RecChat: WebTrac Registration Events - 03/02/2023
Did you know that WebTrac Registration Events are simple to setup, easy to assign, and that they'll speed up your customers' access to your activities while at the same time reducing your server load?
Table of Contents
Episode Summary
Join host Zach Malloch, Implementation Consultant Dane Whitcomb, and Product Owner Dave Ball in a discussion about Registration Events, and how they apply to WebTrac and interact with your current Rules. Web Registration Events are a very easy way to improve the first few minutes of a high-volume online registration, and we all know the first few minutes are the busiest!
Recording
Transcript
Zach Malloch 0:41
And welcome to RecChat. We have a special edition today all about web registration events. And we have a couple of guests here that are going to help us as long as hopefully they're on the other side of the Screen. There they are coming online as we go. So we have Dane Whitcomb from implementation and Dave Ball from our product ownership side of the building, and well building we're all in different places now. But whatever we're here, special little trivia Dave, fall was one of five members of hack attunes responsible for water in the desert, DESERT the RecChat theme song. So thank you, Dave, ever in your debt. Just a couple little things to talk about before we get started here. The first is that if you use that little QA Button at the bottom, that's our preferred way of having you ask your questions so that we can keep track of which ones we have responded to which ones are still pending. And if you have any general comments, you can use the chat. Dane is going to be going through kind of the use case scenario for web registration events, how to set them up when they come into play. And I know there are going to be a lot of questions about some of the details, the nuance the specifics of how these work, when we should use them, when shouldn't use them, all that sort of stuff that will come we'll have time to get to that with the question and answer right afterwards. And Mr. Ball would be interested in potentially getting some ideas as to how you would think you might be using it, how you might want it to work better. And he'll be very curiously watching the questions in the chat for things like that. And if necessary, you can jump on it anytime he wants to. So with that being said, I will turn it over to Dane, how you doing today doing?
Dane Whitcomb 2:23
I'm doing good. How are you?
Zach Malloch 2:25
Not too bad. If you're ready, we can go ahead and share your Screen and get started demonstrating web registration events a very easy way to boost your WebTrac registration performance.
Dane Whitcomb 2:35
Yeah, let me know if you can see my Screen.
Zach Malloch 2:38
Good.
Dane Whitcomb 2:39
All right. So before I kind of get started on going over how to set these up, we just kind of first wanted to talk about, you know, when you would want to use these new registration events feature, and really how it'll help you. So the kind of the first question is when you'd want to use it. So anytime you have a, you know, a registration event coming up, you know, where you expect higher than normal traffic to your WebTrac page, you definitely want to set up this registration event, whether it's you know, upcoming summer camp, I know we're in the spring and summer registration, event periods, kind of we're in that timeframe now. So if you're preparing for a registration event for things like a summer registration, you definitely want to make sure you have these registration events set up for. And it really doesn't necessarily even need to be a seasonal registration, if you just think you have programs that are going to generate a lot more traffic to your WebTrac page, it doesn't hurt to set up the registration event and it's only going to help you out. And really the benefit of it is it's going to allow your registration events to start on time and just start out smooth right from the get go. You're not going to have to do any sort of rule checking when people you know, come to your WebTrac page minutes before the registration. So it's going to allow that, you know, if you have a registration event that's set to start right in the morning at 8am. It's going to allow your program to switch over to being available right at 8am, and people to enroll right from the get go.
Dane Whitcomb 4:16
There's not going to be any, you know, few minutes of downtime between where they're just kind of waiting to register, everything's going to kind of happen right away. So that's just kind of why you can use it. And at the same time, it's going to allow your customers a little more kind of user friendliness, where you're going to be able to create some kind of custom messages when the programs aren't available yet. So you know, custom text when the registration might start just to give them a little more information as well. So it's gonna help with the performance, but it's going to be a little more user friendly to during those registration events. So now we can kind of switch over to why I share my Screen out which is why we're setting things up and kind of how we're doing it. So These WebTrac registration events are going to be created right here in RecTrac. So in our menu, we can just search web event management. This is where we're actually going to Build out what we call the registration event. So in here, we need to start out by clicking Add, you might already have some records in there, but that's probably most likely for web events. So there's going to be a new event Type we're going to be using for the registration events. So that's going to be under this registration event. And the record code is just you know, an abbreviation usually of your description. In my example, here, I'm going to be talking about an upcoming summer registration. So we'll just use that as an example. So we'll give the code summer reg. And we can give a description of summer registration.
