Class Registration

Class style events are the same as the other event types in NeatClubs with the following exceptions:

Classes need to be associated with a season or session since the same class often occurs multiple times per year in different seasons.

Classes will often have multiple streams that recur on a weekly frequency. For this reason, configuring the dates and times for classes is a little more complex.

Classes will often have more complex fee structures there the fee will cover a particular number of classes. (for example, $300.00 for 12 weekly sessions). Clubs may need to accommodate late class registrations or adjust fees depending on whether classes need to be cancelled due to holidays.

Factors such as enrollment age often matter for classes as well since students may be divided based on age, experience or ability so that students of similar capability are grouped together.

Creating a new Class style event

To create a new event, you can either select “Create and Event” from the “Calendar & Events” menu or you can click on the “Create a New On-line Event” while viewing the event listing as shown below.

When you create a new event of any type, the database will be updated with a new empty event. The system now expects you to provide additional information about the event as shown below. Note that we are going to call our class “Gord’s Test Tumbling Class”. We make sure that the system knows we are describing a “Class” by selection the class event type as shown below.

Once we click “Save Changes”, the event will have been saved to the database. Next we should go through each of the event properties and configure them appropriately for our new class. We configure the event properties by updating each of the Event Properties as shown below starting with the Event Description Text.

12.4.1        Editing an existing Class Definition

If the class already exists and we simply want to modify it, we can search for the class in the event listing. To make it easier to locate classes there is a search facility that appears on top of the list of events. Note that there may be many screens of events if there are a large number of events. Entering the year and selecting the session name for the class from the pull-down makes it easier to locate classes. (sessions are defined under “System Setup” / “Categories & Definitions” / “Session Names & Dates“)

Once we locate the class we want to edit, we select the edit icon ( ) corresponding to the event that we want to edit. Note that the system assigns a unique ID to each event (or class in this case) and for events that are of type event_class (the internal NeatClubs name for the class event type) the session and year appears in brackets beside the class name. This helps differentiate classes from season to season and year to year which will have the same name,

12.4.2        Providing descriptive text for the Class

Once you have created a new class event definition or selected the existing class definition that you would like to edit, you can create some descriptive text that will describe the class. The same on-line editor is used to create other web content is used to provide descriptions of on-line events.

On the bottom of this same screen you will also be asked to answer other questions about how the event is presented as well.

The setup options associated with the event description are explained below:

Skip this Description: Normally a registration screen will involve the event description being displayed and the web-site visitor will then need to click a “Continue” button to proceed to subsequent steps. By setting this value to “Yes”, the display of this initial screen will be suppressed and users will go immediately to the next step in the registration process which depending on the event type is either filling in a form or creating a member profile or logging in.

Show this as a Featured Event: If this option is set to “Yes”, and if featured events are enabled on the web-site, this event will show up on the side panel as one of the Featured Events

Provide a short Event Synopsis: This is a short synopsis of the event that will appear in summary views of events. If you do not enter an event synopsis the event name will be used in its place.

Provide an optional custom mailer header (not yet implemented): This will substitute the normal site out-going mail graphic associated outgoing HTML mail with the graphic that you provide. The graphic provided must exist in the Photo Library already as system defined type “Email Header Graphic”.

Show description text and registration form together (not yet implemented): When supported this option will change the user experience so that the event description will appear on the same screen as the next step in the registration process to save an addition “click” on the part of the web-site visitor.

12.4.3        Describing the class timeslots and recurrence patterns

Because most facilities will typically run multiple classes on a weekly basis, NeatClubs allows you to express up to 30 different classes per week.

For Class style events, the options described below need to be specific.

Season or Session: Select the Season or Session name that this class is a part of. NeatClubs considers the fall registration for a particular programs as a discrete event from the winter registration for the same program. This means that for clubs operating four seasons, the parameters associated with each event can be different. (you may need to provide instructions on the event registration that are season specific – i.e. bring sunscreen and a hat in the summer as an example for programs that may be conducted outdoors.

