (once I found where they went in the participants), but OLX won't accept a participant query for an e-mail list.


Support said this would be easy and then said it's impossible. Has anyone found a way to do this? Alternatively, is there a better way to set up the event so the registrations come through in a way that makes this easy/possible? I'd like to avoid making new constituent records for every guest. 


Thank you!
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  • Karen Diener 2
    Karen Diener 2 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 3 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Unfortunately, it is not possible to send email to participants via OLX.  Disappointing that support initially said it was easy, but my guess is that they didn't fully read your question before responding.  Because all guests are registered as participants only, I have always made sure staff review the registrants and link guests to existing constituent records whenever possible.  You'll still have some non-constituent participants though.


    Emails via OLX can only be sent to constituents, and to non-constituent relationships on an organization.  I might be wrong on the second part of that statement - I think it is only non-constituent relationships on organizations, and not on individuals.  I'm having trouble logging in at the moment to be able to verify that.  At any rate, I have heard people using the non-constituent relationship option as a workaround for some situations - add the non-constituent relationships and send them an email by making sure only the single org record is in the query that you use in OLX.  I think that would be a huge pain for you though.


    You might have some more options if you have RENXT, but I suspect you don't.  I hope someone else has a hack that they can share.  It is really disappointing that it is set up this way!


    Karen
  • Austen Brown
    Austen Brown ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ninth Anniversary Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Hi Steven Cianciarulo‍ - Karen is correct, this is not possible as you describe it.  However there is something you can do to get around this, if you are willing to create a faux record in your system.  You can run an export on the event participant information for non-constituents, then import the email information onto the faux record.  By making sure the faux record is included within the query uploaded to OLX, you can send to an email to these "non-constituents". 
  • Kristine Marvin
    Kristine Marvin ✭
    Eighth Anniversary Facilitator 1 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Hi Karen,

    I have an alternate idea for you. We are doing online events through Zoom as well this year. What we have done is put all of the information they need to join the event in the Thank You letter created in OLX. This way when they register they get all the information they need right away.Below is what we put in our thank you:


    How to join the Zoom Meeting: 

    Join Zoom Meeting
    https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81782144388  


    Meeting ID

    817 8214 4388


    Dial by your location

            +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)

            +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)

            +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)

            +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)

            +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)

            +1 929 436 2866 US (New York)



    Hope this helps!

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