Add Event
Click the "ADD EVENT" button to get started.
IMPORTANT TIP: Once you have created an event, you can click the + symbol next to it to make a copy, saving you time since most future events are identical (other than the date, of course).
In the “Event Edit” window you will see;
ACTIONS/REPORTS drop down; these are covered in the sections further down.
Event Name; This is visible to the donors and drivers, so the name is important. It should help clarify. "July 12th Pickup" or "Rotary's July 12th Food Pickup".
Event Type; Donor/Driver is the default. If you have turned on the Canvassing (Brown Bag) in your chapter profile, you will see it as an option.
Event Start Date and Time: Most events are on a weekend, and usually start around 9am. It is important that you allow at least 2 hours, if not 3 hours, because this time window is fed into the Route Optimization window. If you get back a "Donor was not included" you will need to expand this time or add more drivers.
Bag Dropoff Start; This is for the "Bag delivery" event, which usually happens one to three days before the event itself. Only use this is you are delivering bags to the drivers.
Event Contact; This is populated by entries in the PROFILE page's 4th tab. This is the Event Manager's name, email and phone for donors/drivers to contact.
Zones; these are the zones for the event. You create the Zones in your Chapter Profile. A zone is a collection of zip codes. A typical zone is a city or a part of a large city. All users in the zone will be part of this event.
Campaigns: An event can be comprised of users that register as part of a campaign. For example, people that are part of a Home Owners Association or large company that want to have their own private event. An event can just be zones, or it can just be tied to a campaign, or it can be both; zones AND a campaign.
Self Deliver Location; this should be the default if it was set up in the profile. You can choose any location in your LOCATIONS list that has "self deliver" as its type.
Bag Delivery Method; your default from the profile should already pick either Central or Delivery, but you can change it here if you wish. Central means all the drivers will pick up their bags at a central location (which you set up in LOCATIONS) and delivery means you are getting the bags to them.
Event Active; if an event is no longer valid, set it as inactive. Doing this will remove all data from this event from all history reports.
Event Locked; When the routes are run, this is set to True. Once set to true donors and drivers cannot change their status, they get an email saying "event is locked, contact Event Manager". You can set this to false (unlocking the event) if you wish. Just be careful, if routes have been run this can cause a lot of issues since donors will have changed their status. If a donor cannot donate and they tell you after the route has been run, you can manually set them to "no", and the driver will see that real-time on their route app.
Assume Confirmed Yes: This is set by default based on your chapter's profile, this means that when the notifications go out all donors are set to "Yes", unless they specifically say "no". If "Assume Yes" is true, you can still require specific users to provide a yes/no answer by going to Reports then "Donor History", and setting any user to "Require Yes".
Show Special Instructions: If you enter text here donors and drivers will see it when they come to the site page from their notification link. This section has full text editing features such as paragraph breaks, bold/italic, different fonts and sizes, etc. This can be very useful to give your donors and drivers more information about what your event is all about.
”Edit Event” form is explained, field by field, in the section above.
Event Screen Examples
The Events Screen accessed by clicking the Admin drop down displays all active Events, sorted by most recent. Click the pencil icon to edit an event. Click the + icon to create a copy of an event (a quick way to create a future event with the same info), and click “Add Event“ to create a new event.
The “Edit Event” form is covered field by field in the section above.
The Actions/Reports drop down provides other tools related to an event. Driver Selection sets up drivers. Bag Pick up handles bag delivery to drivers. Route Map provides the routing details. Route Update allows Admin to update route data for each driver. And Event History shows data related to drivers and donors.
Driver Selection
VIDEO LINK: Driver Selection Tool
This tool allows you to do a few important things;
- Estimate the # of drivers you’ll need for an event
- Select and confirm the drivers for the event
- For each confirmed driver, set their starting point
- For each confirmed driver, select their drop off point
SELECTING DRIVERS:
OPEN the Driver Selector Tool.
- Click Admin, then Events.
- In the Events screen select the event you are going to work on. Click the "Pencil" to open it in edit mode.
- In the "Edit Event" screen, click the green "Actions/Reports" drop down and select "Driver Selection".