Dane Whitcomb 5:50
I don't really like the space and my record code there. So I'm going to take that out. And then again, I already switched my event Type to registration event, but you want to make sure you do that. The web events is maybe something you've set up in the past. But that's more for displaying one off events on your WebTrac event calendar, which is kind of a separate use than what we're doing here. So you do want to make sure your event Type has registration event. And then we get these next four fields of event date, begin Time and Date and End Time. So you can really think of these as your registration Window. So when your registration starts, it would be your event date. So once that first date that anybody can sign up. So you might have different dates for residents or non residents or member and non members. But this event date is really what's that first date where the first group could sign up. So in most cases, that's resident or maybe member, I'm just going to pick a date for my summer registration. A lot of my programs aren't until July and August. So I'll say registration starts June 1. And then again, the time is, is when you want them to be able to sign up.
Dane Whitcomb 7:07
So a lot of people will do like a morning at 8am. Or maybe they do you know 1159 At midnight Type of registration. So it's also important to set that begin time because that's that exact kind of minute where those programs will switch from being unavailable to being available and being able to enroll the end date, that's something you could just make sure that set out to the last kind of date you would anticipate or anticipate or even allow people to kind of enroll for. So just making sure that's at the end of your registration Window, not just you know, the first day or week we think the traffic is going to be, you know, increased for it's really the entire registration Window. So I'm just going to pick, you know, started a fall for me, would be further enough out far enough out where I don't think people are going to register past that. And again, I'll pick my same 8am as the end time. And the only other Field I really would want to make sure I fill in here is my registration unavailable comments. So this is what's kind of going to give you some custom text to show the patron on WebTrac When they hover over activity sections when they're not available. So this might display something like res resident registration begins on this date and non resident registration begins on this date. Just so when they they come to your activity search page, maybe a few minutes before the registration or even a few days before they'll know when it actually starts. So in my case, I can see resident starts on sixth one, obviously, because that's my first begin date of this registration Window. So I can Type in a custom comment in here.
Dane Whitcomb 8:54
Registration begins on sixth one for residents. And in my case, I've got some rules set up to say non residents don't start until six, five, so I can put that in there just so non residents are aware they start later.
Dane Whitcomb 9:16
And at that point, I've got my registration unavailable comment text in there, so I can save my web event. That's going to be in my data grid there. And really, the next step is linking it to my activity sections. So we know we're flagging certain activity sections as the registration event. Before I do that, I do want to show what the activity search page in WebTrac would look like before we have this registration event linked to it. So if I go into WebTrac here, and just go to an activity search, I only have my summer programs displaying on the web. So I know all these will eventually be a part of that registration event when I linked them I'm just looking at them before I get it linked in there to see what we show as unavailable as my status here. And when I hover, be see my. So this right here is my custom rule display actually set on the section, it's not pulling in. Let's see here,
Dane Whitcomb 10:24
residence being on six, one and non resonance beyond six, five. So I must already have my registration event linked. So let's go in and like those. Let's see if they're linked first. So again, I know all my summer. sections here
Dane Whitcomb 10:45
are part of my registration Window. So I'm kind of jumping ahead here, but it looks like my registration event was already linked. And I just, we kind of want to be clear to see what what it looks like before we get in there. So we can at least do it for one section. Remove the registration web event. So that was section two, let's just do it for section one also. So we can see both of those. And we'll go back into our activity search. And so when you don't have the custom rule display, it's just going to show your kind of our standardized rule messages. And depending on what your rules are like, if you have both a non resident and resident rules on there, they're not going to be very readable to a customer, you might kind of understand what they are based on when you because of you, because you set them up. Like coming in here as a patron, they can be a little confusing. So you can see, when we don't have the registration event to the link to the sections, we don't get that available custom message we just created. And linking it we will so it's right off the bat before the registration even starts just going to make it a lot easier for patrons to know when it actually does start for them if they're resident or non resident. So I just wanted to kind of point it out, point out what it looks like before you link that registration event. And so now the next step is, once you have it created is actually linking it. And as you can see, I had a few blank, but I do just kind of want to point out where the Field does exist, and then also how we can bulk change it.
Dane Whitcomb 12:32
So if we go into activity section Management and Click on one of the activity sections, that is a part of the registration event, you can see that there is this registration web and Field Under WebTrac Settings. And you can go in and manually link a registration web event into this Field for each individual section. And in my case, nine sections, it won't be too bad. But for many of you out there for your registrations, you might have or you probably will have many more sections than the nine. So you're going to definitely want to do it in a bulk change. And that's going to be available to do so we're going to go under the More Button down here and Click on Bulk Change. And in this data grid on the top, some of you have probably already done bulk changes in the past. So it'll be it'll be similar to what you've done probably just a different Field. So on the top, we get all the available sections, we could bulk change. So what you'd want to do here is just make sure you select any activity section that's considered a part of that registration event. So for me, I know it's all of my seasons of summer, so I broke it out, you know, I've got my summer season link there. And I know any activity section linked to summer is going to be a part of that registration web event. So if you do it by season, that's a pretty easy way to bulk select. I know some people do the abbreviation of the the first number of the activity code might be a season so if you're doing it that way, you can filter the activity code to select all or maybe you do certain just types or categories will be available to register for so as long as you're selecting all the records that are a part of that registration event here. You'll know you're bulk changing the right ones.
