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If you have not received a survey, please email Fiona at fbuttars@tso.ca and I can send one out to you or to anyone else in your organization.

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Here are the notes from the various discussion sessions held at the Oct 30th meeting. Thanks to the session moderators who compiled these notes!

SOTUG Meeting – October 30, 2014 Discussion Notes

 

Communications Management

Extractions:

-          Easier in V12.

-          Not centralized.

-          Exclusions by dept.

o   Logic/Best practices.

o   Shared document detailing weekly exclusions.

Wordfly	Mail2
Excellent reporting	Clear and easy
Direct sign up/interests	Not easy to build emails (uses dreamweaver then imports)
Strong link between wordly and TESS. Good stats.	Problem importing lists directly from TESS Re: word “Member”.
	New feature for storing lists
	Mail2 does tracking and transactions

 

Pre/Post-show triggered emails:

-          Pre-show emails – very complicated, needs more customization.

-          Post-show emails – can’t suppress non-attended.

o   Not too big of an issue yet.

CASL – Storing Info:

-          Custom Mail2 tab.

-          Interests tab.

Surveys – Mail 2 – Good tracking.

-          TNEW.

-          Mail2 – Event Surveys.

-          TNEW – Purchase Path – must agree to Terms and Conditions before check-out.

V12 – Using “Recipient” or “Initiator”.

-          Ticketing order – using Recipient becomes a problem for extractions.

 

Emilie – Tennis Canada

Adrienne – Stratford Festival

Fernando – National Ballet

Craig – Young Centre

Allan – COC

Wes – Roy Thompson Hall

Jenny – TSO

Karen – TSO

Kevin – TSO

Shannon – Roy Thompson Hall

Dynamic Pricing

Topics:

·         What is dynamic pricing?

·         Reporting web set-up

·         Up vs. down

·         Pricing events vs. rezoning/rescaling

·         Rezoning or pricing events or price layers

What Tennis Canada Does:

·         Dynamic pricing – can do in v11 and v12

·         Add an additional price map layer (starting at a set time)

·         Report using ticket sales by period

·         Toronto office adjusted manually using inventory counts

·         Montreal office used a custom procedure based on T_defaults to automate using capacity

Challenges

·         Automating timing for large numbers of events

·         All-in pricing – already multi-layered, so adding price maps is complex

·         Maintaining the base price? If you add to the price map it’s harder to report

·         Early-bird discounts?

·         Do you dynamically price the discounts (ie. 10%, 50% off?)

·         House shows vs. third-party presentations

 

Suggestions

·         Using RMA & Consulting to Help

·         Meet weekly and look at 2 weeks out; determine what needs adjusting

·         Box office statement report: doesn’t do granular sales by price type

o   Asks the forums for report like Performance Sales Analysis with layers

·         Build TSTATS report to look at availability by section

 

Timing

·         Manually look at inventory and adjust at determined capacities

·         Static increases at set points

·         Discount early vs. late? Training people to wait vs. capitalizing on early buyers

·         Segment so you don’t run into issues with people who paid more getting discount notices

Questions:

·         Do you get resistance from customers?

o   Messaging: Buy now! Tix will increase due to dynamic pricing

o   Toronto public is use to dynamic prices

·         Do you publish prices?

o   Yes

o   3 prices published – enabled by capacity. All are visible, just disabled until used

o   Always keep at least some at lowest price

o   Some users publish price range and always stay within the range for advertising

·         Rezoning

o   Put holds on sold seats then run reports on hold codes and fix cause the price won’t change on sold seats and if they’re returned they stay at old pricing.

·         Legal issues on changes?

o   Put “subject to change” on any document with pricing or zones

 

Tracking dietary restrictions (SKM)

Acknowledgements & tax deductions (SKM)

·         Many organizations process transactions for events as payment information is received, however tax receipts are not issued until after the event and costs are tallied to account for detectable amounts.

·         Some organization process transactions for events through 2 GLs

Activities vs. events (SKM)

·         To determine whether to set up an event as an activity or an elevated event – we often ask “will there be a transaction involved?” if yes – it is best practice to create an elevated event – if not , an activity is created and used. 

