Cross Posted from Ticketing & Customer Service Forum
I would love to offer more of our free ticket options via TNEW instead of just as walk-up sales. However, the problem with that is we've gotten abuse of it in the past where people who register for those tickets just because they were free, and the front end associates did not check to make sure the patron qualified for those tickets. It was a lot worse in our old system, but I noticed it in Tessitura as well, which is why really early on we took most of the free ones off line.
I am wondering if v16 has any sort of set up where the screen will blink a certain color or make a certain noise on the scanner to alert the associates. Like something to tell the front end "Hey, this person bought a Bank of America ticket, please check to see if they have a Bank of America card."
We aren't going live with v16 until January, but I'm just curious if that is a current option or something they are considering. It would make my VSAs lives a lot easier if the scanner told them when to check for certain requirements based on ticket type.
Have you looked into memberships functionality so that you have to sign in and be recognized as a member to get the free ticket to show up as an option?
Conversely, when we have an admission type that requires an ID or documentation that doesn't live in Tessitura, those tickets can be purchased or reserved online, but they're then held at the box office, so that the checkpoint for 'required documentation' is at the box office wicket, not at gate control.
These aren't member tickets which is part of the problem. We offer those as well (though those show up for everyone, we're hoping to fix that in v16).
And we don't really like the "Hold at Box Office" option because it just makes more work for our Front End Associates. We don't print physical tickets, so having to go find an order and then manually attend them takes more time than simply selling the ticket at the front desk in the first place.
We have a similar situation where we need to hand a lanyard to folks in a certain seating area because their ticket includes an after show experience. After some research we ended up adding a CSI manually to each person who bought in that seating section. The NSCAN device will show the CSI message when the patron is scanned and it makes a different noise. Unfortunately I've not found a way to bulk add CSIs based on a list for this purpose.
That's an interesting workaround. We've never used CSIs before. I may have to play with this. Thanks!
Ok, one more question (now that I researched how CSIs work). How do you set them up to come across the NSCAN? Or does it automatically happen as long as it's attached to a Performance?
Do you have a team member who is familiar with SQL? We just found a bulk import CSI utility but it had to be manually put in. However, the code is available through the forums!
I'm attaching the N-Scan application Guide. Page 65-67 describes patron messages. If you don't have the N-scan contact method, category, or activity type, those need to be setup first. If you're on v16 you may need to find the corresponding guide for that version. I'm not familiar with the differences.N-Scan Application Guide PDF.pdf
Appreciate this! We are testing it this week for an after hours party that involves VIP and Designated Driver tickets, so it'll still be in v15.
I wanted to also bump Chelsea's submission to the idea board. If anyone else is invested in this feature, upvote it to help us gauge member interest. Thanks!
community.tessituranetwork.com/.../add-alerts-on-access-control-nscan-for-specific-ticket-types