Participant Center Best Practices

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Our organization is in the process of updating our Teamraiser for end-users and one of the areas that we have heard the most feedback about is the Participant Center. So, we're really focusing on enhancing that area before our 2015 events kick-off.

 

I'd like to hear from other clients --

 

  • What are some of your Participant Center Best Practices?
  • What are things that can be implemented to make the PC a more useful resource for participants so that they will regularly login and use the feature?
  • What are some challenges that your organization/event has encountered with the PC and what measures have you implemented to overcome it?

Thanks!

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Comments

  • "What are some challenges that your organization/event has encountered with the PC and what measures have you implemented to overcome it?"

     

    Man the PC is so confusing and poorly designed. This is easily our number one complaint about TeamRaiser. Many participants give up on it and send email from their personal accounts.

     

    Here's a few things we do...

     

    We noticed that often participants are confused about what to do after registering. So we made a pop-up that appears once they register with a list of next steps, guiding them to the PC to set up their personal page and what not. The autoresponder also has a list of next steps. Nice job @MattAldridge elaborating on the original.

     

    next.png

     

    You can add CSS to your participant center to help it match your TR better. (We turned the links across the top into buttons.)

     

    We also made a reusable sidebar for coaching email stationary that shows some important information from the PC right in the email, such as their thermometer, important next steps, and milestone badges. If they won't go to the PC, bring the PC to them!

     

    stationary.png

     

     

  • Kent Gilliam
    Kent Gilliam Blackbaud Employee
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Brian Mucha:

    "What are some challenges that your organization/event has encountered with the PC and what measures have you implemented to overcome it?"

     

    Man the PC is so confusing and poorly designed. This is easily our number one complaint about TeamRaiser. Many participants give up on it and send email from their personal accounts.

     

    Here's a few things we do...

     

    We noticed that often participants are confused about what to do after registering. So we made a pop-up that appears once they register with a list of next steps, guiding them to the PC to set up their personal page and what not. The autoresponder also has a list of next steps. Nice job @MattAldridge elaborating on the original.

     

    next.png

     

    You can add CSS to your participant center to help it match your TR better. (We turned the links across the top into buttons.)

     

    We also made a reusable sidebar for coaching email stationary that shows some important information from the PC right in the email, such as their thermometer, important next steps, and milestone badges. If they won't go to the PC, bring the PC to them!

     

    stationary.png

     

     

    This is great info Brian. And thanks for posting thie Christina! I've shared this with our TR product team. I wanted to respond here so I'll get an alert when they respond. If they don't, please ping me so I can put it on their desk again. I think this is a great opportunity to share some insight on PC2. 

     

    Kent

  • Kent Gilliam:

    This is great info Brian. And thanks for posting thie Christina! I've shared this with our TR product team. I wanted to respond here so I'll get an alert when they respond. If they don't, please ping me so I can put it on their desk again. I think this is a great opportunity to share some insight on PC2. 

     

    Kent

    Last BBCon we saw a mock-up of a new (mobile-friendly!) Participant Center, but were cautioned that development had not really begun yet.

     

    I think this is my number one want-to-have. I'd love to hear an update on the progress. If it is still vapor I think we might put plans to do it ourselves back on the schedule.

     

    Has anyone else written a replacement for the Participant Center?

     

    EDITS:

     

    / I don't think it would be extremely hard. If you look under the hood the PC is already done with the APIs. So the plumbing is pretty much done.

     

    // My number two want is a fulfillment back end for eCommerce. Those cruddy canned reports don't really cut it. I do have that in my plans - using a DataSync via Web Services to what will probably be a .NET site.

  • Brian Mucha:

    Last BBCon we saw a mock-up of a new (mobile-friendly!) Participant Center, but were cautioned that development had not really begun yet.

     

    I think this is my number one want-to-have. I'd love to hear an update on the progress. If it is still vapor I think we might put plans to do it ourselves back on the schedule.

     

    Has anyone else written a replacement for the Participant Center?

