I am wondering how others, who do not have the event module, track attendees to events such as auctions and golf outings?  I was thinking I could use a constituent code of participant and create an attribute of participant type to indicate either auction or golf or alumni social and populate the date of the event in the date field of participant type attribute.  Many of these participants only attend the events, often by invitation from constituents, and do not wish to be solicited.     

 Mary,

Before we purchased the Events module we used Actions. I would add an action to every invitee's record. The type would be Event Invitation, the Letter would be the Name of the event and the status would be Invited.  AFter the event I would go back and update the Status to either Attended or Did Not Attend.  In your case, since you say that the participants attend because they were invited by a constituent, you could link the current constituent to the guest via Action Solicitor.  Just a side note, I would also add a Relationship between two. 

We have the same situation as we have events where people attend as guest of other who have purchased the tickets.  In the event we comp tickets we have entered $0 gifts and noted the attendees in the attributes with a comp ticket reference. We have set up a gift attribute called Event Attendees.  The attendees name goes in the description and then we can export the names to word to create name tags through a merge.  It works well for us!

We have the event module but a friend was recently telling me she uses Assigned appeals to track events. She did not get into details,  but I assume I would use packages to track whether the individual or business was solicited for a sponsorship, ticket, auction gift, etc.  and the response field to track whether the offer was declined/accepted, or whether the person has RSVP/attended/not attended.  The comment field can be used to track miscellaneous info (number of tickets, guest, etc).  Then the info is already all in there when payment arrives.  I have not tested it but on paper, I thought it was brilliant.  Of course, the devil is in the details, as they say.

I track it in the Attributes tab.  The Category is 'Event'; the Description is 'Graduation Dinner', 'Gourmet Dinner' or whatever event they attended; the Comments field is '2007 Attendee'.  This way you can query on the information.

We do exactly what you suggested ... we have a constituent code of Event Attendee and an Interests Attribute to indicate Golf Open, SavorSyracuse, etc.  If we know they attended but did not make a donation to do so (ie, went on someone else's tickets) we link their record to the constituent who paid for the tickets and make a note on the record.

We use Appeals that are flagged with the Appeal Category of Events to record the details of the event - I usually just enter the exact text from the invite.  Then we use the Assigned Appeals info on Constituent Records to track the Response  - e.g. Plans to Attend, Attended, Declined, etc.  We use the Comments field & the other Mail ID fields to enter things like # attending.  It works well for us, especially since our events are most often "friend raisers" & there are no tickets to purchase.

We do it the same as Big Brothers Big Sisters, we use the Attributes tab to record events and participation in events.  We can then track generic events via the comments or assign specific Attribute entries to specific events.

Then use queries/exports to extra them for any future initiations or appeals. I would try and define an attribute for each event, so it will make it easier to filter any future queries.

Rene,

Hi, I am using appeals as well to track event attendance, ticket sales etc. I am new at this, though, and would like to ask you how you update constituent records to indicate "attended." I have the sign in sheet from the event. For people who purchased tickets, when entering the gifts in batch, I updated those records as "gave."  I would now like to update the constituent records to indicate all who actually attended.

 I'm guessing there is a way to do this with an update query, but I am not the database administrator.  If this is the best way, I will need to request he do this, and provide him with guidance (he is also new to RE).  If there is a better way, please share!

 Thanks!

Liz