Discussions - Recent Threads

Upcoming deadlines for TLCC in Washington D.C.

Stephen Cunningham (he/him) — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 13:01:03 GMT

Hello Canadian Community,

A couple of deadlines are fast approaching for TLCC in Washington D.C. that I want to make sure you're all aware of.

The call for presenters closes on Wednesday, April 10. To learn more and/or submit your session proposals please click here.

The scholarship application period closes on Wednesday, April 17. Click here to learn more about scholarships and to apply.

Cheers,
Steve Cunningham
Co-Chair, Canada Tessitura Community

TLCC 2024 Scholarships

Stephen Cunningham (he/him) — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 15:09:46 GMT

Hello Canadian Community,

In case you missed the email earlier today, Tessitura is offering 10 scholarships for TLCC 2024 in Washington D.C. this summer. For more information, and/or to apply, hop on over here.

Note: I will be cross-posting this message in the Southern Ontario Community forum as well. Apologies for those who may receive it twice!

Cheers,
Steve Cunningham
Co-Chair, Canada Tessitura Community

TLCC Washington D.C. call for presenters

Stephen Cunningham (he/him) — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 15:45:16 GMT

Hello Canadian Community,

You might have seen this already in an email from Tessitura (or in my post a few minutes ago in the Southern Ontario Community), but in case you missed it, the call for presenters for TLCC in Washington D.C. this summer is now open.

It doesn't matter what your experience is with Tessitura. Anyone is welcome to submit presentation proposals. As an added bonus, anyone selected to be a presenter will receive a 25% discount on the conference registration fee, and support will be available to help you prepare your presentation! Session proposals are due by Wednesday, April 10. Learn more and submit your ideas.

If you're planning on attending TLCC this summer, please do give presenting some thought. I know there's a lot of you out there with some great ideas and amazing knowledge. 🙂

Best,
Steve
Co-Chair, Canada Tessitura Community

Follow up from our last meetup (HTML Templates presentation)

Stephen Cunningham (he/him) — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 19:51:10 GMT

Hello all,

For those of you attended our Community meetup this past Tuesday, with Ben Pfeifer's presentation on HTML templates, below is Ben's follow up on a couple of the questions that came up.

Gift certificates and Html Templates.
- We now have a recipe book entry for creating gift certificates using HTML Templates. Here in the documentation:
  https://docs.tessitura.com/Help_System/Tessitura.htm#Recipe%20Books/HTML%20Templates/Gift%20Certificate.htm
Can you pull pricing information on the HTML, specifically older prices to show a discount was applied?
- I would recommend looking at the REST API documentation, specifically the “Performance Prices” model.
How do you get to the REST API documentation?
- The generic one is found here:
  - V15: https://docs.tessitura.com/REST_v151/TessituraService/index.htm
  - V16: https://docs.tessitura.com/REST_v160/Tessitura/api.htm
- Your specific member organizations’ REST API is found:
  - In the T_DEFAULTS system table. It is the value in the “Rest_Service_URI” row.
Infomaker Invoice reports, can HTML templates be used?
- Currently, there is no plan to use the HTML Templates architecture for Invoice generation. That said, we encourage all member organizations to update any custom Infomaker invoices to SSRS invoices. And if you need help with that list, then Tessitura Consulting Services is an excellent fit.
Is the ability to use dynamic data in the subject lines on the roadmap?
- It is on our radar but not on the roadmap yet. However, there is an Idea on the Ideas board for it. I would encourage anyone that wants that functionality to upvote it:
  https://community.tessitura.com/ideas/i/ideas/ability-to-add-order-number-in-the-subject-line-of-a-confirmation-email

If any of you would like to view the recording of the presentation, you can find here, nationalballet.zoom.us/.../26Y_tPz94YQJ7PjowuU2IDNFRwY1eG4tleZfZ-BUi7vyLSfloIvRwP-LcK9bFtHA.mmWIusrMRlZxfeH_
Passcode: D*bV1Rdy

I hope everyone has great weekend!

Cheers,
Steve
Co-Chair, Canada Tessitura Community

Affinity Community Groups Open House

Nicki LeGrand — Thu, 08 Feb 2024 21:45:43 GMT

Hi all!