     

    EDITS:

     

    / I don't think it would be extremely hard. If you look under the hood the PC is already done with the APIs. So the plumbing is pretty much done.

     

    // My number two want is a fulfillment back end for eCommerce. Those cruddy canned reports don't really cut it. I do have that in my plans - using a DataSync via Web Services to what will probably be a .NET site.

    Hi Brian,

     

    I have been doing that in-house customization with our PC2 making it responsive by bootstrapping (integrating Twitter Bootstrap) on the dashboard instance (of course we need to change the doctype to html5 doctype so it takes css media queries)

     

    It would be long to explain every details here probably, but do feel free to go and register to one of our event (free to register as participant on our Walk to Stop Diabetes ! :smileyhappy:)  and have a look further, and if you have any questions would be happy to help and who knows what might develop from there in our effort to improvise it further.

     

    http://stepout.diabetes.org/site/PageServer/?pagename=OUT_homepage  

     

    The PC2 is responsive and it's older IE (down to 7) friendly. Additionally, I don't really / moving away from the use the iframe based PC2 embedding it through the pagebuilder via S409 due to less flexibility modifying / dynamically updating the content because of that security ruleset on modern browsers.

     

    So this will go right away redirected to the dashboard.html that gets created when you create a PC2 instance. You add further details / modification on both the custom.css and custom.js.   Tapping to pass the session information pertinent to the logged in users by putting them onto the Homepage TeamRaiser page (within that customize TeamRaiser page)

     

    I could attach some screengrabs of the actual PC2 here.

     

    regards,

    Daniel

  • Kent Gilliam
    Kent Gilliam Blackbaud Employee
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Daniel Hartanto:

    Hi Brian,

     

    I have been doing that in-house customization with our PC2 making it responsive by bootstrapping (integrating Twitter Bootstrap) on the dashboard instance (of course we need to change the doctype to html5 doctype so it takes css media queries)

     

    It would be long to explain every details here probably, but do feel free to go and register to one of our event (free to register as participant on our Walk to Stop Diabetes ! :smileyhappy:)  and have a look further, and if you have any questions would be happy to help and who knows what might develop from there in our effort to improvise it further.

     

    http://stepout.diabetes.org/site/PageServer/?pagename=OUT_homepage  

     

    The PC2 is responsive and it's older IE (down to 7) friendly. Additionally, I don't really / moving away from the use the iframe based PC2 embedding it through the pagebuilder via S409 due to less flexibility modifying / dynamically updating the content because of that security ruleset on modern browsers.

     

    So this will go right away redirected to the dashboard.html that gets created when you create a PC2 instance. You add further details / modification on both the custom.css and custom.js.   Tapping to pass the session information pertinent to the logged in users by putting them onto the Homepage TeamRaiser page (within that customize TeamRaiser page)

     

    I could attach some screengrabs of the actual PC2 here.

     

    regards,

    Daniel

    Great stuff Daniel!!! Thanks for sharing with the Community!

  • Kent Gilliam:

    Great stuff Daniel!!! Thanks for sharing with the Community!

    You are always welcome Kent. Hope that could help fellow Convio ers here :smileyhappy:

  • Daniel Hartanto:

    Hi Brian,

     

    I have been doing that in-house customization with our PC2 making it responsive by bootstrapping (integrating Twitter Bootstrap) on the dashboard instance (of course we need to change the doctype to html5 doctype so it takes css media queries)

     

    It would be long to explain every details here probably, but do feel free to go and register to one of our event (free to register as participant on our Walk to Stop Diabetes ! :smileyhappy:)  and have a look further, and if you have any questions would be happy to help and who knows what might develop from there in our effort to improvise it further.

     

    http://stepout.diabetes.org/site/PageServer/?pagename=OUT_homepage  

     

    The PC2 is responsive and it's older IE (down to 7) friendly. Additionally, I don't really / moving away from the use the iframe based PC2 embedding it through the pagebuilder via S409 due to less flexibility modifying / dynamically updating the content because of that security ruleset on modern browsers.