Dane Whitcomb 14:20
The next step is just figuring out which Field you want to bulk change so we were just taking a look at it we saw it was called the registration event Field so we can search for it in here. You can just search for registration and it'll be called the registration event. And then you can select it and then Click Add and now we're selecting which registration web event we want to link and we see we just have one in here and again, if you did have multiple one there if you you know got to a point where you had a winter one or a spring one and a summer one. Just want to be extra Careful, you're picking the one with the correct dates for the upcoming registration. And then at that point, we can see the bulk changes to complete is changing it to our summer registration. So we can process that. And it's saying nine records are going to be changed. So it's just kind of our final check. And then in a second, it'll actually process those. So we can see up in the upper right, that completed. And also just a nice way to make sure it did actually link them is we do have a column here in our data grid for registration web events. So you can just quickly without even going in to the each record, you can see that they're linked to the summer registration. So at this point, we've kind of got everything in RecTrac setup, the one thing you might want to do with with any registration, is just make sure your rules are kind of set up how you want them, if you haven't looked at them from the previous year, maybe just always a good idea to review certain dates on rules and things like that. But at this point, we can switch over to WebTrac. Now we've got our registration event link to all of our summer sections. So when I refresh WebTrac, we should see some changes. Second, might go back in here. Give it one more minute.
Zach Malloch 16:33
While we're waiting for this stain, I mean, this is actually kind of touching into why we are kind of using this is when you're doing the rule checking it's somebody might be doing this sort of search, like you mentioned, when people are kind of queuing up, they're getting ready for your eight o'clock registration. You know, it's just habit, customers are going to be hitting that search Button, wait for it, see the results coming up, hit the Search, again, every time they're hitting search, it's evaluating the rules and determining how it's going to display everything. And then at that eight o'clock minute, it's actually going through and it's re evaluating all the rules, because now the time should allow that registration, but it's doing it kind of one activity at a time it's doing it very quickly, one activity at a time. But if you have a ton of activities, it can still take a minute to I think we had somebody that took like 18 minutes at one point. So registration started at eight, but some of the classes didn't come online until 818 or so. So the registration event itself makes it so the system doesn't do any rule checking on any activity that has that registration event linked until that exact minute on that exact date that the registration event is says it is starting. So it saves all that processor space on your server until the exact moment that registration actually kicks in. And then it starts checking the rules. And there are actually a couple of questions that came in. I just wanted to to address real quickly. And Dave and Dane make sure you're keeping me honest with these responses. But Leslie is saying that she's understanding that we still have to use the rules for registration dates on the activity, even when using event management. There's kind of an asterix on that. So yes, for different registration dates, if everybody can start registering on the exact same date and time. So in Danes examples 618 AM, if everybody can start registering, there's no restrictions between resident or non resident or anything like that, you actually don't need any registration date rules for that. In other cases, you're most likely setting that registration event to be the first day of anybody being able to register. So residents in this example, we get to register first. As long as that event is saying you can't register until that date, you don't technically need the rule for the residents. But you would want to have the rule there for non residents to make them still wait the extra five to seven days however long it takes for their registrations to come online. So hopefully that helps with Leslie's question. As the
Dane Whitcomb 19:07
questions are no, I think
Zach Malloch 19:09
you could do a couple more if we need to
Dane Whitcomb 19:11
No I think I'm ready to if we've at anypoint. But I've got it figured out on my end here. They do still show unavailable but that's because if you remember when I set up my web event I didn't have my event dates not till six one So obviously we're in March now so we're still going to see them as an unavailable status but I can tell that registration event is being pulled in because it is displaying here. My custom message. So this is that registration begins on six one for residents and non residents begin on six five so that message right there is getting pulled in from my registration unavailable comments. So we can tell that that registration events linked and it's displaying that custom text now when it does become available, so in order to see that and Now, I really need to set my begin date to a day in the past. Obviously, when you guys are setting these up, you would never change your event date unless, unless you really are changing when it starts, you would never change it in the past. I'm just doing that. So I can see what it looks like now on the web as an example. So in a second, we'll give it another refresh, they'll switch to available. Base, those obviously, like Zack just mentioned, they'll switch to available, but we will still have to go through the rule check. If there is any rules on these that are prohibiting me from signing up, which there are, I can see that the current transaction date has to be honored after six 520 to 23. So even though we're within our registration web event, like Zack mentioned, these are my actual rules on the section now coming into play. So if I go into some of these sections
Dane Whitcomb 21:13
and I can see, so this is kind of what Zack was, was, I think was touching on where if you don't have any, if everybody can sign up at the same time, right? You don't need any rules, because your web event will dictate when everybody can start because that's when it becomes available. If you have a non resident versus a resident setup, you really could just get away with that non resident. And here's kind of an example. I've got a non resident rule here link to my like, to my season of summer, so it'll cover all of these. But it's saying my non residents can't sign up until six, five of 2023. Were on my web event, I had it start on before six one. So it's telling my my non residents, there's five extra days until they sign up. Here
Zach Malloch 22:07
I think it must be your account might be a non resident account, maybe
Dane Whitcomb 22:11
yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
Zach Malloch 22:21
While you're updating that, Jimmy had a quick question. So it was basically if the event management is helping with the wording, why would you not just use the custom rule text on the registration date rule and change it there. So Dane, if you'd like to grab that you can or I can address it looks like you're still working on that.
