Use this link to share with your colleagues:
PatronManager December 2024 Release Notes: https://help.pm.leapevent.tech/a/1896252
Check out the latest PatronManager features and updates, and keep an eye on your email for your exact upgrade date! This release brings exciting new features to help you:
- Scan tickets on an iPhone (plus check-in from a list and view real-time stats!)
- Track accessibility requirements
- Communicate with your patrons
- Sell more memberships (and improve your tracking)
- Qualify records more easily
- See PatronManager Box Office Updates
- Training & certification resources in the Community
- And more!
Let's take a closer look...
Prefer watching to reading?
Join us for the release webinar on Thursday December 5 at 3:00PM ET. We'll go over all the new updates and answer your questions, live!
Can't make the live session? Check back here a few days after the webinar to view the recording.
Scan tickets on iOS devices
The brand new iOS ticket scanning app is simple and easy to use, and we think you'll love it.
We launched the app in beta a couple months ago to get user feedback, and we're so grateful to everyone who participated and shared their thoughts to make the app better!
Here's what some early-access users had to say:
"Everything was fast and smooth. The lines were at the bar instead of at the door!"
"My favorite tools are the ability to see the percentage of patrons checked in, the ability to easily look up patrons by their first and last name using the search tool (especially for elderly attendees who can’t find their email receipt for their tickets), and the group check in feature, which is especially valuable for us right now since we have so many Group sales[...]! It’s amazing to check in everyone easily!"
"The ability to look up patrons, see who has checked in and where they're sitting, and quickly access information on house counts has been an incredible asset."
"We decided to roll out the new app on the opening night of our biggest event of the year because we were confident in its success. We were glad with our decision, as it resulted in zero wait times—even for orders with over 10 tickets. Guests were delighted to spend their time enjoying the outdoor light show with their families rather than standing in line to be scanned (especially in the cold!)."
"Scanning was so much quicker and easier, and having the door list option fundamentally changed our operations."
"We loved that our fundraising teammates used the app a lot to look up major donors and political reps to see ‘are they here and where are they sitting’. And our board members were so excited that they jumped in to help scan tickets!"
Excited and ready to get started? Check out the complete guide here:
Q: will this app be available for Android, too?
A: Yes, soon! We started with iOS since that's been a top Product Idea, but we plan to expand the new app to Android devices in the coming year.
Track onsite accessibility requirements
Your organization likely offers a variety of accessibility features and services, such as large-print programs, assistive listening devices, and ASL interpretation. Accessibility needs can vary and evolve over time, so understanding these requirements in advance helps ensure all patrons can fully enjoy your performances and exhibitions.
The Onsite Accessibility Requirements feature is designed to streamline communication between you and your patrons .
Define and describe your options for online buyers to select during their purchase:
You can then receive task reminders when a Ticket Order comes in with Access Requirements, see a badge and details of requirements on the Contact and Ticket Orders, run a report of upcoming shows with Access Requirements on Ticket Orders, and more!
Check out our complete overview to learn all about this exciting feature:
Communicate with your patrons
Change of plans for a show? Or perhaps there's a big event happening nearby at the same time and you'd like to give your ticket buyers a heads up. Ad Hoc Alerts let you send a nicely-branded email to all ticket buyers for one or more Event Instances with one click.
Do you use multiple Donation Forms and wish the confirmation emails didn't all have to come from the same email at your organization? Good news - now you can override the default "From" address by Donation Form.
Speaking of "From" addresses, a new set of warning messages will help you identify any that are missing or invalid so that you can fix them up and avoid any disruption to your outbound emails.
Click the headers below to expand for more details!
First, you'll set up a template, either as a global default or by Ticketable Event, using Automated Communications. The user-friendly template editor can include merge fields to pull in information from the Event, mobile ticket links (for patrons who selected "Email" as their delivery method), and can be customized however you see fit.
Once your template is ready and set on the Ticketable Event (1), just check the box(es) next to the Event Instances that need the alert (2), and click the button to send your template to all buyers with an email address on their Ticket Order (3).
Your emails will start sending in batches within just a few minutes!
If you use multiple Donation Forms for different outreach campaigns or purposes, you might like the confirmation emails your patrons receive to come "from" a specific person or department at your organization. No problem!
