We have a number of vouchers that we use repeatedly throughout the season on a large GA map. These are regularly issued and redeemed on a weekly basis, so the number of issued is always in flux. We are looking for a way of tracking how many of these are issued at the end of the season. The obvious solution would be to always put new vouchers that are issued at the end and never over a space that has been used, but while sometimes it is weeks before they are redeemed, sometimes it is literally only hours, meaning that one would have to check the seat history to make sure that that specific seat in the GA map had never previously been used. This is cumbersome, not to mention the fact that we have multiple issuers of these vouchers, some of whom LOVE to use the ALT+B best seating function rather than wasting time going into the map.
We were wondering if anyone had any thoughts around this sort of thing. About the only solution that occurs to me was to have a procedure written that is called for any performances of the type "Voucher" (which is how we set these up) such that as soon as a voucher is reserved/issued for this performance, it puts a hold code down underneath it. That way, if the voucher was redeemed, it would be obvious that it had already been used, not to mention preventing its selection by the Alt+B method while still allowing users to use the Alt+B shortcut functionality.
My question is if there is any easier way to do this of which we have not yet thought. All ideas welcome.
Thanks!
What if, when you redeem the voucher, you (in addition to redeeming it) resell it to the patron using a comp price type? That way, it remains “seated.”
Lucie
______________________________Lucie SpielerIT Development and Training Manager
Florida Grand Opera
Thanks for the suggestion! That would indeed work in terms of getting a total number. Is there an easy way then, using this method, to get a count of how many, in fact, were redeemed at the end of the season? (I suppose I should have mentioned that in my first post.)
Without knowing more. You could then re-issue under a voucher price type at 0.00 so you can pull by performance how many vouchers were redeemed without having to go in and sort through Marketing and Development comps.
Do you create a voucher "performance" for each performance your issuing them for? If so you could see that Alvin Ailey Voucher performance still has 32 seats "sold" or un-redeemed and you could then go into Alvin Ailey performance and see how many Voucher price types were issued.
Thanks! And a good idea, but no, we do not create a new "performance" for each one. That said, these are some great ideas, and we may reconsider the way we issue these vouchers where we are looking for more in depth tracking.
Feel free to keep chiming in with more ideas, but thanks already for what you have given. I will give it much thought.