Dane Whitcomb 22:40
Yeah, I was just gonna say, well, when it's unavailable you, you'd want it to, or when your registration Window hasn't hit yet, it will be pulling in that custom text on the on the web event. So it's going to be pulling in here. And when it does become available, that's when you could still use your custom rule display. Because when it's available, it's no longer going to be showing this custom rule message in here, it's just going to be showing like your customer will display at that point. Or if you don't have a custom rule display, it's going to show that standardized text that might not be as user friendly. So you definitely would still want to use your customer will display because that's going to pull on when the events actually going.
Zach Malloch 23:25
I think there's also the whole idea of the event management is kind of a WebTrac wide way of saving server resources up until the exact moment that the registration starts. If you're just using the custom rule display, and not using the web event, you could still get a lot of rule checking happening on your server until that actually needs to happen. So sorry, I mean, I'm watching what Dan's doing and losing my train of thought here. I think, yeah, maybe just gonna blast that rule for the moment. So it's both of them will give you better performance, both of them will give you a better way to message to your customers. But the registration event is the bigger performance boost for covering multiple activities that would all start on basically the same day. Hopefully that makes sense. Hopefully, that was a intelligible response.
Zach Malloch 24:30
And then there's a follow up on that. You mentioned that the default registration message is unintelligible to the public. Is there any way we can edit it to make it easy to understand without using the registration unavailable comments box in a registration event? So at the same time, the registration where events we had with the previous question was referencing that Jimmy had asked, which was using custom descriptions on your rules, so that we're not just getting the generic RecTrac criteria descriptions, but you can actually Have any rule say whatever you want that rule to say. And to do that, it's just in your rule management, you go to edit any rule in the system, there is the custom rule description. So that is exactly how you can edit it to make it easy to understand without using the the registration event, if you didn't want to go that route. Or as dean said, you will have both situations coming into play registration events prevents rule checking before the exact date and time that you want it to start, which is that big performance improvement. But then once it starts, you are still having people that might not be able to register because they're not old enough. They're not residents are not non residents, or, you know, they're, they've got the wrong gender for a program, whatever the case is, in those situations, you can still customize those rules and give them a nicer message by using that custom rule display. So we definitely have that Heath. Very good question. And let's see you ready deign to keep going. I can have I have another couple of questions I can get to
Dane Whitcomb 26:03
Yeah, if you want to work through a couple more questions.
Zach Malloch 26:07
All right. So let's see. Christina, saying that we use the virtual waiting room for large registrations is it's going to impact the virtual waiting room at all, either now or later, if the event management log module helps to speed up the rule checking process to this assess, assist with the overall server load on the day of registration. So we're kind of splitting them up. Dave, I'm going to say that this could impact the virtual waiting room in the future. Because if we get performance enough that everything is just lickety split, then maybe we won't need the virtual waiting room at some point. he's nodding, I don't think he can see his Screen while he's not talking. But I got the nod. And that's a really, really good sign.
Dave Ball 26:51
Find the unmute Button. Yeah, that's, that's true.
Zach Malloch 26:54
Yeah. So nothing right now. But hopefully things this and things like it will continue to make WebTrac, that much more responsive and that much more performant. So we don't have to use the virtual waiting room. And then the second part of your question, if the Event Management module helps, or they will just say, the web event piece, helps speed up the rule checking processes, assists assist with the overall server load on the day of registration. And yes, that's kind of exactly why it exists there. It helps keep the server ready to go by reducing the load as people might be doing those searches over and over and over again, whereas they're waiting for registration to start. And then the exact moment the registration starts, it just flips the switch. Basically, in the background, if we're doing rule checks, there's actually a scheduled process, the the web availability update, or it's the search index builder, I can't remember which one specifically, they both do similar things, but it goes through. And we have almost like, imagine a bot going through the backside of RecTrac. And checking each activity, checking their rules, and determining at this minute runs every minute, this minute, should this be displayed? Or Should this not be displayed. And if it hits a minute, and then all of a sudden 4000 activities should be displayed. That's where it can take a little bit of time to do. Whereas if it's using the web registration event, it just automatically has all four, all 4000 of those go online at the same time. So yes, it does improve performance in that case. See, Leslie says that they only have one start date. So you can Yeah, you can get rid of those registration date rolls. That's pretty awesome.
