When managing individual events and parties, there are some steps, such as finalization, you have to perform during the course of its life. There are often many more things you may want to do or keep track of in relation to events. Using Notifications and Milestones, you can get reminders, track task completion, automate updates to the event contact, and set up for a smooth, consistent event process where nothing is left out.

Milestones

Event Milestones are steps team members need to take before and after an event. This includes things like collecting a deposit on a due date, sending party reminders, and sending thank you emails. You can use milestones to mark completed tasks in the Actions tab of the event.

Configure Default Milestones

Default milestones are milestones that are automatically added to any event in a given Event Type for tracking. These are configured in Event Type Maintenance.

1. Access Event Type Maintenance from Groups or Manager Console.
2. Select the Event Type to which you want to add milestones, or create a new Event Type.
3. If you are editing an existing event type, click Edit.
4. From the Milestones tab, click Add Milestone.
   
   
   
   
5. Enter a value into the Offset Days field.
   • This reflects when, in relationship to the day of the event, the milestone should be completed. Negative Offset Day values refer to the number of days before the event to complete it. Positive Offset Day values refer to the number of days after the event.
6. Select a Milestone Type.
   • There are 3 Milestone Types from which to choose, Deposit Due (Percent), Deposit Due (Amount), and General. Both deposit types refer to an amount of the deposit due at this time. General refers to any other type, such as making a follow-up call with the customer.
7. Enter a Description to indicate what action should take place.
8. If you selected a Deposit Due Milestone Type, enter a value into AdditionalData that reflects what percent or flat amount is due.
   
   
   
   
   
   
9. Click OK.

Configuring and Reviewing Individual Event Milestones

For each event you can view and track milestones, add new ones, or delete unnecessary ones. Customizing these for individual events is useful for scenarios where you might have to make a special food order for an event with attendees who have food allergies.

1. Open the event you want to view.
2. Open the Actions tab.
   
3. Click Milestones.
   
   • The Event Milestones window appears with the default milestones configured for the event type as described above. The value in the Date field (when the milestone is due) is calculated based on the date of this specific event and the Offset Days you set in Event Type Maintenance. You can manually change this by clicking into the field and selecting a new date. You can also make changes to any other milestone parameters, Delete them or click Add Milestone to add a new one. Milestones for an individual event are configured exactly like the default milestones other than their due date. Rather than using Offset Days, you select a specific date.

4. To mark a General Milestone as completed, click into the Completed field to reveal a pull-down calendar.
   

   • Deposit type milestones are automatically marked as completed when the money is collected, but General types must be manually marked as completed

5. Select the day this milestone was completed.

6. Mark any other completed milestones and make changes to any existing ones as necessary.

   Clicking Reset To Defaults removes any milestones not originally configured for the Event Type and also removes any changes you made to the default milestones. If you had marked a default milestone as completed, clicking this would reset this field.

7. When you are finished, click OK.

8. Return to the event any time you need to mark another milestone as completed.

View Outstanding Milestones

As a quick way to survey multiple events and make sure no milestones are overdue, you can generate a report with all outstanding event milestones.

1. From Groups, click Reports.

   You can also access this report from the Groups section of Manager Console Reports.

   

2. Scroll to Other Reports.
3. Double-click Outstanding Event Milestones.
4. Select which due date the milestone falls on or before from the Due On Or Before pull-down calendar.
5. Select any filters you want to apply.
   • Exclude Birthdays removes all events with a guest of honor from the report.
   • Exclude Groups removes all events without a guest of honor from the report.
   • Include Phone Numbers will display the contact's phone number and email address rather than only the email address.
     
     

6. Click OK to generate the report.
   
   

Notifications

Notifications are emails, and in some cases, text messages you can configure to be sent out at a time interval or based on other parameters. In relation to events, you can have confirmation and finalization emails sent to an event's contact, and send an Outstanding Event Milestones report on a regular basis. The below instructions assume you have set up Accounts and Distribution Lists to which the notifications will be sent. Learn more general information about Notifications here.

