Pre-Register without payment or Waiting list?

The problem:
I need to offer a "Pre-registration" that does NOT take any form of payment.
It would basically be to have the waiting list feature available even if the event isn't full.

Current Setup:
I currently have offline payment method for the "Pre-registration" but doing that shows their payment as full payment or deposit which doesn't work because when they need to pay the balance through paypal it either shows they don't owe anything (offline full payment) OR they owe the event cost minus the deposit (offline deposit payment).

If you have a better approach or idea it's appreciated. I'm good with php but I try not to edit more than necessary to not make it impossible to update..
Thank you for your awesome work!!

Hi Jason

Actually, you can use waiting list approach:

1. Set event capacity to 1

2. Enable waiting list for the event

3. Adding a new registration record manually (so that event will be full)

Now, when someone registers for the event, they will be in waiting list... and it should work as you want

Tuan

I'm sorry I didn't clarify this before.
People still need to be able to "register and pay" OR "Register and pay later (waiting list)".
I was thinking about trying to edit the offline payment method to try and zero out the payment amount.
OR
Adding another payment status
1) Pay Later
2) Depost
3) full payment
OR
Always enable waiting list
I'm just not sure which is best approach.

I think Register and pay later is exactly how offline payment works. The payment amount is still be presented, but you actually don't have to payment at the time of registration, just manually payment later

If you have to edit code, I think that's the easiest approach. Don't try to add more payment status or always enable waiting list (waiting list process is handled through the code when event is full, you cannot always enable it)

Tuan

Thank you for all your help so far! I really do appreciate it.

"I think Register and pay later is exactly how offline payment works. The payment amount is still be presented, but you actually don't have to payment at the time of registration, just manually payment later"
// I totally agree. The problem is this:
1) Person registers with "offline payment" method.
2) Now they want to pay. We only offer paypal as payment. They can't pay. It shows that it's either all paid or sends them to paypal minus the deposit.

Side Question: If an offline payment is used will it remove an available space from an event with max capacity?

Hi Jason

Actually, in latest version, we support waiting list users to login, then access to Registration History to process payment. So I guess you can customize the code to show that make payment link to offline payment users as well, it should work

Also, from backend registrants list, you can select a registration record, then press Request payment to send payment request link to users to allow them to click on to make payment

Try to play with it to see whether it works

For your second question, yes, offline payment registrant will be treated as actual registrant, so it will remove available space from the event with pre-configured capacity

Regards,

Tuan

Hi,

I'd really like to be able to set an event up for pre-registration too. It would be very similar to the Waiting List, but I would ideally collect less info from the customer and also the text would need to be different, i.e. at the moment, the waiting list button says "Group Full - Join Waiting List", but the pre-registration button would say something like "Register Interest".

Do you think this would be a difficult customisation? I'd need to have personalised pre-registration messages as well (I've just noticed that you can't currently have personalised waiting list messages per event).

Hi Donal

It's not very difficult for customization. However, you will need to have a developer to customize it for you anyway (base on how you want it to work)

It's something not possible to just configure and work

Tuan

Thanks Tuan,

I think Register Interest option for events would be a very powerful addition to EB. Any chance it could be added to your roadmap?

We're being asked to run lots of events at the moment. We have a minimum number of attendees before we will run an event. It would be great to be able to put up an event for gauging interest only, which just asks the user a couple of questions instead of the full form. Based on the number of people interested, we could contact the people and let them know that the event was going ahead, so they could properly register.

Thanks,
Donal

Hello Donal

I have no plan for this feature yet. There are still other things I want to improve which are more important than this feature

Maybe in this case, you can create a separate event (which is a free event) to allow users to register their interest?

Tuan