Once you've set up and verified the "From" email address you want to use, you can now select it on a Donation Form, here:
This is optional - if you don't select a "From" email address on your Donation Form, the system will use the default "From" email that you set in Organization Settings.
Starting with this release, you'll see warnings in PatronManager if you a) haven't set a "From" email address where one is required, or b) you set a "From" email address in the past, but it's not valid for use.
If you see a message like this, not to worry - it's a quick fix! It is important to take care of right away, though, since this error means that it's likely some of your emails to patrons aren't sending as intended.
Read the warning message in PatronManager to see which "From" email needs fixing, and click the link below for instructions to fix it up!
Sell more memberships (and improve your tracking)
We've added a new field to help your staff talk about your membership program and levels, and improved automatic member badges to better denote all your former members.
Click the headers below to expand for more details!
You can now add information to the “Internal Description” field on a Membership, and that information will display to users in PatronManager Box Office. This is great for describing the different levels and associated perks, to help your staff members understand and upsell your membership program.
Add information on the membership here:
And you'll see it in the box office here:
Just click to view the full text:
Previously the "Lapsed Member" badge appeared as soon as the patron's membership expired, and only lasted for a year before disappearing. We heard from our clients (that's you!) that this wasn't ideal, so we made some changes based on your feedback.
We added a new "Recent Member" badge, and reworked the logic and color for the "Lapsed Member" badge. Built-in member badges now work like this:
- Current Member (green, membership expires more than 30 days in the future)
- Expiring Member (yellow, membership expires between today and 30 days from now)
- Recent Member (yellow, membership expired in the past 365 days)
- Lapsed Member (gray, membership expired more than 365 days ago)
Keep your data tidy with qualification improvements
We added an option to speed up the qualification process, to help you keep up with incoming Contact records.
We also reversed the default sort order so that the oldest records appear first in the list - that way the last record you qualify is the most recent, making it less likely that you'll accidentally retain outdated information.
You can now qualify records in a steady flow, rather than landing back on the list after each record you complete! This speeds up the process and helps you keep your data clean.
To get started, apply any desired filters and sorting, then click the "Start Qualifying" button:
When you complete each record, the next one in the list opens automatically, helping you move through the process more quickly.
If you need to skip a record and come back to it, no problem - just click the "Skip" button at the bottom of the page (1). And when you want to exit the process, just click the "Back to List" button (2).
By default, the list of To Be Qualified Contacts is now sorted with the oldest records first. If you qualify records in order, that means the one you qualify last will always have newer information than the version of that Contact you qualified before.
If you prefer to start qualifying with the newest records, you can click the column header to reverse the order.
You can also sort by other column headers if you'd like, for example to sort unqualified contacts by email address to make sure you qualify duplicates back to back.
You can now choose to keep an additional email address on file for a Contact when you're qualifying them as a merge to an existing record!
Just edit the record, copy the secondary email address, and add it to the "Other Email" field on the record you're keeping in the merge:
You can now see helpful information about the Donation record like the Fund, Donation Form, and more when you're qualifying a Contact that resulted from a Donation:
PatronManager Box Office updates
Box office improvements continue to help you sell more tickets, faster! In this release we adjusted the header to make more room to expand the mini cart to the top of the container, making it easier for you to view and interact with items in the cart.
We also added fields to the Fulfillment Landing Page for subscriptions, so you can see whether the subscriber requested a seating upgrade when you're, well, seating them. You can also now see any Internal Comments on the Ticket Order from that fulfillment page.
You can also now open the Contact record in a new tab if you attached an existing Contact to a Draft Order, making it easy to double-check additional information on their record without losing your place on the Ticket Order.
Training & certification resources in the Community
Want to learn all about the options available for you when it comes to PatronManager training and certification? Log into the Client Community and head to the new Training & Certification landing page!
Other improvements
You can now delete unused Discount Codes, clone Signup Forms, and more.
Oh, and we renamed the “Retail Quantity” field on Ticket Allocations to make it more clear; it represents the number of tickets that remain to sell, so it's now called "Remaining Quantity."
That's all for this release!
Do you have ideas for new PatronManager features or want to tell us about a part of the system where you'd like to see updates? 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!
