This feature is available from Version 16.2.3 upwards.
Often, a person starts but doesn’t complete their online registration on your interactive registration site. This can happen for many reasons:
They get distracted halfway through the process and forget to come back to it.
Their internet drops out.
They need more information before they can finish registering but accidentally close the site in the meantime.
They realize they want to take some other action (such as paying their membership fees) before submitting their registration.
EventsAir’s Registration Recovery feature will save basic contact details, and can send reminder messages (with an auto-login token) to encourage site visitors to return and finish registering.
Here’s how you set it up:
Enable the registration site setting
In the Online Panel, on your interactive (registration) site(s), check the box for “Capture Incomplete Registrations”, under the Details tab.
IMPORTANT:
You’ll also see a note about adding the Data Processing Consent component. As with all EventsAir tools, you’re responsible for complying with relevant laws and regulations. Extra care may be needed here because site visitors may not realize that some data (e.g. name and email address) is recorded, even when they don’t complete a registration.
After you’ve enabled this setting, any visitors to the site who enter an email address and proceed to at least one other page, but leave the site before fully submitting it, will have an 'incomplete’ contact record created in your event.
NOTE: If you want to test this feature, you need to clear your cache before using the registration site.
In the Attendees Panel:
These 'incomplete’ (Registration Recovery) contacts are a little different to normal contact records:
They’re flagged with a red “Incomplete Registration” tag (see screenshot).
They don't appear in your contacts list by default, but you can see them when you filter for them (more information below). [In a similar way, because they're marked ‘inactive’, they only appear in reports if you filter for them.]
They only include Contact fields. (Even if a registration item, function fee type or other item may have been selected on the site, these aren't included in the incomplete contact record. This leaves room for the person to change their mind about other selections when returning later to complete registration.)
For data privacy reasons, an Incomplete Registration is possible for a Group Contact (but not Group Members). Similarly, one can be created for a booking contact but not a guest.
These contacts are 'event specific' and won't be added to a linked contact store.
On an incomplete registration record, if you click into the attendee's contact module, you can see the name of the registration site where the incomplete registration happened, along with date and time.
This information will update for any subsequent incomplete attempts (on any sites in the same event where an auto-login token is used).
Filter for Incomplete Registrations (including in reports):
In a filter’s Contact section, check the box for “Include Incomplete Registrations”.
You don’t need to select “Include Inactive” here, because Incomplete Registrations are all Inactive by default.
If you ONLY want to see “Incomplete Registrations”, not just ‘include’ them along with all your other contacts, specify which date/s and which registration site/s) you want to see incomplete registrations for.
How does an incomplete registration become complete?
An incomplete registration is converted into a normal (active) contact record in your event when the contact returns to a registration site, with an auto-login token. When they add in the rest of their information and selections, and submit the site (including making payment if required), their original incomplete registration record will be ‘recovered’ i.e. updated to become a normal contact record.
If you have multiple registration sites in your event, ANY registration site auto-login token from the same event will allow them to update their record.
Sometimes, though, you may want to only give people the auto-login token to the same site they started on. See information below about reminder emails.
Converting an incomplete registration into a normal (active) contact record in your event can’t be done manually. [You also can't manually set one up inside EventsAir, or import one.]
If someone with an incomplete registration record goes back to your registration site without an auto-login token, they may create a duplicate record (although it may not matter, since the original record will be inactive anyway).
A duplicate record may also be possible if someone uses the same email address as an incomplete registration contact.
Use your normal processes to check for and remove duplicate contacts if needed.
Auto-login tokens can be forwarded, which can be a security risk and/or create duplication.
Consider using Attendee Single Sign-On for additional security and data validation.
You can also use Attendee Verification to make it easier for registration sites/forms to be fully completed.
Automate follow-up emails to remind people to finish registering:
In the Communications panel, create a suitable Merge Doc.
The Merge Doc should encourage people to return and re-register, and include the auto-login token for the interactive (registration) site you want them to go back to.
[If you have more than one registration site, and it’s important to you that people return to the same one they started on, create separate merge docs for each site.]
Now, under Planned Communication, set up your preferred sending pattern.
Consider the nature of your relationship with the recipient and the event – you may need to select the “This is Marketing” checkbox.
Reminder emails for incomplete registrations
To send based on number of days since incomplete registration:
This will send one email after an incomplete registration (which will re-send if a person returns to the site but still doesn’t complete/submit):
Choose the correct merge doc for your communication, and add a subject line (such as “Your registration isn’t complete”).
Select the "Recurrence" tab.
Check the box for “Enable Recurrence”.
Set a start and end date for this type of communication (for example, starting when your registration site opens and ending a week before your event).
Check the item “On Incomplete Registration”, then select how many days after incomplete registration you want the email to send.
You can send more than one follow-up/reminder email this way by setting up a second (or third, fourth etc) Planned Communication that’s much the same, just changing the number of days after Incomplete Registration.
To send to everyone with an incomplete registration, on a specific date:
Instead of, or alongside, the above, you could send everyone with an incomplete registration a reminder email on a specific date, regardless their incomplete registration date. (For example, you might want to do this several weeks before your event, as one final reminder.)
To do this, set up a Planned Communication for a specific day and time, filtering for recipients by selecting “Include Incomplete Registrations” and adding the correct registration site(s). You could also filter by incomplete registration date(s) here if you want.
REMINDER: If you don’t specify a registration site or date here, ALL your contacts will be included because the checkbox is to “include” not “only show”.
More about Incomplete Registrations in Reports
If you filter to include Incomplete Registrations in reports, these contacts will appear in the report, but may not have the same details as other contacts. You'll be able to see whatever details are available (email address, name/other contact details if available, and ID number). These will be whatever contact details were filled out on the site (if an email address was provided and at least one other page was landed on) before the site was closed or abandoned.
Your Dashboard widgets will only show active registrations in the “Registrations” widget, but will show all contacts (including inactive/incomplete registrations) in the “Contacts” widget.
The Event Statistics Report (in Financial reports) has the option to include Incomplete Registrations ("Display Registration Recovery" checkbox.) You'll be able to see details of incomplete registrations.