Dave Ball 28:37
If I could on that one, I just want to point out that this currently doesn't apply RecTrac. So we have to be aware of that. There is a there is an issue in our backlog we're working on right now where we're going to be able to make this relevant. These reg event dates apply to RecTrac registrations as well. So
Zach Malloch 28:58
So yeah, very good Asterix there, Dave. So right now, if you got rid of all those rules, theoretically, somebody could come in to RecTrac talk to one of your staff. And if they don't know not to do the registration until a particular date and time they could potentially register them for that activity without any rules, stopping them. So that would be the case that you'd want to keep the resident and non resident rules potentially attached to the activity. But As Dave said, There's something being worked on right now that will make it work on both sides. So you could actually do that. But yeah, very good. Point. Sometimes I get into the mode of like, we're just talking about WebTrac That's the only thing that matters, period. And obviously that's not the case. You get Dan Dave Dane?
Dane Whitcomb 29:42
Yeah, it was got everything so we we've got a program showing available now because we're within our registration web event. The reason it was a little slow on my end, I hadn't saved my registration event. So silly mistake on my end when I had changed the three one I hadn't save the record. So now it's all saved in there. Our event date is now three, one. So yesterday, so our programs would, in theory now be available. So we're getting the available here. And, again, if you are breaking any of these rules, this is now where Zach just touched on where the customer will display would come into play. Because now we're no longer seeing the unavailable comments from our registration event because we're within our registration Window. And now any rules we break would would pull in the customer will display. So definitely a good idea to to link a custom rule display to have it be a little more readable for the patron. And really everyone viewing those. So that's just one what I kind of want to show that they're still going to look the same, you know, you're still going to be able to add things to the cart, same way. And this is one I think I might have a rule on.
Dane Whitcomb 30:57
I guess they don't just want to see if we could see a rule violation message. Might not be able to. Yeah, so here. So this is one I don't have a custom rule display on. So this is this is just showing what it would look like when you when you break the rule, this is still going to act the same way. Where if I did have a custom rule display, we'd be able to see a different text here, we you could put something like you know, they must have took rowing before. That's my prerequisite in this example. So this is the Screen where it would at that point pulling your customer will display.
Zach Malloch 31:41
Alright, I'm just going to interrupt you real briefly here, Dane, because we are at 230. So we understand if anybody has to drop off our data. And David, are you okay, sticking around for a couple more minutes answering a few more questions. Okay, so yes, we are recording this, it will be posted afterwards. So if you do need to leave, you can come back and just watch anything after 30 minutes. But we'll keep going for everybody else that can stick around. Dean, did you have more that you wanted to go through? Or do you want to get some more questions here.
Dane Whitcomb 32:11
The only one thing I was going to add on was you can create a deck direct splash link, or Button link right to a registration event, which is just another thing that might be good to do. So if I want to take a minute, Zack, I can just go over that real quick, or I really want you need a pass and your URL to bring it to that.
Zach Malloch 32:31
Yeah. And actually, we can see it right on the Screen on criteria you have registration event listed. Anything that anything at all, that's a search criteria that can put filters in, you can make a direct link to go to. And that's actually that's a pretty big performance benefit to have a prefilled search going in so that you're already narrowing it down. If somebody does a really wide search with a lot of things coming back, that is one of those things that can take the server more time to wow.
Dane Whitcomb 33:02
Yeah, just like you do with bringing a program to a specific Type, you know, it's Type equals maybe youth or Type equals adult, whatever it may be. This would be registration event equals, in my case, summer registration. So it it'd be putting in the code. So some of them are reg. Yep. And actually, I think I've got an example we'll see if it's pulling in incorrectly. But on my top banner Button here, summer registration, I can see on the bottom when I hover over, as it slides away, gonna say module equals AR and registration event equals summer, Reg. Tough with the slide, but when I Click on it, it should bring us right to that. Yep. And you can see it. Since I do have this filter showing it, it shows that it's checked off. And I know these are just my something
Zach Malloch 33:55
might be a little bit easier for people to see in your address bar right now. But at the back of it, that's where it says the module
Dane Whitcomb 34:01
right, right up here on the top.