Video: Configuring Groups Related Notifications

Notification Events

Notification Events are separate from Groups Events and refer to the configuration of a Notification. Each Notification Event specifies when to send a notification, who to send it to, and what information to send. You can access Notification Events as described below.

1. From Manager Console, click Maintenance.
2. Double-click Notifications.
   
   
3. Double-click Events.
   
   
   
   • Notification Event Maintenance opens.
4. Click Add Event to create a new notification event.

Groups Event Updates

There are five automatic messages you can send to a Groups Event's contact. These help keep the event contact up to date on everything that happens with their event.� These can also be used to automatically send thank you emails, or messages before an event.

Event Confirmed, Event Finalized, and Event Reviewed Configuration

The Event Confirmed, Event Finalized, and Event Reviewed notification events send an automatic email to the contact when these actions have been performed for their Groups Event. All of these events are configured the same way and there is a Description of what they do next to each.

1. From Notification Event Maintenance, click Add Event.
2. Click Select next to the Event Confirmed, Event Finalized, or Event Reviewed notification event Type.
   
   
3. Give the Notification Event a Name.
4. Verify Enabled is selected if you want the notification to send.
5. To choose an email account to send the notification from that is different from the default, click Override Default Email Account.
6. If applicable, select an Email Account to use instead.
7. Open the Parameters tab.
   
   
   
   
8. Select an Email Template to send to the contact.
   
   
9. Configure which Groups Event Types and/or Customer Types to include in this Notification Event.

   • The Event Types and Cust Types parameters let you configure this notification to only occur when the selected items apply to the event.� For example, if you only wanted to send this notification for Silver Package event types reserved by a School or Organization, you would select Silver Package from Event Types, and School, and Organization from Cust Types. Keep in mind, you can have multiple instances of each Notification Event, so you can customize what Email Template to send to a variety of event and/or customer types individually.

     Make sure there are no overlaps in the Parameters for multiple instances of each of these Notification Event types unless you want to send multiple emails to the contacts of some Groups Events.

10. To include a copy of the contact's reservation with the notification, verify Include Reservation is selected.
11. When you are finished configuring the Notification Event, click OK.
    • If this Notification Event is Enabled it will apply to the configured Group Events right away.

Event Start Relative and Event Unconfirmed Configuration

The Event Start Relative and Event Unconfirmed notification events let you configure a notification to be sent at a certain number of days before or after a Groups Event. In the case of Event Unconfirmed, this will only send if the Groups Event has not been confirmed at the time the notification was set to send. Both of these Notification Events are configured the same way and there is a Description of what they do next to each.

1. From Notification Event Maintenance, click Add Event.
2. Click Select next to the Event Start Relative, or Event Unconfirmed notification event Type.
   
   
   
   
3. Give the Notification Event a Name, such as "Thank You Email."
4. Verify Enabled is selected if you want the notification to send.
5. To choose an email account to send the notification from that is different from the default, click Override Default Email Account.
6. If applicable, select an Email Account to use instead.
7. Open the Parameters tab.
   
   
   
   
8. Select an Email Template to send to the contact.
9. Enter the Offset Days.
   • This refers to the amount of days before or after the Groups Event, to send this notification. A positive value indicates days after the event, while a negative one indicates days before. For example, if you wanted to send the event contact a reminder one day before their Groups Event is scheduled, you would enter -1 here.
10. Configure which Groups Event Types and/or Customer Types to include in this Notification Event.

    • The Event Types and Cust Types parameters let you configure this notification to only occur when the selected items apply to the event.� For example, if you only wanted to send this notification for Silver Package event types reserved by a School or Organization, you would select Silver Package from Event Types, and School, and Organization from Cust Types. Keep in mind, you can have multiple instances of each Notification Event, so you can customize what Email Template to send to a variety of event and/or customer types individually.

