One of the big tasks ahead in the Next Generation project is redefining all the ways in which a constituent relates to other constituents. Today we call this Associations and we know that it doesn’t begin to cover all the bases. So just as we have in the past, we need you to help us out with your thoughts on any or all of the following questions:
1. What are the ways that constituents relate to one another, particularly ways that aren't so easy to track in Tessitura today? 2. What are some scenarios that describe ways that your business needs to communicate with different segments of related constituents? (A simple example: “Sometimes I need to send a mailing out with only one piece per household. But if I’m doing the same promotion in an email I need to send it to all the members of the household.”)3. One of the things we struggled with in designing Tessitura the first time was the whole name1/name2 construct. Is there a reason to treat spousal relationships differently than any other type of family/household relationship? 4. What other questions need to be asked about this topic?
I have a question regarding ticketing functionality and relationships/associations.
Does this scenario currently exist in Tessitura or am I just having a spurt of wishful thinking?
Ms. Smith and her longtime friend Ms. Jones have been subscribers for forever, before Tessitura was born. They ALWAYS sit together, but they always buy season packages individually.
This worked out great when we were in the same house and same seating configuration for the past 50 years, we did a simple season renewal rollover and the ladies were automatically sat together.
But, and here's the rub - we recently moved into a new flexible venue where a rollover is not possible because of the different configurations and our use of Super Packages.
If a new employee (or me before my morning coffee) sits Ms. Jones in seat A1, but I forget about Ms. Smith then seat A2 may go to someone completely different.
Is there a way when doing seating like this, manually by hand, that the Association tab can somehow automatically remind me that "Hey you put Ms. Jones in seat A1, so you better put Ms. Smith in seat A2 because they are linked as friends and they attend the same performance"?
If not, which I'm guessing there's not, how could I utilize the Associations already in each patron record to help me not have a problem like this?
We recently had an issue where this came up.
We had a show set up as General Admission for our Studio Theatre (98 seats). While Ms. Jones and Ms. Smith were on the same performance night it wasnt an issue to seat them together in the GA house because there were no reserved seats. However, we restructured the house from GA to Reserved Seating - same number of seats just actual seats now.
So we (me and the help of the wonderful staffers in the consortium) resat everyone from the GA house into the Reserved house. While I might have known about Ms. Jones & Smith's association, the staffers helping did not so Ms. Jones might have been put in A1 while Ms. Smith, still on the same night, was put into E 12. Would there have a been a way that we could have utilized Associations in this instance? To be honest the decision to restructure came 2 weeks before the first performance, so time was of the essence and this issue was not on my radar until we sent out the tickets and I started having to reseat groups together.
Thanks
The "sit with" relationship is one of those universal problems with ticketing. Associations and marking accounts definitely help, but it still relies on the customer service rep to pay attention to the markings. I like the idea of linking two orders together, so that if changes are made to one you are asked if you also want to make the same change to the other.
A patron could have consistent sit-with requests (always the same parties involved, all performances), or requests could differ performance to performance.
The story I'm familiar with is that 2 subscribers have their subscription seats next to each other; one of the subscribers buys special concert tix but the other one doesn't. When I seat the special concert I don't want to be sidetracked by checking the usual seatmate's account because of a sit-with connection at the constituent level.
I'd like to see something at the line item level to indicate the need to cross-check with another patron's order: a field to enter the sit-with's account numbers (needs to accommodate multiple accts)? Or maybe a sit-with flag/checkbox that would clue in the operator to check order notes for more details?
Thanks,Mary
We have a lineitem category called "Seat with". So (in theory) box office uses special requests for "seat with"s. Of course it often just ends up in the order notes...