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August 2022 Release Notes: https://help.pm.leapevent.tech/a/1579997
We're pleased to announce the August 2022 PatronManager release!
In this release you'll find a range of ticketing updates, including improvements to help you sell tickets faster in PatronManager Box Office, a new way to display item fees on your Public Ticketing Site, and general admission auto-fulfillment for Choose Your Own subscriptions.
And there's more! This release also contains a brand new CRM Snapshot to help you free up Portal user licenses for lapsed members, and the Help Tab is getting a new look. PatronManager is also now compatible with Salesforce Enhanced Domains.
Read on to learn all about:
- PatronManager Box Office (PMBO) updates
- New fee display option on the PTS
- General admission auto-fulfillment in CYO subs
- CRM Snapshot to deactivate lapsed members
- New look for the Help Tab
- Salesforce Enhanced Domains
Let's take a look!
Prefer watching to reading?
Here's a recording of the release webinar:
PatronManager Box Office (PMBO) updates
The box office sales path is getting an overhaul! In this release you'll find new Quick Sale tiles to help you quickly access your recently sold Event Instances:
- Auto-generated tiles for up to six recently sold Instances - save clicks when selling the same thing repeatedly, e.g. right before a show or during a big onsale
- Pin tiles - keep the things you sell most often at the top of the list
- Clear unpinned tiles - start a new day or shift with a clean slate
And that's not all - you'll also find that certain Order settings carry over from one Order to the next, and we've cleaned up custom field display to ensure that only the fields you want to see are visible in the box office.
Box Office Express (PatronManager's older application for walk-up sales) is slated for retirement soon.
New primary tile style
The three primary tiles visible when you start a new Ticket Order work the same way, but have a new look: a simplified design with separate icons and colors for tickets (blue), subscriptions (green), and memberships (gold).
Quick Sale tiles
As you sell, each Event Instance you add to an Order will appear on the starting page for your next Order, as a "Recently Sold" tile in the Quick Sale area below the three primary tiles. Each tile will show the Event and Instance name, the retail quantity, and a color corresponding to the type (tickets, subscription, membership).
The box office can display up to six Quick Sale tiles at a time; the order of the tiles will adjust as you sell, and once you've sold more than six Event Instances, the oldest ones will drop off the list.
Want to start your shift with a specific set of Quick Sale tiles? Create a draft Ticket Order, add the desired Event Instances to the cart, then delete the Order. Now you're ready to go!
Pin and unpin tiles
To keep a specific tile or set of tiles in place at the top of the Quick Sale list, tap the pin icon. This will pop that tile ahead of all the unpinned tiles, and keep it stationary until you unpin it or something ahead of it.
When you're ready for a pinned tile to drop off the list, just tap the pin icon again to unpin it.
Want to keep your favorites from moving around based on how recently they were sold? Pin those Quick Sale tiles in the order you'd like them to appear.
Clear unpinned tiles
When it's time to start a new shift, you'll likely have leftover Quick Sale tiles in your "Recently Sold" list from the previous shift - but some of those probably aren't relevant anymore.
To freshen things up (and avoid accidentally selling shows that are now in the past), first pin/unpin as needed to make sure only the tiles you want to keep are pinned, then click "Clear Unpinned" to remove unwanted tiles. They'll be replaced as you sell new things!
Order settings carry over
Maybe you're setting up a cash-only line for walk-up sales before a show, or starting a phone shift: changing the Payment Method to "Cash", the Delivery Method to "Walk-Up", or the Order Origin to "Phone" at the start of each new Order takes valuable time.
With this release, the Payment Method, Order Origin, and Delivery Method carry over from one Order to the next, speeding up your process.
The "Comp" Payment Method will not carry over - you'll need to make that choice intentionally each time.
Custom Fields in PMBO
Prior to this release, organizations that had not yet defined Ticket Order field sets saw every possible custom Ticket Order field in PatronManager Box Office (in the "Other Information" section of the Buyer Info tab). That caused clutter and confusion, as many custom Ticket Order fields are for reporting or admin use and are not useful on the Order itself.
With this release, only Ticket Order fields you add to the designated PMBO field set will be visible in the box office. This also means you can have different fields visible for online buyers vs in the box office.
If some of the "Other Information" fields you're used to seeing have disappeared, head over to this article - you'll create and assign the field set, then populate it with the fields you want to see.
CRM Snapshot to find lapsed members with Portal logins
CRM Snapshots are a user-friendly way to pull lists of patrons who meet specific criteria. This release contains a brand new Snapshot to help you free up Portal user licenses for members who choose not to renew.
Since Portal licenses are sold in bundles, you'll periodically want to free up unused licenses to make room for more new users. How do you know which users to deactivate? This Snapshot is here to help!
Here's how to set it up - note that it will only work if your organization uses Portal alongside Benefits to track your members and VIPs.
New to CRM Snapshots? They're a little different from regular reports - read this overview before you dive in!
