Importing Ticket Data and Reporting/TStats

We imported 5 years of ticketing data from our old box office system into Tessitura (when we moved to Tessitura in 2011).  We aren't able to report on that data at all, only data that's been created since we sold tickets through Tess - so I would assume it isn't possible or we would have been allowed to do it.

I think this is because different software gathers different pieces of information when selling tickets and Tess would require all of it's many fields in it's many system tables to be completed in order to report on it.

Hi Scott

 There are two standard ways of bringing alien ticket data into Tess.

1. You can import it into the Ticket History table (LT_TKT_HIST - TixHist to its friends)

• It's relatively easy to get alien data into the TixHist table, because it's just a flat table with no relational links to anywhere else in Tess. 
• Although you have to be careful not to break the table - your imported alien data has to be compatible with the Tess sales data that's already in there (although less so in your case, I suppose.)
• Before v12, you were encouraged to customise the table to suit your own needs - as of v12 that is now discouraged, although still possible.
• You probably have to write your own code to do the import, although there are various bits of other people's code available to share from Shared Reports, or here, as a starting point.
• Some people have difficulty convincing alien ticket sellers to provide the data in an agreed format, consistently, which can result in tears, and blunt objects being thrown at screens - there is a risk involved.
• There can be privacy questions raised by the aliens, and you may need to negotiate what level of individually-identifiable  information is included (not much use without it)
• You can use TixHist data in Lists and Extractions, so it's quite useful for marketing purposes.
• You can't see Ticket History data in T_Stats, so its analytic value is less - although one hears a rumour that JCA is working on a TixHist cube for someone - it would have to be customised on on individual-site basis, because TixHist is localisable.

2. You can use the Order Import utility to bring the data in as actual Tessitura Orders, with full details

• That's much harder, for a number of reasons, but people do do it successfully.
• All of your performances need to be built, just as if you were selling them yourself, complete with seasons,modes of sale, production elements, fully defined facilities, pricetypes etc
• (most people who do this also sell their own tix, so they already have this data built)
• The way that the aliens provide the sales data has to match exactly the way that your own perfs are set up - that can also be a challenge if they don't see the world the way Tess sees it - you know what aliens are like.
• And convincing the aliens to provide the data, at all, in the correct formats, and consistently, may require high-level political negotiation skills and the occasional threat, as well as technical skills (cf note above re tears)
• But -  you can see that data in T-Stats, (as well as in Lists, so long as you also run the standard utilities to update TixHist from Orders.)
• A number of people are doing this successfully from TicketMonster. My local colleagues at Sydney Theatre Company and Opera Australia are, but I'm sure some USA orgs are also doing it.

HTH 

Ken