On Wednesday, February 21st at 11:30 am eastern there is going to be a virtual open house about the 5 Affinity Groups. If you're interested in learning more about the other affinity groups it would be a great opportunity! The groups are:

LGBTQIA+
Neurodiversity & Mental Wellness
People of Color
People with Disabilities
Women in Tech

During this virtual open house, you’ll hear from the Community Chairs of each group (including myself for the Women in Tech group!). We'll share more about their group’s mission, activities, and the inclusive space they foster. Come learn how you can connect with others from similar backgrounds, discover shared interests and find your community within the welcoming affinity groups.

We would love to see you there, and you can register using this link: Tessitura Affinity Groups virtual open house (tessituranetwork.com)

Thanks!!

Nicki

Tomorrow's Community Meetup

Stephen Cunningham (he/him) — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 15:55:52 GMT

Hello all,

For those of you attending our Community meetup tomorrow (Feb. 6 at 2pm eastern time), please note the Zoom meeting details below. Tessitura is making an update to the Network website tomorrow which could, momentarily, effect logins tomorrow morning. Although everything will non-doubt be up and running long before our meeting, to be on the safe side, you might want to make note of the Zoom details now.

As a reminder, Ben Pfeifer from Tessitura will be giving us a presentation on HTML Templates. It will be a very informative gathering.

Looking forward to seeing a lot of you tomorrow!

Best,
Steve Cunningham
Co-Chair, Canada Tessitura Community

Steve Cunningham (he/him) is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Canada Tessitura Community Meetup
Time: Feb 6, 2024 02:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
nationalballet.zoom.us/.../89987569504

Meeting ID: 899 8756 9504
Passcode: 288781

---

One tap mobile
+12042727920,,89987569504#,,,,*288781# Canada
+14388097799,,89987569504#,,,,*288781# Canada

---

Dial by your location
• +1 204 272 7920 Canada
• +1 438 809 7799 Canada
• +1 587 328 1099 Canada
• +1 647 374 4685 Canada
• +1 647 558 0588 Canada
• +1 778 907 2071 Canada
• +1 780 666 0144 Canada
• +1 564 217 2000 US
• +1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
• +1 646 931 3860 US
• +1 669 444 9171 US
• +1 689 278 1000 US
• +1 719 359 4580 US
• +1 720 707 2699 US (Denver)
• +1 253 205 0468 US
• +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
• +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
• +1 305 224 1968 US
• +1 309 205 3325 US
• +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
• +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
• +1 360 209 5623 US
• +1 386 347 5053 US
• +1 507 473 4847 US

Meeting ID: 899 8756 9504
Passcode: 288781

Find your local number: nationalballet.zoom.us/.../kAf6qs87k

Credit Card Chargebacks

Debbie Wallin — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 16:43:02 GMT

Hello All

We are experiencing a huge number of chargebacks for our Christmas show this last December through our Website.

I have never had over 40 chargebacks before, so I got them all together and noticed that all of the accounts that were created had US addresses and the email address in the account does not look like real email addresses.

We do have the CVV activated in the Payment Methods but I am hoping that if anyone has any suggestions to see if we can protect ourselves against this scammer, I would greatly appreciate. Also, does anyone use the "Require Postal Code" and have you had any issues with that. We don't have it currently enabled, if we did, what exactly is it asking for. Meaning, if I put in a US code or another country code, would it bounce the transaction.

We currently use Windcave and Evalon, so if that helps with any suggestions.

Thanks so very much,

Debbie Wallin, Accounting Manager

The Royal Winnipeg Ballet

Upcoming Community Meeting

Stephen Cunningham (he/him) — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 15:08:07 GMT

Hello Canadian Community,

Just a reminder that our next virtual meetup is just a couple of weeks away, on February 6! I'm excited to share that Ben Pfeifer, Technical Consultant on The Tessitura Technical Solutions team, will be giving us a presentation on the HTML templates functionality. HTML templates was a popular topic when we polled all of you back in December and Ben's presentation should be very informative. We will, of course, allow time for Q&A so Ben can answer your burning questions.

If you haven't registered yet, click here to hop on over to the event and register today! 🙂

I hope everyone has a great week ahead.

Cheers,
Steve
Co-Chair, Canada Tessitura Community

Professional development opportunity: Could you co-lead the Southern Ontario Tessitura Community?

Gill Tasker (she/her) — Fri, 19 Jan 2024 12:10:57 GMT

Are you looking to develop professionally and personally, and deepen your connection with Tessitura – the technology, the members, and the wider arts and culture industry?

We're seeking 1-2 members based in Southern Ontario to volunteer as Community Chairs and co-lead the Southern Ontario Tessitura Community in 2024 and beyond. You’ll be surprised by the impact you can have on people’s lives, careers, and institutions!