     

    So this will go right away redirected to the dashboard.html that gets created when you create a PC2 instance. You add further details / modification on both the custom.css and custom.js.   Tapping to pass the session information pertinent to the logged in users by putting them onto the Homepage TeamRaiser page (within that customize TeamRaiser page)

     

    I could attach some screengrabs of the actual PC2 here.

     

    regards,

    Daniel

    Now that's what I'm talking about!

     

    100% awesome.

     

    You even did a video help/tour, we've been wishing for enough time to do something like that for ages.

     

     EDIT: Love the Fundraising Coach question while registering. There is a lot to admire here.

     

     

  • Kent Gilliam
    Kent Gilliam Blackbaud Employee
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Brian Mucha:

    Now that's what I'm talking about!

     

    100% awesome.

     

    You even did a video help/tour, we've been wishing for enough time to do something like that for ages.

     

     EDIT: Love the Fundraising Coach question while registering. There is a lot to admire here.

     

     

    I would recommend a screen recording tool called Screencast-o-matic if you need one. It's only like $15/year and works great. 

  • Brian Mucha:

    Now that's what I'm talking about!

     

    100% awesome.

     

    You even did a video help/tour, we've been wishing for enough time to do something like that for ages.

     

     EDIT: Love the Fundraising Coach question while registering. There is a lot to admire here.

     

     

    Thank you Brian !

     

    Btw, check this library - http://dimsemenov.com/plugins/magnific-popup/

    I am using that on displaying these youtube tutorial videos within a modal popup. It also capable of displaying an iframe in the modal popup and most importantly being responsive.

     

    As for the responsive PC2, there is still long way to go (endless wishlist we could safely say :smileyhappy:).

     

    Although current iteration is mobile friendy in terms of general rendering, the information presented are simply overwhelming to navigate around -- that would be my next focus for the next iteration and I do agree, it would be best to be done away from the PC2 current layout constraint that means replicating the PC2 functionalities and creating our own custom dashboard on a PageBuilder based pages - These functionalities are actually mostly if not all based on Convio API as you have stated, which opens up the possibilities of us achieving that.  (thinking about AngularJS as one of the potential)

     

    Imagine no need to worry any longer about autologin not working on PC2 :smileyhappy:

     

    Definitely will share back with you guys when progress made on this front.

  • Daniel Hartanto:

    Thank you Brian !

     

    Btw, check this library - http://dimsemenov.com/plugins/magnific-popup/

    I am using that on displaying these youtube tutorial videos within a modal popup. It also capable of displaying an iframe in the modal popup and most importantly being responsive.

     

    As for the responsive PC2, there is still long way to go (endless wishlist we could safely say :smileyhappy:).

     

    Although current iteration is mobile friendy in terms of general rendering, the information presented are simply overwhelming to navigate around -- that would be my next focus for the next iteration and I do agree, it would be best to be done away from the PC2 current layout constraint that means replicating the PC2 functionalities and creating our own custom dashboard on a PageBuilder based pages - These functionalities are actually mostly if not all based on Convio API as you have stated, which opens up the possibilities of us achieving that.  (thinking about AngularJS as one of the potential)

     

    Imagine no need to worry any longer about autologin not working on PC2 :smileyhappy:

     

    Definitely will share back with you guys when progress made on this front.

    Hey folks,

    Wanted to comment to Brian's quesiton on if responsive PC2 is vapor or something  real. I know the engineering team have been wroking on responsive PC2 for a while so it isn't vapor but still in production right now.  I don't know of when the offcial release date will be but it is a high priority TeamRaiser improvement item and should be coming out in the relatively near future (near meaning counting in months rather than years). 

     

    We have a Luminate Roadmap webinar coming up next week where Product Management might give a more specific release date of this feature or you can ask via chat. Here is the registration information (make sure to register ahead of time).

     

    Q3 LO/LCRM Roadmap Presentation

    Registration Link:  http://event.on24.com/r.htm?e=837127&s=1&k=E360960F6043FA82F173DD150304579C

    On-demand recording will be available at this same link within 24 hours at the conclusion of the webinar.

