Wufoo Event Registration a field guide 5.6.13 original photo by Metod Bočko Events are one of the most used features in The City. They allow you to slate upcoming events and activities, schedule volunteers for service times, decide who's bringing the bean dip, and much more. No matter how robust the feature is, though, one of the most requested Event additions has always been enhanced registration. You can now add this to an Event with The City's Wufoo plugin. Putting Wufoo Registration to Use If you're unfamiliar with Wufoo, you should be introduced. In their own words, the product is "a web application that helps anybody build amazing online forms. When you design a form with Wufoo, it automatically builds the database, backend and scripts needed to make collecting and understanding your data easy, fast and fun." This makes it great for collecting vital information from people signing up for your next big event, which is exactly why The City has built the Wufoo plugin for event registration. A Field Guide to Wufoo Event Registration 1
Setting Up Wufoo Before you can use the Wufoo plugin in a City Event, though, a few things have to happen in Wufoo. For starters, you need to have a Wufoo account. If you don't already have one, setting it up is easy.! You can only connect your City to a paid Wufoo account. The free account does not have all the necessary functionality for the integration to work. Keep in mind that you can only use one Wufoo account in your City. It's best to use an official church account, not a personal one, so that you can share the login information with other people who need it. To start an account with Wufoo 1. Visit wufoo.com/signup. 2. Select the monthly plan that's right for you and click Sign Up! (You'll need the "Bona Fide" plan if you want to accept payment for your events. Don't worry, you can modify or cancel your plan any time you need.) 3. Enter the requested information and click Create Account. 4. Finally, if you re a 501(c)(3) non-profit, visit master.wufoo.com/forms/z7p7a1/ and fill in the requested information to get a special 50% discount on your monthly subscription fee. That's it! You've got a Wufoo account. Now that you have a Wufoo account, you can start making forms to use with your City Events. To create your Wufoo form 1. Visit wufoo.com. 2. Click Login! 3. Enter your email address and password. Then click Login. 4. On the Forms tab, click New Form! 5. Follow their instructions to add the fields you need. 6. When you're done, click Save Form. Once you have that form made up just the way you want it, it's time to enable it for accepting payments, if you're so inclined (if not, skip ahead to the next section). To do this, you need to grab A Field Guide to Wufoo Event Registration 2
your Merchant Key from your preferred payment gateway (and perhaps the email address and password associated with that account, depending on your payment provider). Once you have that in hand, head over to Wufoo. On the Forms tab, find the form you'd like to add payment to and click Payment. Then, under Merchant Setup, select your payment processor and enter the necessary information. If you don't yet have an account with a payment gateway, you can visit http://help.wufoo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5798 to select one of Wufoo's integrated providers and sign up for an account. Setting Up The City Now that you've got your Wufoo account in place and your registration form is looking rather impressive, it's time to make your City Event and connect it to that form. Before you can do that, though, the Wufoo plugin needs to be activated for your City and enabled for the groups that need access to it. The first step is turning on the plugin overall, and for that, you'll need an Account Administrator. To activate Wufoo event registration 1. In the Administration Panel, expand the Admin menu. 2. Click Site Settings. 3. Select Activate Wufoo registration. 4. Enter your Wufoo Email and Wufoo Password. 5. Click Update. A Field Guide to Wufoo Event Registration 3
Once your City is set up to use the Wufoo plugin, it's up to a Group Administrator to turn the feature on for the groups who need to use it. To enable Wufoo registration for a group 1. In the Administration Panel, expand the Admin menu. 2. Click Groups. 3. In the search field, enter the name of the group you're looking for and click Search. 4. Select the group from the list of results that appears below. 5. Click Advanced Settings. 6. Select Allow event registration with Wufoo. 7. Click Update. It's at this point that a question arises: which groups should have access to this? It's an important question, and one that every church has to answer for themselves, because it's going to depend on many factors specific to your ministry. Here are a few things to consider as you decide: What size of group realistically needs event registration? Rarely do you need people to register for small, private events. Knowing that Maryanne is bringing the popcorn and Tim is bringing the movie will generally be sufficient planning for your small group's Friday-night fun, and The City can already take care of that. For most churches, it's only when you get to large, public events or allchurch retreats that you need more complex registration. How many people do you want to share your Wufoo account with? Whenever a group Leader creates an Event that's tied to a Wufoo form, part of the creation process happens inside Wufoo (we'll look more at this later), so everyone responsible for making these Events will have to sign in at some point. A Field Guide to Wufoo Event Registration 4