Program Year: This value will default to the current year. This value is essential since it will distinguish the “Fall 2008 session” from the “Fall 2009 session” as multiple years of registration information are collected.

Include text from a document for the lower part of the program description: Program Descriptions in NeatClubs are generated automatically based on the event description and the class schedules entered below. When these program descriptions are presented, NeatClubs allows a standard document from the document library to be appended to each program description. This is a useful way to provide information about things like club policies or terms and conditions that apply to all programs without the need to specifically include that text in the description of every program.

Name of document for the lower part of the program description: This is only relevant of the previous value is set to yes. This value indicates that document that contains the text to appear on all program descriptions below the actual class schedules.

Age Group for display in Program Schedule: If present, the age group will appear on the system generated program schedules. An example is provided below where the age information is automatically inserted into the class schedules. Of this value is left blank, age information will not appear.

Order of Appearance in the Program Schedule: In the views of the program schedule where all programs are shown, this numerical ranking allows clubs to adjust the order in which the program descriptions will appear.

The next section of the Event Date(s) & Time(s), Deadlines and Schedules settings allows the various class times to be specified. The Class time settings are shown below:

Click on the calendar icon to specify the start date for this class. (Don’t worry about the end date – NeatClubs will figure this out for you as we’ll see shortly)

You can give your class a descriptive name under “Stream Name” (for example, “Tuesday I” or “Thursday IV”. Remember that these are all class times associated with the same program offering however)

You should specify the starting and ending times for the class. If you are entering multiple streams, the “auto-calculate end time” feature is very handy since it will determine the end time for you.

The Max column allows you to indicate the maximum number of students that you can accommodate per class or timeslot. If left blank this will be treated as unlimited.

Exclude dates are important for handling holidays. If for example your class would normally occur on Christmas day but your facility was closed, you could enter Christmas day as an exclude date. (12/25/2007) – Exclude dates are always entered in the format mm/dd/yyyy. If there are multiple exclude dates, separate exclude dates with a colon. For example if classes were cancelled on both December 18th and December 25th this would be expressed as “12/18/2007:12/25/2007”.

Notes for this stream. These are hints that would appear to viewers seeking addition information about this class. For example, “No Classes December 18th or December 25th due to our facility being closed”.

The scissor icon ( ) provides a convenient way to clear a row. If the start date and stream name are left blank, the class represented by that row will simply be ignored. If for example you cancel a class you can just blank out a time-slot to prevent the timeslot from showing up on facility schedules.

The paste from clipboard icon ( ) reduces the data entry effort by copying the previous row into the current row.

In the Website Setup & Preferences under the System Setup menu you can configure in the calendar setup whether the class events appear in your calendar. If they are configured to appear in your calendar you can control how the time is displayed using the “Time display format in Calendar” settings. You can also control the background color for this class as it will appear in session calendar views as well as your regular calendar. Text can also be associated with the class so that when a web-site visitor runs their mouse over the calendar entry they will see the text entered above (“Calendar Event” in the example provided)

Recurrence patterns for the class style events are explained below:

Handle as Discrete Events: For classes, this value should be set to “No” normally. This option will allow each of the weekly sessions in this example to be treated as a discrete registration event. This is useful for registration types such as birthday parties where the registration events from week to week are all assume to be distinct and unrelated event though there is a regular schedule of birthday party room availability.

The screen shot above shows how recurrence patterns are specific. In this example each class associated with each stream will run weekly for 8 weeks. The system will automatically determine that the days of week impacted by the exclude dates should be removed from the tally and skipped.

Deadlines may optionally be configured for these types of registrations as well. If a deadline is set, the system will not offer registrations after the date specified. If someone attempts to register after the deadline the system will display whatever text message is entered in the editor field below.

Please note that for classes, many organizations will want to allow late registrations with pro-rated fees. (this is different than a deadline!) – If you wish to allow late registration, please ensure that there is no deadline configured. The Registration Related Options section below explains how to configure for late registrations.

After you have made changes to the form above please ensure that you click the “Save & Return” button.