     

    Cheers,

    Ken

  • Daniel Hartanto:

    Hi Brian,

     

    I have been doing that in-house customization with our PC2 making it responsive by bootstrapping (integrating Twitter Bootstrap) on the dashboard instance (of course we need to change the doctype to html5 doctype so it takes css media queries)

     

    It would be long to explain every details here probably, but do feel free to go and register to one of our event (free to register as participant on our Walk to Stop Diabetes ! :smileyhappy:)  and have a look further, and if you have any questions would be happy to help and who knows what might develop from there in our effort to improvise it further.

     

    http://stepout.diabetes.org/site/PageServer/?pagename=OUT_homepage  

     

    The PC2 is responsive and it's older IE (down to 7) friendly. Additionally, I don't really / moving away from the use the iframe based PC2 embedding it through the pagebuilder via S409 due to less flexibility modifying / dynamically updating the content because of that security ruleset on modern browsers.

     

    So this will go right away redirected to the dashboard.html that gets created when you create a PC2 instance. You add further details / modification on both the custom.css and custom.js.   Tapping to pass the session information pertinent to the logged in users by putting them onto the Homepage TeamRaiser page (within that customize TeamRaiser page)

     

    I could attach some screengrabs of the actual PC2 here.

     

    regards,

    Daniel

    Here's a continuation of the tinkering of our PC2, which is adding the Email Workflow on our existing Bootstrap based customized PC2 (base version 10.x.x)

     

     P.s. Convio default out of the box PC2 ver 14.10.x now also have the Email workflow added into it as I noted  (wish that was available prior so that I could work on our customization based on it instead of the older version 10.x.x

     

    Also, their workflow ordering is slightly different than our customization in which they have user start with configuring the template first while ours starts with selecting the recipients first. Either way.

     

    regards,

    Daniel

  • dhartanto@diabetes.org:

    Brian Mucha:

    Last BBCon we saw a mock-up of a new (mobile-friendly!) Participant Center, but were cautioned that development had not really begun yet.

     

    I think this is my number one want-to-have. I'd love to hear an update on the progress. If it is still vapor I think we might put plans to do it ourselves back on the schedule.

     

    Has anyone else written a replacement for the Participant Center?

     

    EDITS:

     

    / I don't think it would be extremely hard. If you look under the hood the PC is already done with the APIs. So the plumbing is pretty much done.

     

    // My number two want is a fulfillment back end for eCommerce. Those cruddy canned reports don't really cut it. I do have that in my plans - using a DataSync via Web Services to what will probably be a .NET site.

     

    Hi Brian,

     

    I have been doing that in-house customization with our PC2 making it responsive by bootstrapping (integrating Twitter Bootstrap) on the dashboard instance (of course we need to change the doctype to html5 doctype so it takes css media queries)

     

    It would be long to explain every details here probably, but do feel free to go and register to one of our event (free to register as participant on our Walk to Stop Diabetes ! :smileyhappy:)  and have a look further, and if you have any questions would be happy to help and who knows what might develop from there in our effort to improvise it further.

     

    http://stepout.diabetes.org/site/PageServer/?pagename=OUT_homepage  

     

    The PC2 is responsive and it's older IE (down to 7) friendly. Additionally, I don't really / moving away from the use the iframe based PC2 embedding it through the pagebuilder via S409 due to less flexibility modifying / dynamically updating the content because of that security ruleset on modern browsers.

     

    So this will go right away redirected to the dashboard.html that gets created when you create a PC2 instance. You add further details / modification on both the custom.css and custom.js.   Tapping to pass the session information pertinent to the logged in users by putting them onto the Homepage TeamRaiser page (within that customize TeamRaiser page)

     

    I could attach some screengrabs of the actual PC2 here.

     

    regards,

    Daniel

     

    Hi Daniel,



    Your PC looks amazing. And it's functions along with usability are excellent.  We are trying to implement the same.  Can you provide any details or guidance as to how to go about it? With regards to effort involved, other than css updates and using twitter bootstrap, are there any pitfalls or blockers to look out for? 



    Thanks!



    David

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