How many people are you willing to entrust user information to? Logging in to Wufoo grants a person access to view responses from the users who have registered for your events. If this is private information, you may want to be careful how many people have access to it. How many people are you willing to trust with paid events? We'll assume that all your group Leaders are trustworthy with money, but even if they are, there needs to be oversight with that kind of thing. The question is, how many people can you realistically oversee? When you've decided which groups should have access to this feature, enable it for them. Then take some time to train them in how it works and what their responsibilities are. The next section of this guide has everything you need. Creating the Event With both your Wufoo account and your City set and ready, it's time to create an Event that's linked to one of your Wufoo forms. Regardless of the group you or one of your leaders creates an Event in, this will always be the process. To add Wufoo registration to an Event When pasting your redirect URL into Wufoo, be sure there are no extra spaces at the beginning, as this will cause an error. 1. As usual, begin creating an Event by clicking Start a New Post and selecting Event. 2. Enter a title and description. Then click Next Step». 3. Select This event requires registration via Wufoo. 4. Select the appropriate Wufoo form from the drop-down list of options. 5. Continue making your Event, as usual: add the event date and time, invite additional guests, select a location, and call it good (note that some standard Event functionality is disabled for Events that require registration via Wufoo). 6. At the very end, follow the instructions in the lightbox that displays. a. Copy the provided redirect URL. b. Visit wufoo.com. c. If you're not already logged into your church's Wufoo account, log in now. d. Below the appropriate form, click Edit. e. Click Form Settings. f. Under Confirmation Options, select Redirect to website and paste your URL in the provided field. g. Click Save Form. h. Return to The City. 7. Click I did it! Let's continue». A Field Guide to Wufoo Event Registration 5
Because you can only add one callback URL to a Wufoo form, each form can only be used in a single City Event, and they can't be shared with other groups or posted to the Plaza.! Once you've made the Event and connected it to Wufoo, you're set. Where group participants would generally see their RSVP options, they now have a Register button. Clicking it displays the form's questions for the user to fill out, and a second step for payment information (if payment is enabled). When they're all done filling out the information, it's automatically added to the entries list for that Wufoo form. You have the data you need, and they're all signed up! Wufoo in the Real World Thus ends the technical steps of activating and using the Wufoo plugin, so it's time for some more practical matters. For starters, when should you use Wufoo with a City Event? The average event at your church is fine without it. Registration A Field Guide to Wufoo Event Registration 6
is most handy in cases when you need to collect specific information from attenders, and you don't want them signing up without providing it. Here are a few of the more common things you might want to collect with a registration form: Name and Contact Info: If your event requires you knowing names and/or contact info for registrants, you'll want to add those fields to your form since Wufoo is unable to receive that information from The City. Payment: Wufoo allows you to make a paid registration form for those activities that participants need to pay to attend. Dietary restrictions or meal selections: If you're doing an event with a set meal plan, you might need to know what people want to eat, or what they simply can't. Room assignments:going on a retreat? You might want to let people choose who they're bunking with, and that would necessitate a registration form. Carpooling: Get an idea of how many people would like to carpool and where they're coming from, so you can plan who's riding with whom. Childcare: For that upcoming evening lecture, use a registration form to see how many parents will be attending with their kids in tow. Then you'll know how many volunteers you need. Finally, we know you're a busy person, so let's give you a head start on using your next event-registration form optimally. Here are a few best practices you might consider using: More often than not, registered Events are large enough that it's best to post them in your largest groups: Church and Campus. Decide on your strategy for making Wufoo forms early on. If you only want a designated person creating new forms, make that clear from the beginning. For technical limitations, once someone has registered for your event, they can't go back and edit that registration through The City. Add the leader's phone number or a link to their profile in the Event description, so anyone needing to change their registration can contact someone to get it done. You can also add this contact information to the receipt email you create in your form. If you'd like to save your registrant's responses as Custom Fields inside The City, you can export Wufoo-form data, reformat it into a City user-update with the appropriate column headings, and upload it into your City. A Field Guide to Wufoo Event Registration 7