      Make sure there are no overlaps in the Parameters for multiple instances of each of these Notification Event types unless you want to send multiple emails to the contacts of some Groups Events.

11. To include a copy of the contact's reservation with the notification, verify Include Reservation is selected.
12. When you are finished configuring the Notification Event, click OK.
    • If this Notification Event is Enabled it will apply to the configured Group Events right away.

Milestone Reminder

You can configure an Outstanding Event Milestones report to be sent out to various contacts on a regular basis to ensure none are missed.

1. From Notification Event Maintenance, click Add Event.
2. Click Select next to the Report notification Type.
   
   
3. Give the Notification Event a Name, such as "Milestone To-do."
4. Verify Enabled is selected if you want the notification to send.
5. To choose an email account to send the notification from that is different from the default, click Override Default Email Account.
6. If applicable, select an Email Account to use instead.

7. If necessary, and the rest of the notification parameters have been defined, click Send Test Message to verify your email account is set up properly.

   You can only send a test message after you have configured all the required parameters for the notification.

   
   
   
   
   

8. Open the Distribution tab.
9. Click Add Distribution List.
10. Select whether the Distribution recipient is an Employee, a full Distribution List, or an individual Account.
11. Select which Employee, Distribution List, or Account you want to add to the Distribution recipient list from the Target pull-down list.
    
    
12. Click OK.
13. Add as many Distribution recipients as necessary.
    • If employees are among the recipients, you can select Only Send To Clocked In Employees if you want to exclude any clocked out employees at the time of the notification from receiving it.
14. Open the Schedule tab.
15. Select a Schedule Type, which indicates how often this notification will send.
16. Configure the following parameters depending on which Schedule Type you choose.
    • Daily: When this is selected, you can�Select Days of the Week you want the notification to send. If Monday and Tuesday were selected, the notification would send out on every Monday and Tuesday. The Time of Day field, lets you enter what time you want the notification to send each day.
    • Weekly and Biweekly: The Select Day of Week field lets you specify a day of the week every week or every two weeks respectively to send this notification. Time of Day lets you enter the time you want the notification to be sent every time it goes out.
    • Monthly: The Day Of Month field lets you enter what day of each month you want this notification sent (If you select a day of the month that is larger than the number of days in some months, the report will send on the last day of those months). Time of Day lets you enter the time you want the notification to be sent every time it goes out.
    • Every X Hours and Every X Minutes: When this is selected, you can�Select Days of the Week you want the notification to send. There are some days of the week you don't need frequent notifications, deselect those days here. Enter a Start Time, which is when notifications begin sending for the day, and an End Time, which is when notifications stop sending for the day. Repeat Every lets you enter the number of hours or minutes to re-send the report. For example, if you wanted to see outstanding milestones every 3 hours, you would enter 3.
      
      
      
      
17. Open the Parameters Tab.
18. Select the Outstanding Event Milestones report from the Select Report field.
19. Click Parameters....
    • The options here vary by which report you select.
      
      
20. Select Relative To Notification Date from the Due On Or Before field to have the due dates for the milestones update depending on what day the notification is sent. You will likely want to select this to keep your reports up to date.
21. Enter a number in the field that appears when you select Relative To Notification Date.

    • This determines the number of days before or after the notification date the Due On Or Before value will be configured for each time the notification sends. If you want to know what milestones will be outstanding for a date in the future, enter a positive value indicating how man days relative to the notification date you want to view.� Enter a negative value to view milestones that were outstanding on or before a date in the past.(If Relative To Notification Date is not selected, you will only be able to pick one specific day on or before the milestone was due and it won't automatically adjust.)
      
      
      
      

22. Select any filters you want to apply.
    • Exclude Birthdays removes all events with a guest of honor from the report.
    • Exclude Groups removes all events without a guest of honor from the report.
    • Include Phone Numbers will display the contact's phone number and email address rather than only the email address.
23. Click OK, or go back to the General tab and send a Test Message.