We have an artist who has a required $1 per ticket artist charity donation which we have always set up as a fee (we assume this is standard practice). However, this artist is also being sold as part of our flex package (5 or more performances) and we cannot seem to figure out how to get it so that it operates correctly.
The ideal is that there is a $1 per ticket fee applied to the order for each ticket issued to this performance only, regardless of whether or not the performance is in a package or on its own. Current set-up is Performance Seat Level with only this performance selected (all relevant price types and MOSes select as well of course).
We tried including the relevant flex package, but that did not seem to apply the fee even when this performance was included in the flex package. We tried to create another fee that worked on the package seat level and were able to work out ways where it assigned a $1 fee for each package seat regardless of whether or not this performance was chosen as part of the flex package as well as another way where we generated the $1 fee only when that performance was part of the flex package but then Tessitura apparently decides that the fee should be applied to every ticket in the flex package and not just the one relevant performance. We assume the problem arises due to the fact that the concept of a "package seat" is different for a flex package than for a fixed package, but that does not help us much. Order-level and constituent-level fees are out for obvious reasons and we were rather hoping to not have to make this a user-defined fee.
The best idea we have so far is allowing the package to have a minimum of four in Tessitura while we continue to tell our patrons "minimum of five" and just pull this performance as an additional single line item rather than as part of the flex package, but we were hoping there was a better option out there.
Any ideas?
Hi John
Did you have a solution to your problem? I ask because i am having the same problem with applying fees to my flex packages.
Joanne
No solution as of yet. What we had to go with was just what I suggested in the first post here where we still tell all our patrons that the minimum is 5 while having Tessitura allowing the package with four and just remembering to always add that one as a separate single line item. It is a little extra remembering for our staff, but we made the info button/sales notes required so our staff is reminded of this every time they sell that particular performance.
I would love a better solution, but I am really out of ideas on this. If you come up with anything, let me know, I would love to hear it.
It sounds like having this performance in a flex package is atypical. I mention because my suggestion is temporary and a last resort. In the back-end you can install what's called a trigger that would insert the fee into an order based on circumstances you define.
I say temporary because this trigger would go away during an upgrade (not impossible to immediately reinstall, just needs to be well documented). I say last resort because a trigger may cause performance issues and is completely a custom method that affects several tables. You'll want to test this thoroughly, including exchanges, returns, reports and history reports.
Feel free to PM me to discuss in more detail.
Hey John - Anything new with the most recent updates? We have a city tax which applies to only 2 of the 3 shows in my flex package. We also have been asked to have this fee show at checkout, so the price layer option is a last resort.
Hey Allison Walker,
I want to say "no", but actually, the real answer is "I do not know". Back then we did attempt to do some kind of triggered fee that worked reasonably well enough, but still was not ideal, and only worked because I knew enough SQL to make it happen. But our organization has long since moved to having all artist charity fees as pricing layers on shows. I know the Box Office enjoyed it, but I think it was actually the Finance department that drove that particular change.
Either way, I have been out of that particular issue for long enough that I really do not know the answer. I would love to believe that there IS a solution for you, though. At this point in time, to not be able to assign a fee to a performance and have it generate properly, regardless of what kind of package it is or is not inside of, WOULD seem like a defect that Tessitura would want to address; at least, that would be my opinion.
Worst case scenario, if you have someone who has some SQL knowledge, you could write an invisible precart page (if you are TNEW) that could get the job done for online orders; your Box Office staff would still have to remember to add it in when they are taking orders.
Happy to assist if you think I can help, otherwise, best of luck!
John A. Moskal II
Thanks John. I ended up doing a workaround with 2 fees whose parameters excluded the one show to which the city fee did not apply. It will be sufficient for now, but I hope it can be addressed in future updates.
It never hurts to submit an enhancement request; I would suggest doing so here.