The Role

Tessitura members come to community groups to expand their networks, share their expertise, and connect with peers around common interests. Community Chairs volunteer their time to build and lead these groups, and host meetups that bring members together to share best practices and build relationships. You'll:

- develop and refine critical leadership skills
- build valuable new networks
- take back tangible ideas and learnings to your work
- access training and professional development opportunities
- be recognized for your contribution internally at Tessitura and in the wider community

… and more!

Each Community Group is led by 2-3 co-chairs - you'll join Steve Cunningham (National Ballet of Canada) and the wider planning team.

Previous experience in group management or facilitation is not required.

Tessitura provides initial onboarding, followed by on-going support and various resources. These include a dedicated Community Manager and invitations to events led by the community team, enabling you to connect with our other 140+ Community Chairs globally.

Pictured above: Community Chairs at TLCC Orlando

Learn More

Please visit our Get Involved page for more information about the Community Chair role. Have questions or want to learn more? Drop us an email at community@tessituranetwork.com.

Apply Here

Are you ready to co-chair the Southern Ontario Tessitura Community? Then please submit your interest. We review each interest form as they are received; a Community Manager will be in touch with you via email to set up the next steps.

Tessitura Merchant Services

Nicki LeGrand — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 17:29:11 GMT

Hi Everyone!

Happy holidays!

Wondering if there are any Canadian orgs who are live with Tessitura Merchant Services? We have some questions and would love to chat!

Thanks!

increases in web traffic

Shannon Urie — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 19:19:59 GMT

Hi all,

For the FY 22-23, we have seen a record level of website traffic, certainly more than in 21-22, but also quite a bit above pre-pandemic levels. Is anyone willing to share their annual web visitor number to benchmark?

What do you want to hear about?

Stephen Cunningham (he/him) — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 15:42:19 GMT

Hello all,

As mentioned by Jen in this post, https://community.tessituranetwork.com/local_tessitura_user_groups/canada-tessitura-user-group/f/discussions/34361/hello-canada, we're looking to hold our next Community get-together in January and, ideally, we'd like to have one or two people (Tess Staff or Community members) present on something that is of interest to all of you. Please do let us know what topics are burning the brightest for you.

Do you want to know want know about about v16?
Are analytics high on your priority list?
Want more info on the upcoming tax receipt functionality?
What about HTML templates?
Perhaps email marketing and marketing automations are high on your list?

No topic is too big or too small. We'd like to make this as meaningful to all of you as possible.

Wishing you all the best as we head through the busy fall and holiday seasons! 🙂

Cheers,
Steve
Co-Chair, Canada Tessitura Community

Hello Canada!

Jen Skelly — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 13:26:35 GMT

Hello all!

Just thought I would pop in with a quick hello to you all.

Steve and I recognize that a lot of us are heading in to really busy times of year and scheduling a virtual gathering around now is likely not the best idea.

So, look for something to be put in to the calendar in January. We'll be looking to you all soon regarding some meeting topics, a survey will be coming your way.

In the meantime, feel free to post if you have any burning questions, topics to discuss...or simply just to chat.

Looking forward to connecting soon.

Jen & Steve

Your Canada Co-Chairs

DEAI Advisory Committee Applications are Now Open!

Jen Skelly — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 15:13:13 GMT

Hi All!

Today, the application period for the Community DEAI Advisory Committee is open!

For 2024, Tessitura will seat 4 new members on the committee to join 4 current members (Chloe Burton, Clayton Dickson, Carlos García León, and Shenette Swan). They are seeking a broad range of representation and lived experiences, including a representative from Australia/New Zealand, to join in this work.

Commitment:

Committee members will serve a two-year term beginning in January 2024. Members are expected to:

Attend and contribute to six meetings held bi-monthly each year (length of meetings ranges from 90 minutes to two hours)
Respond to group emails and collaborate asynchronously in online forms and documents
Participate in DEAI content curation and/or creation meetings
Participate in Tessitura affinity groups as a co-chair of a group or active participant
Monitor the DEAI Forum and respond to forum posts
Agree to and follow our code of conduct for community leaders
Compensation for time and emotional labor will be US$500 per year, paid bi-annually. To learn more about the advisory committee’s aims and structure, please review our charter.