12.4.4        Configuring Class Registration Related options

In this section we’ll look at how to configure registration related preferences for your recurring class. Start by selected “Registration Related Details” from the Event Properties section of the event definition that you wish to change.

The preferences governing registration behavior are explained individually  below. You can also place your mouse over the question mark that appears beside each option on the form below to on-line help.

Visible to public?: This preference governs whether this activity will be visible to people not logged in to your website. For most applications this should be set to “Yes”.

Force all respondents into a Member Category: Under “System Setup” / “Categories & Definitions” we had the opportunity to setup system-wide Member categories. This provides a logical way of grouping our membership database. Class registrations will often result in new entries in the member database (if the visitor to your site has never registered for a program before). You should normally set this value to “Yes” to force registrations into a particular group.

Group to place registrants into: This field is only relevant if the previous field is set to “Yes”. select a pre-defined group that all new member database registrations for this class will be associated with. As the administrator you can always change these in future if need be. (“Recreational” as an example if the program type is recreational would be a good choice)

Force the creation of a Membership Record: For classes, this value should be set to “No”. The purpose of this option is to provide a quick way to generate a membership record for sites that want to use a fast / lightweight registration model that does not involve in individual actually creating a profile on the web-site. Since Newsletters depend on people having a membership record creating simple forms and forcing the creation of a membership record allows these registration records to appear in the database so they we can use the Newsletters feature to stay in touch with them in future.

Allow members to be accepted into the database automatically: For classes, this function needs to be set to “Yes”. NeatClubs / NeatWorx allow different security related behaviors as shown in the System Setup below. Most organizations will configure the value “System wide Approved Default” to be equal to “No” as per the example below. This means that by default when someone requests a new account to login to the web-site the administrator of the site must manually approve of the request.

Obviously this would be very inconvenient for parents registration their children for a class, so setting the event level preference to allow members into the database automatically over-rides the system level setting and allows the registration to occur without explicit pre-approval from the site administrator.

Users must create a new account on registration: This should almost always be set to “No”. If this value is set to “Yes”, the option to allow a repeat visitor to login during registration is suppressed.

Will respondents have visibility to other respondents: If this value is set to “Yes”, individuals who register for this program will have visibility to the names of others who have registered for the same class, but only after they have registered.

E-Mail to send registration notifications to: If you provide an e-mail address here, every time a new registration occurs and e-mail will automatically be sent to the e-mail address provided. The default e-mail address will be the e-mail address that you provided in the system setup when you entered an e-mail for your organization. You may want to assign notifications to different individuals or even multiple individuals. (for example, an e-mail address called “coaches@myclub.com” could easily be created that will resulted in registration notifications being sent to multiple individuals.

Maximum number of registrants: The Maximum number of registrants places an upper limit on the number of people that can respond to an event. For classes, maximum class sizes are enforced at the individual class (or “stream”) level, so it is recommended that this value to left at “0”. Zero means no artificial limit is placed on the number of registrations for the class.

Locked to avoid registrations: Often you will want to setup an event early so that it will appear in your schedule but not accept on-line registrations. If this is value is set to “Yes” on-line registration will be locked. When registration is locked the class description and times will be available however when a visitor clicks on the web-site they will not be permitted to register on-line. They will see information about how to contact the club instead.

Send a document from the library with registration confirmations: If this value is set to “Yes” the text included in a referenced document will be sent along with outbound confirmation e-mails from your site. The text in the document will also be presented to the user following a successful event registration. This feature allows you to send details about the program that an individual has just registered for.

Name of document to send: This value is only meaningful if the above value is set to “Yes”. This is the name of the document containing text to be incorporated into registration confirmations.

Late Registration Weeks: This is the maximum number of weeks late for which registrations will be received after the start of a class. This value is valid only for class events.

12.4.5        Configuring On-line Payment for classes

On-line payment is not required to register for a class, however in most cases organizations will want to collect a fee on-line at the time of registration. The fields below are used in describing how on-line payment should be handled for this event.

Is there a cost or payment?

Cost known?

Amount

Currency

Allow user to over-ride the price

Optional descriptive text