Zach Malloch 34:03
It's gonna reg. So yeah, how do you that's how you can create a custom URL for that. And we definitely recommend custom URLs buttons that will get people right to what they're looking for. Once again, the less that comes back as the result of a search. So if the ideal would be a customer knows exactly what program they want, they do a search only that one thing comes up. That's the most minimal hit to your server in the most efficient way we can do it. But the more you can kind of group things together and and get the customer what they're looking for. with as few results coming back that aren't what they're looking for. It's really the ideal. So I definitely have some other questions I can bring up if we're ready for those.
Dane Whitcomb 34:46
Yep, yep.
Zach Malloch 34:48
All right. So Alison is asking if I'm opening summer camp on the same date as spring programs. Could I make a registration event for summer camps only? I asked because the end date for spring programs would differ from the end date when summer camps summer camps are much more popular than spring programs. Now, we kind of talked about this before we started the session. And the basic way to think about the registration events is everything that has the same beginning registration date can be a part of the same event. When you're wanting to stop registration at different dates, that's when you would potentially want to still use the rules that say, no registrations after this. And then you have those those different rules right now. Dave, I think you were mentioning the end date of the registration event isn't actually when it stops registrations from happening. But when it's when it stops considering those activities, part of that registration event is not right.
Dave Ball 35:42
The event itself, you see how it says registration event on the main Screen right now? Right there that is it will disappear there. That's the only thing the end date currently does.
Zach Malloch 35:54
So with the the end date on the events, with no rules in place that would stop registration would basically just let registration continue going.
Dave Ball 36:05
Yeah, unless that activity is not displayed on the web anymore. But this is also something that is being worked on right now, where that end date of the registration event will actually it will be an option to have it stop registration on that day.
Zach Malloch 36:22
So it works for both cases, though. Yeah. And the end? Yes. All right.
Dave Ball 36:27
And that is that's in current development right now. It's not out yet, but it's we're working on it.
Zach Malloch 36:33
This is nice to have somebody from the product side on the call, and tell us about all this cool stuff that's coming up. Let's see. John is saying if we if we still have to have rules for non res reg dates, and not allowing registrations after class starts is really helping a server efficiency. Second question is, is there a performance difference for allow versus disallow roles? And I think that, Dave, I'm definitely gonna ask you to verify this for me. But I think that what we're really talking about is the efficiency is coming like within that first 15 minutes of your registration, or even like three minutes of registration when everybody's waiting to start doing the registration. And then they're just all hitting the site at once. That there is a significant performance improvement during that period of time after that initial initial push, you're right, it doesn't really do all that much. But you know, of course, during that initial push the first one to five minutes of your mass registrations online is when you're having 1000s and 1000s of people hitting at the same time. And we're slow downs can really impact their their experience with your registration site.
Dave Ball 37:38
Yeah, that is true. Like, like, where the RecTrac was, was counting down. It'll start in five minutes.
Zach Malloch 37:45
Yeah, no,
Dave Ball 37:46
that's where the, the main performance gain certainly is. All the way up until it actually begins. We know we don't need to search those activities at all and look at their rules at all until it begins. So
Zach Malloch 38:03
Mary is asking, is there a way to have the registration date rules listed when a cover customer hovers over the unavailable rather than I'm interpreting rather than the Shopping Cart icon? I don't believe there is right now.
Dave Ball 38:19
To do what
Zach Malloch 38:20
to basically have the rule display show up when you hover over the it says unavailable, so you hover over unavailable, and then it says why it's unavailable. I think that's what they're asking about.
Dane Whitcomb 38:38
Yeah, it's not think we're talking about like, if this were to be unavailable, right, where my mouse is hovering over this as well. Right. is where we're at?
Dave Ball 38:51
Yeah, that's not that's not currently a thing.
Dane Whitcomb 38:54
Yeah.
Zach Malloch 38:54
Currently available. Sorry, Mary. Holly is asking. If we only have one registration date for all users access, we technically don't have to have the registration date rule set up. Once again, I'll put an asterix if you if you want to prevent it in RecTrac, you still do want to have those registration dates until the enhancement Dave was talking about comes out. But having the rule assigned to the season automatically adds the rule and programs are created. And with web event would we would still have to go back in after the programs created an AB the web event. Correct. So yes, you let me just get back to the part of this I want to answer. So yes, when you link a rule to the season, every activity that's linked to that season is going to be affected by that rule. Once again, just using the registration date, even if it's on top of any rules that you have will still give you that performance boosts during those first couple minutes of your big registration days. That being said, if you do want to switch just to using the registration event and not using the rule at the season, the benefit that you get from unlinking the role of the season is that you can have it applied to everything. But if you remove it from the season, then it removes it from everything else immediately also. So it's a pretty quick thing. If you do want to get away from doing that. Ethan is asking Dane, how are you getting the registration event option on the search side of the left side of the page?