Eligibility

To be eligible for the advisory committee, members must:

Be an employee at a Tessitura member organization
Have participated in the Tessitura community for at least six months. This could involve contributing to forum discussions, attending community group events, and/or attending a Tessitura Learning & Community Conference
Have at least six months of experience at an organization live with Tessitura

Applications close on Thursday, November 9. Full details about the application and review process are available here.

Tax receipt volume question

Meaghan Metke — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 18:55:10 GMT

Hello everyone!

We're planning to do another round of internal performance testing with the charitable tax receipt feature before it is released for general use, and I could use your help. I spoken with some of you about tax receipt volume and generation frequency in the past, but I was hoping to gather some more details so that we can adjust our testing to better match what you all do in real life. I do understand that the way you generate tax receipts today may not be the way you generate them once charitable tax receipts is released, but please give me your best guesses.

How many tax receipts are generated in an "average" batch or run?
What is the largest number of tax receipts that you generate in a single batch or run (a rough estimate is fine)?
1. Do you anticipate this changing once charitable tax receipts is released? If so, how?
Are you breaking your batches/runs into separate chunks due to a technical limitation (for example, the server gets too slow or the emails backup and fail if you try to generate more than 4000 tax receipts at once)?
1. If so, how many receipts do you wish you could include in a single batch or run?

If there's any other information that you think would be helpful for me to know, please feel free to share that as well.

Thank you!

Meaghan

Soliciting Feedback Re: Self-Serve Charitable Tax Receipts in TNEW

Lucy Horns — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 14:26:06 GMT

Hello, it's nice to meet you all! I'm Lucy Horns, a new Product Analyst on the TNEW team and I'm working on the self-serve Charitable Tax Receipts feature. While the TNEW functionality is relatively straight-forward in scope, I'd love some feedback about your use cases and business needs.

The feature will be a separate page in the "My Account" area that will allow donors to view, download, and print their tax receipts. Receipts will be viewable as PDFs, and only those receipts you have generated will be available.

Please let me know if you have any feedback about the following specific questions:

Voided/non-current receipts: Are there situations where you would want a donor to be able to view/download/print any receipts that are not their most current, non-voided receipts?
Sorting: We are currently planning on separating receipts by tax year, and within a tax year sorting by receipt issue date. Is there a reason this would be difficult or non-ideal?

If you have any other thoughts or business needs for this page, please let me know!

Charitable Tax Receipt reporting questions

Meaghan Metke — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 20:51:05 GMT

Hello everyone!

It was great to see some of you last week at TLCC! For those of you who were not there in person, I presented an update on the progress of the Charitable Tax Receipt project. I'll work with Steve and Jen to find time to share that with all of you in a future regional meeting.

Now, let's get to the business at hand. We're testing a couple of the reports we have designed as part of the charitable tax receipt project, and stumbled across a question regarding dates. If you have time to respond, I'd love to hear from you on any or all of the following:

I have created a new report called Charitable Tax Receipt Audit (see my sample image below). This is a very straightforward report, intended for finance folks or auditors, that will generate a sequential list of tax receipts issued within a tax year or date range. One of the optional parameters is obviously a date range, but I'm struggling a bit with which date is the right one to target. To help you understand the options, let me provide a little context. When the tax receipt maintenance tool is used to generate a group of receipts, there are a few background jobs that handle the work of creating and delivering tax receipts
- One job writes all the tax receipt data records to the database
- Another job generates the tax receipt PDFs
- Another job creates the emails and queues them for delivery, or creates the print files, if the tax receipts are going to be printed
There are really two dates that seem like the most likely candidates to target in this report - the date the receipt records are written to the database, or the date the PDF files are created. Now, most of the time, these dates will be exactly the same, however, if you are kicking off a job late at night that includes thousands of receipts, or your backup starts in the middle of a job, or the Tessitura Processing Service (TPS) stops for any reason, then it is possible that the data records and the PDF files could have different creation dates. In other words, it is possible to write some or all of the data records, but not create PDF files until the next day. This should be an exception, not a rule, but if it does occur, I want to make sure that the data you're targeting with the report parameters, and what you see in the output of the report, makes as much sense as possible. So, remembering that this is an audit report that is going to finance folks or your auditors (there are other reports with more detail for non-auditor type folks) my questions are these:
- Should the report parameter evaluate the date a receipt record was written to the database or the date the PDF file was created?
- Which date should be displayed in the output, the date the receipt record was written to the database or the date the PDF file was created?