·         Why use an elevated event over an activity? Elevated events can track much more information and offer a wider variety of features (charitable receipts, guests, sponsorship, tickets, donations)

Auctions (SKM)

·         Process all auction purchases at the time of auction closing

·         Process some items at auction closing while tracking payment for all others and entering later

·         Process no items through Tessitura at time of auction closing, import purchases post event.

o   Tennis Canada tracks all auction purchases to constituent files and includes what they purchased, as well as follows up with buyers experience of item/package

Reporting on event success--- revenue, connections, and more (SKM)

·         Most organizations are tracking both invited attendees & their respective guests

Steps in processing a reservation when a split between the ticket amount and an initially unknown receipt amount is done (pls)

·         Collect payment information

·         Process payment

·         Edit tax deductible amount once final event expenses are calculated

·         Issue charitable receipts

Tracking expenses & net/gross income (SKM)

·         All organizations have been tracking revenue in Tessitura, however it seems very few are tracking expenses.

 

Managing guests of ticket purchasers, and making the decision to create new accounts (SKM)

·         Organizations felt it made most sense to create a new constituent once a monetary transaction needed to be made.

Split revenue (SKM)

·         All organizations seem to reconcile split revenues post events

N-scan access (SKM)

·         Organizations found this feature less valuable than other features as many of the guests attending elevated events are the VIPs – they do not want to be scanned – they feel they should be recognized in person – having a ticket or id to be scanned is almost considered “insulting”

Selling tickets online (SKM)

·         Blocks of tickets were held and as purchases were made – notes were made to constituent files – associating a person with tickets.

Raffles and lotteries (SKM)

·         Raffles & lotteries were all entered as lump sum entries in Tessitura as opposed to tracking sales to individuals in Tessitura.

 

PCI Compliance

 

Discussion Topics & Notes: 

 

The group consisted of sever organizations who had completed their PCI compliance process, and several organizations who had not.  This created a nice balance of questions and answers/advice.

 

-          Do you hire out? Yes.

o   QSA Consultant.  People who had completed the PCI compliance process all agrees that hiring a consultant will speed up the process and save money in the long-term.  The savings will be in drastically minimizing staff hours spent, in figuring out ways to qualify for a cheaper category under PCI, and in better mitigating the risk of being found liable at any point.

-          Passwords/Building Security.   Work stations with access to credit card data in a locked area.

-          Training Staff.  The general sense was that part of the PCI process is creating an organization-wide policy, which Tessitura users (and other) have to sign off on.

-          Payment Processing.

-          Internal Team (FIN/IT, TESS -> HR + Depts.). Most teams are lead by a combination of IT and Finance, with other departments brought in as needed.

-          Data Security in TESS?  Using Element helps, as you only need to secure Tessitura, and can forget about securing the credit card server too.  When tokenization is rolled out, it will be even simpler.  At this point, it is recommended to delete credit cards in Tessitura on a regular basis (for all but monthly donors, or a list of VIPs).  The risk is still there, but can be minimized, and it shows you've considered it and taken steps to control it.

-          Processing Procedures (For Staff).  Locked boxes for any hard copy info, and limited staff for transaction processing.  Also, block access outside of the network for processing workstations.

o   What do you keep/how long (in TESS)?  Ballet (Daily deletes credit card data).

-          ELEMENTS -> Hosts credit card data.

o   Orbital? – Another option.

-          Impact of extra security?

o   Internet – 2 networks.

-          Ongoing training.

o   Adding to new hire pkg.

-          Service providers must be compliant.

-          RAMP -> The concern is data in transition.

-          Look for annex reduced rates for donations.

 

Promo Codes

·         Email promo vs. source # tracking (wordfly)

·         Allocations

Donations

·         Round up donation (custom)

·         Add on donation (out of the box)

Cart- what’s in the cart

·         Suggested sell

·         Education, forms (aux. patch)

·         CSI in Contributions section for registration

 

·         CMS

·         Tessitura/TNEW as full site vs. www/TNEW

·         Opass/pulling content into TNEW?

·         Yale school of drama Lynch²