Dane Whitcomb 40:22
Yeah, I can, I can go through that. That's the Screen design change. So that's going to be with an activity search Screen through Screen design. So I'll direct you there was that of some of these Tabs, so it's gonna be WebTrac, Screen management, or WebTrac Management Screen management. Right here.
Dane Whitcomb 40:46
And you might already have a an activity search in there, if you've done any sort of custom change to your Screen, most likely, it's going to be linked to your WebTrac Screen design. So if you don't, you'd be clicking Add and creating a new activity search Screen. But you're going to be going into that AR web search activity search Screen and expanding out our search criteria. And see where I put it near the top. So registration event, it might be either hidden, or it's in the available fields to add. So let's just say you don't even see it in here. It's not like it's hidden, it's just not showing up, search for it on the left side of your Screen. You can search for registration.
Zach Malloch 41:39
It might be to already have it in the center, Dane
Dane Whitcomb 41:43
flagged it off, but here it is. So I need to have my filter on contains there. So it's this one right here with the label of registration event. So just Click and drag it over. You can choose where you want it to display in kind of accordance with your filters that are already there. So if you want it near the top, you can put it right there. When it turns green. It means it's good to release. And you just want to double check to make sure the Field status is on updatable when it's not on a status like hidden because then it will not show. So as long as it's on updatable, and you can save your your changes and refresh and WebTrac it should change pretty quick to to start to display that filter there
Zach Malloch 42:28
rather than anything. Awesome. Thank you, Dane. Joyce is asking, Is this only for activity registrations? Or can it be used for other modules to right now it is just activities? So if there was a good use case you had, you could certainly let us know about that. And we could see about expanding it potentially. But right now it's really the activities that drive those massive online registrations are everybody's waiting at the exact same moment. So that's where we focused on. Alright, so Jimmy is asking, you mentioned only using a rule for non resident registration when using registration event when I tested with the same format, the residence, resident registration did not activate because there was no rule allowing them to register. Did I miss something in my setup? We'd have to look specifically at your setup, Jimmy, unfortunately, we can't do that right now. But we could certainly just have you given to a support call and they can double check it for you.
Dave Ball 43:25
Zach, step one idea on that. Real quick, if I've noticed, if you if your rule is set up, you know, to allow for non residents, you might want to just switch it to not resident. And that might just take care of it. If it's a disallow or allow for Yeah, just to switch it up. Yeah, so not for residents.
Zach Malloch 43:52
And that's a that's a really good point. So this, this gets a little bit into more internal rule logic. But when you say allow this Type of registration for this person, it kind of automatically assumes to not allow registration for anybody that's not included in that place. So if the only thing that you have says allow non resident registration, starting on this date, it won't allow anybody else to register because you're saying the only time you you're allowed to is if you're a non resident and you're after the state. If you switch it to disallow non residents from registering until a particular date. I think that's really the ideal because then it will look and it'll say specifically while you're a non resident, we're not going to allow this until that date. Maybe we'll need to have another rec chat to get a little bit more into the allow just allow talk a little bit about more advanced rule configurations and that fancy not mode that we have there. So that's actually a really good question Jimmy double check to see if your non-resident rule is an allow rule and see if you can just flip it on its head by switching it to disallow Christina is saying that if they have three different summer registration dates will make three different web events and attach non-resident rules and enrollment restrictions at the activity section level. That's exactly what we're saying, Christina, you've got it. Once again, there's still that Asterix until the next enhancement comes out, you probably still want to leave those resident registration dates if you want it to apply those rules in person. If your staff knows not to touch things until a particular time, it's less important. But this will only really affect WebTrac. So if you until that next enhancement comes out, Liz is asking, where can you find custom rule display? Dane, would you be able to show that off? And I'd like to point out that this, both of these features came out in 3.1 point 1001 Or sorry, 3.1 point 10 dot 14. So if you're not on a more recent version, we're on 3.1 point two and 18. What are you doing? So try to get up to that one, especially 3.1, what 10 point 15.02 had some pretty major other performance improvements to kind of back end sort of stuff. So it would definitely be worthwhile to get to a more recent version.
Dane Whitcomb 46:16
Yeah, so if you're on the one of the versions that Zack mentioned, that does have the customer will display out, you would go to where the rule is. So if I go to one of my sections, we're working with the, this is one of my summer sections. And we'll just see where my rules are linked, I think they're at the season level, but I'm just gonna double check. And actually I removed them, but we'll just add a rule. So we can see that where that Field is. So right here on the kind of what you call, like, it'd be the core Screen, you don't have to expand anything, it's right here, under custom rule display. So any text you enter here will take place of the standard default kind of rule violation message. So you would just Type that in and save that. And then that would be where it is.