There is a second new report, called Charitable Tax Receipt Detail (see my sample image below). Think of this as the "all the things" report that should be viewed in Excel so you can sort and filter all the data to your heart's content. Much like the audit report, this report includes an optional data range parameter, so I have the same questions here that I do above:
- Should the report parameter evaluate the date a receipt record was written to the database or the date the PDF file was created?
- Which date should be displayed in the output, the date the receipt record was written to the database or the date the PDF file was created?
- Since this is the "all the things" report, should we have parameters for both dates and then output both as well?

Thank you so much for your input!

Meaghan

Virtual TLCC2023 Attendees

Jen Skelly — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 16:54:45 GMT

Greetings from Orlando all!

Conference has been great, and as expected the weather has been HOT!

I noticed a few of the group on the virtual attendee list. I was just checking in to see how it is all going for you? Would love to know how the experience is.

Jen

TLCC 2023

Jen Skelly — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 12:30:20 GMT

Hi All!

I will be at TLCC this year. Feel free to find me and say hello. I believe we have a regional gathering space at the opening reception, so I will definitely be there.

Hope to see some of you soon.

Jen

Recommendations on strategic consulting and/or market research services?

Shannon Urie — Thu, 11 May 2023 14:35:13 GMT

We are about to go to RFQ for some strategic consulting and/or market research services to better understand loyalty in the current context. I would like to point out the RFQ to a few companies, but many of the Arts Marketing consultancy orgs I know are American. Can anyone recommend any Canadian companies?

Has anyone got the NCOA utility to work for them in Canada?

Michele Keutsch — Tue, 18 Apr 2023 19:20:54 GMT

I've attempted a couple of times now to get the NCOA utility working, but am not having much luck. I'm 99.9% sure that I'm running it correctly, but if there's any Canadian org that has used it and had it work, I'd love to have a conversation!

Michele

TLCC Orlando Scholarships

Stephen Cunningham (he/him) — Mon, 17 Apr 2023 18:16:03 GMT

Hello fellow Canada Tessitura Community members,

In case any of you missed the Tessitura Network email earlier today, just a reminder that the deadline for TLCC Orlando Scholarship applications is this Friday, April 21. You can find more information on the scholarship opportunities here, https://www.tessituranetwork.com/community-and-events/tlcc/scholarships.

Cheers,
Steve
Co-Chair, Canada Tessitura Community

Last Call for TLCC Presentation Proposals

Jen Skelly — Mon, 10 Apr 2023 18:54:36 GMT

Hi Everyone.

It's last call for proposals for TLCC Presentation ideas. You have until Tuesday, April 11 at 11:59pm PDT.

cl.exct.net/

Applications for TLCC Scholarships now live

Jen Skelly — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 14:34:18 GMT

Hello all!

You may have gotten the email about the TLCC scholarships that are being offered this year, but I thought I would post the information here as well.

Scholarships to TLCC 2023 are being accepted until April 21, 2023. They are offering 10 scholarships to TLCC in Orlando, including seven Diversity Scholarships and three Emerging Leaders Scholarships.

Scholars will be awarded complimentary conference registration. This includes:

All sessions
All networking events
All scheduled conference meals and refreshment breaks
Access to conference materials and presentations

** Scholars will be responsible for their own travel expenses and lodging.

For more information and to apply, visit https://www.tessituranetwork.com/Community-and-Events/tlcc/Scholarships.

T2202A Tax Forms

Nicki LeGrand — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 14:18:32 GMT

Hi Folks,

A question from one Canadian to others.

Because we have a dance school and are considered an educational institution with the PD School, we issue T2202A tax forms to all Recreational Division students 16 years and older that take enough dance (12 hours a month) to qualify. We have a custom report built for us that pulls 40% of the tuition from one year and 60% from the next year (because the tax year spans fiscals), but then we have to go through the output with a fine toothcomb, line by line to make sure each student actually qualifies for both halves of the year and to double check where in the year they turned 16. It's a process and it's exhausting.

So, I'm wondering, those of you who come from organizations who also have schools, how do you handle issuing these forms? Do you have a custom output you'd be willing to share? Any tips and tricks? Is it outside of Tessitura and all in excel? (Please god, no....)

As well, is anyone using Tessitura to track and allocate scholarships or financial aid? For our Professional School, we are currently using a master excel list to track and allocate scholarships and then it gets entered into Tessitura. However, things change, and often payments are adjusted in Tessitura and not updated on the master list, so I'd love to just remove the master list from the equation and keep everything in Tessitura (the literal dream).

Looking forward to hearing back!

Nicki