1. Name your Snapshot
First things first: name your Snapshot clearly to help you understand what you were doing when you come back later.
2. Provide an expiration date range
Select the date range for the Latest Benefit Expiration. You may leave the max blank, but a minimum date is required.
3. Select the Benefit Level(s) you're concerned with
This step is optional - leave it as-is to include all member levels, or select the specific levels you'd like to see. We'll skip it here to include all members.
4. Set a date range for the patron's last Portal login
This step is optional. Leaving the “Minimum most recent login” blank will include patrons who have never logged in.
5. Set other Snapshot parameters as desired
These options are common to many Snapshots, and help you narrow down the list based on things like contact preferences.
6. Click "Create Snapshot"
When you're happy with your parameters, create your Snapshot! It'll take a few minutes to gather results - you can refresh the page, or wait for an email to tell you it's done.
7. View the results!
When your Snapshot is finished, you'll find a link to "View Report" at the bottom of this page. Clicking the link will open a template report in a new tab with your results.
In addition to standard Contact fields, this Snapshot report includes a number of fields to help you identify each patron's level of engagement with your organization. Scroll down for an explanation of each column.
Always "Save As" when viewing a Snapshot report! Otherwise you may inadvertently overwrite the template and break future Snapshots.
- Contact fields - ID, First/Last Name and Email
- Portal info - the date the patron last logged in to Portal and their Portal user Profile
- Member info - the Contact's Current or Most Recent Benefit Level and the Latest Expiration Date for Benefits associated with their record
- Subscriber Badge - the subscriber status for the Contact's Account. This field will only populate if you're using Subscriber Badges
- Account history fields - Amount Donated This Fiscal Year, Lifetime Donation Amount, and Ticket Order Count in the last # of Days (defined in PatronTicket Settings) for the patron's Account record.
- CRM Snapshot info - these identify the date and type of the Snapshot that's influencing the results in this report
Other Improvements
With every release we tidy up bits of unexpected behavior and make incremental improvements to PatronManager.
Currently, the Public Ticketing Site calculates item fees after the patron adds a ticket to their cart, and displays those fees only in the cart during checkout. For organizations with multiple or larger item fees, this can cause sticker shock when the price shown at checkout is more than the patron expected to pay when selecting their ticket.
With this release, you can ensure that the displayed price of a ticket never increases during the online purchase process. Just head over to PatronTicket Settings and check the box to "Display Prices Including Item Fees" as shown here:
When you check this box:
- The prices and price ranges displayed on your Public Ticketing Site will include all possible item fees
- Patrons can click for more details to view the base ticket price and the amount of any applicable item fees (just as they would appear in the cart)
If you have conditional item fees that may vary based on the patron's cart contents, note that those fees will be included in the prices and ranges that appear on the PTS prior to adding the ticket to the cart. Once the patron adds the ticket to their cart, the system will calculate the specific fees that apply for that Ticket Order.
For example, let's say your base ticket price is $25, plus a $5 item fee that's automatically waived if the patron is also purchasing a subscription. When the patron views the event online, they'll see the total price listed as $30, but when they add a ticket to their cart alongside a subscription, the price will reduce to $25 since the system automatically waives the $5 item fee.
Previously, selling a Choose Your Own subscription that included general admission events required your staff to fulfill the subscription in order to remove those GA tickets from inventory. For Events with limited availability and high subscription sales, this could lead to inadvertently overselling your capacity.
Now (provided you have sufficient inventory) the system will automatically assign GA tickets to the subscription order and remove those "seats" from inventory.
Reserved seating Event Instances still need to be fulfilled to assign the patron's seats.
You'll still need to mark Choose Your Own general admission subscriptions as filled if they were sold online, just as is true with Fixed general admission subscriptions today. This gives you a fail-safe to make sure that they fulfilled correctly, and allows you to email tickets to the patron as applicable.
The PatronManager Lightning Help Tab is getting a brand new look! All the content you're used to will still be there, and existing links will continue to work.
The new design will make it easier for you to explore topics, find related content as you're reading, and access the information you need. The Help Tab is designed to complement the quick-answer knowledgebase you'll find in the Client Community, providing more in-depth content and tutorials.
Here's a sneak peek:
Salesforce Enhanced Domains
This release ensures compatibility between PatronManager and Salesforce's new Enhanced Domains feature. Salesforce requires switching to Enhanced Domains by February 2023. Because this change will involve updating your various links to PatronManager sites (including your Public Ticketing Site and Donation Forms), we strongly recommend starting that process soon.
There are specific steps you must take to ensure PatronManager recognizes the change; be sure to follow the complete instructions here.
That's all for now!
Want to be part of the product development process? Log in to the Client Community to suggest and vote on Product Ideas, track suggestions your organization has given us in the past, see what's planned and in progress, and much more. Read All About Product Ideas to get started!
We're consistently surprised at what can fit into a release