Our development officer has decided she would like to track the success of different mailings/contacts of our invite to participate in a certain event.  We've never done this before but I set up different packages for each invite (our mail outs, different email blasts, faxed invite, etc.) and thought that when they register I could add a response to the appeal on their record. 

I'm not really sure what I'm doing though and I'm a bit confused.  For our mail outs I globally added the appeal and package to the constituents we mailed to so we can add the response if they register.  For the faxed invites we paid a company to send out thousands of faxes to business in our area.  It's coded so we can tell where the registration came and I figured I would add that package just to the ones who register. I'm wondering how this all works with reporting - some packages will have a total solicited and response breakdowns while other packages will just have those who registered.

Also, it seems that all the appeal analysis reporting has to do with gifts linked to the packages.  For our purposes we don't care how much they bring in for the event (and actually most of the companies don't give money themselves - they are hosting their own little event where employees give money) so these reports don't seem to be what I'm looking for.

A co-worker suggested we put each mailing code in the response table and enter it that way but I still think each mailing should be a seperate package and the response table would be things like no response, responded-registered, etc.

To make things even more confusing we have about 50 companies who said after last year they will host another event this year so they have been pre-registered but now we are finding they are registering again from the faxes sent out.

Hope I explained that okay - any help would be appreciated!

I would utilize the event module in the following way:

When you do an invitation (whatever method) load all of those folks into the event module - use the INVITE? Field as an indicator of which invitation they are receiving and the date (Mail/Email Blast, etc.) *Note I would query everyone already in the event to SUB from the query of any subsequent invitations) (The intial invitaion would be the only one listed on their account)

When the folks reply I would use the Response Field to track which appeal they actually replied to and date.

I would use the registered field as follows: Registered  and date if they are coming, Do NOT Register if they have declined. NOT Registered would then be everyone that did not respond

 This isn't as clean as using appeals and packages - but since there is no money involved it may work for you. The one thing it doesn't do is to track subsequent invitations.

Example of Procedure:

1) Query of everyone you are inviting using the first invitation method (Invite 1 Mail)

2) Load all of these folks in the Event Module (Global Add) with INVITE? field = Invite 1 Mail; Date

3) Query Event ID = This event (Subtract from Subsequent invitation queires so that you don't have duplicate participants in your event)

4) Query for next invitation (Invite 2 Email)

5) Subtract Query in #3 from the Query in #4

6) Load the results into the event Module (Global Add) with INVITE? field = Invite 2 Email; Date

etc., etc. Invite 3 Fax

This allows you to track in one place:

1) Total Number Invited 2) Total Registered 3) Total Declined (Do Not Register) 4) Total Non-responders 5) You can breakdown all Responses by their actual response (Invite 1, Invite 2, or Invite 3)

You'll need to create your own export to view results in specific ways, but it should be pretty easy.

Wow, thanks Laurel!  I have thought of using those event fields before but never really liked the idea of adding so many people to the event that are invited but don't respond - sometimes that could be a hundred or more participants in the event that aren't registered.  The problem with that is the way everyone else looks at a record in RE - if there is an event listed on the constituents event tab it is assumed they participated. 

It makes sense to me to use the event module that way but I might have a lot of convincing to do to actually make it happen!

One way to make it clear o the event tab in the constituent record is to right click with your cursor on the header of the event tab and choose column. This allows you to choose the display fields for that tab and you could have your Director's Display the Registered Status and the response fields for clarity.

Also, withihn the event you can filter participants to only show registered, etc. or doubleclick on one of the displayed colunns (like excel!) to make viewing easier

thanks again Laurel - I think filtering should work perfectly for the person managing the event (I know I've seen that filtering button before but for some reason it's never registered with me!).

Is there a way to have global settings for the way you view things?  Like can I make everyone see the same columns that I have set up instead of everyone having to set up their own columns on the event tab?

The columns can't be globally done (you would need to go to each of their computers while they are logged in and set the columns for them or send them a how-to sheet and have them do it themselves) - but you may want to look at Color - you could set this up under Security/Users on a per user basis. Go to Color tab and choose Legend. I would make registered a different color.