In general, the more you give to the world, the more you receive. That explains the importance of defining settings: they create awareness, impart baseline details and launch the event – which, needless to say, has a direct impact on attendance and performance. Moreover, the settings are super easy to figure out and program, so keep on reading to become a pro. 🎭
In this article
(click to jump to topic)
How do I start an event?
To create a new event, access the Events overview and click Create a new event on the upper right-hand corner. Upfront, you'll be asked the most essential details: NAME, STARTS ON, ENDS ON and TIME ZONE. Once you've inputted everything, press Create event and add more info to move ahead.
Alternatively, you can duplicate an existing event, which is especially useful to clone reoccurring events that stay more or less the same from time to time, barring obvious details such as dates.
Again in the Events overview, click the icon Duplicate event, give it a NAME and tap Duplicate event and add more info. A copy will be immediately supplied.
Learn more about the Events overview here. In addition, find a quick summary explanation about the aforementioned fields below.
The Details tab
The Details tab is where you enter the descriptive information pertaining to an event.
Published — Select Yes or No to publish your event, that is, to make it publicly available and open for registrations. Unpublished events can't admit registrations, even if someone's given a direct link to the landing page, because attempting to register returns the error Event not available. They likewise won't be displayed on the Events widget. On the contrary, a published event will admit registrations from logged-in users and users outside of FULL FABRIC, creating the latter automatic profiles (not to be mistaken with active users) or associating them to profiles that already exist (if the email address is the same).
Name — Official name of the event, to be displayed in the Events overview and on the landing page. Pick a name that's unique enough to be told apart from similar events.
More info — This is the descriptive text that appears on the landing page, particularly useful to present extra information not covered by the standard fields. For instance, a digest of the planned activities, a list of guests and other prominent participants, an email address to direct questions, calls to action, if there's a dress code, whether food will be served or people need to bring their own snacks, if outlets will be available to charge electronics, etc.
Image — Upload a cover image to be displayed vertically on the right side of the page, like a column (here's a demonstration). If no image is uploaded, the one on the login page will be used. For optimal performance, please ensure the following parameters:
That the file is under or around 200 KB;
That the format is JPEG (because although PNG is also accepted, JPEG is a lossy compressed file format that produces smaller file sizes);
That it's a minimum of 800px by 400px;
That it's portrait-oriented rather than landscape;
That it's merely decorative and conceptual, not informative.
Starts on — Start date and time of the event.
Ends on — Ending date and time of the event.
Time zone — Click the time zone that you want to use to automatically adjust the time displayed for all users and dispatch the event reminders at the appropriate moments.
Default source category — Tag a source category to identify the leads originating from this event (as previously noted, when users register for an event using an email address unknown to the system, new profiles are automatically created). You can learn more about tracking profile source here.
Redirect path — Write in the URL of whatever page respondents should be redirected to after submitting their registration. Could be a custom thank you page, another website or a page from your application portal.
Location — Information about the venue, such as name, room number (if applicable), etc.
Address — Street address, city name and door number, and, if applicable, province, state or district. This displays a map with a pin to mark the spot.
The Advanced tab
The Advanced tab is where you define the finer settings of an event.
Capacity — If your venue has limited seats, you shouldn't accept more event registrations than you can handle or overcrowding will ensue. Therefore, the point of this control is to restrict registrations. To that end, select Limit to; two inputs will be added: one to determine the total number of available seats, and one to write people a notice for when the event has reached full capacity and registrations are automatically closed. If space isn't an issue, keep No Limit (default).
Open registrations on — Registration open date and time, which should precede the event start date by at least a few days to maximise the amount of registrations submitted.
Close registrations? — Registration close date and time. You don't have to set it, and that being the case, registrations will remain open until the event begins (or reaches full capacity, when applicable); but if you need time to prepare for your audience, then you should probably put some distance between the date that registrations close and the date that the event occurs.
Notes — Private notes about the event, only viewable by staff users.
Ask event attendees how many guests they brought to the event after scanning their QR code — Check Yes or No. If you select Yes, the process of checking in event attendees by scanning a QR code gains an additional step, in which they have to insert how many guests they brought along. This setting is only available if QR codes are enabled. The next article discusses QR codes in greater detail.
PUBLISHED: February 18, 2020
LAST UPDATED: March 1, 2022 at 4:57 p.m.