Zach Malloch 47:07
And just a real quick thing for Liz, if you are on a more recent version, and you still can't see that it's possible, you might have a custom Screen, your quick rule your short rule Screen there. So it could be Screen designed just to turn that on if you still don't see it. Right. So Anita is basically asking, so we have the registration event option for searches, should we use that instead of seasons or categories? Or types? Or is it just another option kind of to go along with those if you if you wanted to?
Dane Whitcomb 47:40
I would I would think probably just another another option. You know, if you have your splash buttons already set up like to a Type. But that's still probably fine. As long as it's not bringing you to a Screen where maybe there's you know, hundreds of records. I think as Zack mentioned before, if you can bring find a way to bring it to maybe one page of results instead of several pages, I think that's going to help you whether it's bring you right to that registration event or to a specific Type, or season. I think the other
Zach Malloch 48:12
thing we can talk about with the links just real quick as you can you can combine things together. So you could have that registration event equals and they also have an Type equal. So if you needed to get closer together. I think the the key point of your question was that it's, it's for each season. And I think in general, most of the time the season will equate to the registration event, if all of your registration for that particular if you do a brochure, everything in the spring brochure all starts on the same day for registration, you're probably you're not really gaining anything by pointing them at the spring registration event versus the spring season. But if you had kind of a tiered start, so you had stuff that started the first week of spring, and then you had stuff that started more in the middle of spring, those could be two different registration dates that don't equate directly to your your seasons.
Dane Whitcomb 49:09
So here's kind of just an a real simplified example. But as you can see, I've got the registration event equals summer reg. And then I just added on Type equals bike. Only those these sections here had that Type on it. So it's just kind of one layer, kind of in addition to filter down by
Zach Malloch 49:29
absolute
Dane Whitcomb 49:30
Zack was talking about.
Zach Malloch 49:32
And then Leslie is asking, Does this affect the wishlist at all if customers use the filter options before the registration events open? And I'm not actually sure how this interacts with wish lists? No effects.
Dave Ball 49:47
It shouldn't have any effect. On the wish list. Yeah,
Zach Malloch 49:50
they're looking at their wish list. If the activity is still unavailable it will still say unavailable but it will do it with the the updated messaging and If it is available, they can get to it quickly from there. Let's see any it is just saying that they could potentially use this for facility reservations. So I'm guessing, right, and Anita, but I've certainly run into some customers that you can't make any registrations for 2023 until January 1 2023. And so maybe that could prompt some big dates, or big pushes at that point. Let's see, Liz is saying that she does notice it. So thank you, Dane for showing the custom rule display area. John, is John Meredith this thing that there was a bug with wishlist bypassing the start date if rules weren't in place, but it was fixed quickly. So maybe that's what we were talking about. Doesn't seem like it's too much of an issue right now. And that's basically it, we got through them. Nice job, everybody. One last thing, just real quick as we are heading out here, but I did want to point out while we're talking about WebTrac registration, I'm going to post this into chat. So everybody will see this link. We have updated our WebTrac 3.1, pre registration performance, wishlist or checklist. And it does include a portion down at the bottom about are you using web events, and all of that, as well as a couple other ideas about how to get better performance in WebTrac. So hopefully, that helps out. One very last response. So hope is at saying that she is new here. How often are the sessions and are always at this time, they are always at this time, they are on the first and third, and sometimes fifth Thursday of the month, if a Monday has five Thursday, or if a month's has five Thursdays. And they're all recorded. And they're all hosted on our support portal, which is very soon going to be replaced by our new help system, which is actually what I just gave you a link to there. So all previous rec chats will eventually be included in the same place where that link will be due to see, and Anita is saying asking if we can include the disallowed rule and not information for non residents when posting the information. I think that maybe that would be I mean, this, this recording will be included in its entirety. And we'll have a transcript for it. So you'll be able to find it. And you'll be able to run through it. And you'll be able to find the section where we discuss that. But I'm thinking that maybe it'd be a good idea to talk about some of those core configuration choices for rules and when they come into play and when they're useful when they're not as useful. So look for a future topic to discuss that. And I think that that is it for today's session. A nice, lengthy one for us today, going about 22 minutes afterwards. Thank you, Dave. And Dane, I'm not going to give you any more money for going over time. Unfortunately, we just don't have that in the RecTrac budget, but you have secured a spot and all of our hearts. So thank you for that. And unless either of you have any final statements, we'll go ahead and take it out.
Dane Whitcomb 53:13
That's it for me.
Zach Malloch 53:15
All right. Well, thank you all. great questions, great participation, and of course our panelists. Excellent job, Dane. Excellent job. Thank you for being here in the background. Dave. We'll see you next time. Bye, everybody.