Hello Fellow Tessitura Users,
We are getting ready to host our second gala since coming on board with Tessitura several years ago (we don't host galas regularly) and I am trying to come up with a solid way of tracking auction items/proceeds. I was not in charge of set up for the previous gala, and the tracking/reporting for the associated auction was seriously lacking; something that I would like to improve upon this time around.
I have search the forums here and have found a variety of solutions that different venues are using; such as using a solicitation for each item, using a premium for each item, etc. However, none of these really generates the reporting that we will most likely need to see (i.e. winning bidder, deductible amt, non-deductible amt, total paid, etc.); basically everything that is reported on with an elevated event.
So my question is this: has anyone out there in the Tess Universe ever set up a gala-related auction (or a stand-alone auction for that matter) as its own elevated event? For instance, we might have Gala 2018 elevated event as normal to track table purchases, etc., and then a separate elevated event called 'Gala 2018 Auction" - with each auction item as a level within that elevated event.
I have run this scenario briefly in Test (we are testing 14.1 at present, so this is a good time to try everything out), and it seems that all we would then need to do would be create a custom report that would allow us to report on multiple campaigns at the same time in order to run both the Gala and the Gala Auction campaigns in a single report (basically a modification of the Special Events Receipt Listing for multiple events would do).
Has anyone else done this? Did it work? Am I completely off-base in thinking that it might work?
Any feedback is greatly appreciated!
Thank you!
Mandy
Hi Mandy,
Through ref flag for me is that you'd have to create a lot of levels, most of which won't be reusable from year to year. I do recommend that you track auction purchases as a separate campaign, though, as those entries into your main gala campaign would activate ''attending' elevated events that will clutter your guest data. I would recommend booking the auction item info directly into the contribution you enter for the purchase; either in the contribution notes or use 3 custom fields if it's important enough, which it may be if your org does annual or more frequent auctions.
Best
Megan
Hi Megan,
Thank you for your response. I do plan to have the auction items within their own campaign. I will look into the custom fields.