- If unclear, watch the video (link at top) or browse photo gallery below
Step 1: Estimate how many drivers you will need.
First, determine how many stops you wish a single driver to make. This can range from 12 to 20 if your target is about 2 hours per driver. The more your stops are close together, go with 20. The more they are far apart, go with 12 or even 10.
Second, look at the data in the Donor section in the upper right of the Driver Selector Tool.
- Total Eligible; These are the total number of Users that qualify for that event (match to the zone and/or campaign code)
- Hard Yes: These are donors that have replied "YES" to an email or text notification
- Soft Yes: These are donors that are "Assumed Yes", and have not yet replied yes or no. They will be routed if they don't respond.
- Ttl Yes: This is the total of Hard and Soft Yes.
- Req Yes: These are donors that are marked "Required Yes" in the Donor History Report. I f they don't respond they will not be routed.
At the start of the week you can estimate that about 70% of "Soft Yes" will say yes. And about 25% of "Require Yes" will say yes. Add those to "Hard Yes" and divide by the "stops per driver" you wish to use (12 to 20). By the end of the week, just before the event, you should mainly plan for all Hard Yes and Soft Yes.
Step 2: Send Notifications and confirming drivers.
About 8 days before your event all drivers will be notified by the system. This means they will receive an email and text asking if they are able to driver for the specific event. They in turn will either reply "Yes" or "No" or not respond.
Keep an eye out for "yes" responses. We recommend to confirm them right away, this allows people to get things calendared and into their schedule. To confirm, click "Confirm" box and "Send Notifications". Yo u'll see their status change from Yes to Confirm.
Step 3: Not enough drivers.
If you're not getting enough "Yes" responses, consider notifying people again. There is a "Notify All" tool just above "Notify column", the bullhorn with an "All" next to it. Click that to put a check mark in each Notify selection box. Then click "Send Notifications".
If you don't have enough drivers on your list, you have three ways to proceed;
a. Write a message to all your donors, using the Communications tool. (See Communications in the user guide). Ask for donors to go into their profile and set their driving preference to yes. Or to simply respond to the email and let you know. You can then go in and update. their profile. (see Managing Profile under Admin.
b. Reduce the # of drivers you need. This can be done by selecting more donors from the Donor History Report and setting them to "Require Yes". This increases the likelihood that each donor will lhave a donatoin. One problem however is that this does not work once an event has sent out the 1st round of notifications. Once the 1st round is sent, if you change a donor to "Require Yes" it won't apply until your next event.
c. Call some of your better donors. Use the donor history report to see donors that usually donate. These are more likely to agree to drive. Sometimes they just need assurance of how to do it. There is a video on the "Driver User Guide" that explains show to drive. Give them access to that video to reduce their concerns.
Step 4. Too many drivers.
Once you have confirmed the drivers you need, you need to give the other drivers that have said Yes a notification that they are on standby. Click the "Backup" box next to their name, then "Send Notifications".
TIPS:
The #1 tip is for you to always have a backup driver ready to go. Ideally, it is you or whoever you rely on the most to organize drivers. The person passing out bags that morning to the drivers, for example. A driver is not going to show up, and the best solution is to just give that route to another driver. (See ROUTING" for mare information.
The #2 tip is to spread things around. You can see "Driver History" data to the right of the drivers names. Try to select new drivers, get more people involved. As your chapter grows you'll benefit from getting more people involved.
Override Status; You may override this sequential driver selector process by clicking "OVERRIDE STATUS", when you do this you can then click any status you wish, then "Set Status". This allows you to change any drivers status yourself. Often this happens if you have spoken to them.
Driver Selection Screen Examples
The fields in this Driver Selection form are described in the section above.
This image shows how the “Override Status” works. 1) click “Override Status”, 2) select the status you wish to force onto a driver, 3) click Set Status. This will result in that Status being assigned to that driver.
Driver Start Location Images
Note how each confirmed driver has a different starting point. These starting points are defined in the LOCATIONS tool under ADMIN.
Driver Drop Off Locations Images
Note how two drivers are dropping off at REFB Main, while the 3rd is dropping off at Olivers
Bag Pick Up Images
Route Map Images
Route Edit Images