Adding Contributors from Other Events

Many guests come back year after year, and some support more than one of your events. Today, adding a returning guest to a new event means creating a new contributor and retyping their details, which is time consuming and can leave you with duplicate records for the same person.

With these improvements to Add Contributor, you search for the person first. If they already belong to another event in your organization, you add their existing record to this event instead of creating a new one.

This article covers:

• What's changing on the Contributors page
• Searching for a contributor
• Choosing a result
• What's shared between events and what stays separate

What's changing on the Contributors page

• The + Create button (which loads a blank form for you to fill) is replaced by a search box labeled + Add Contributor.
• The search box above your contributor list is now labeled Search List. It works as it always has, filtering only the contributors already in this event.

Searching for a contributor

1. Go to Contributors.
2. Click in the + Add Contributor box and start typing a first name, last name or company name.
3. Results appear as you type, with the matching text highlighted.

The search looks through this event and every other event in your organization, including upcoming ones. People already in this event are listed first, followed by people from your other events.

Each result shows:

• An Individual or Company badge, plus the company name for companies
• Email and cell phone, or "no email" and "no cell" when they're missing
• The event they belong to and its date

Choosing a result

Someone already in this event

Click Open Record to go to their contributor record. Nothing new is created.

Someone from another event

1. Click Add to this event on their result.
2. A confirmation window shows their name, Individual or Company, contact details, IDs and the event they're coming from.
3. Confirm to add them. Their contributor record opens so you can finish setting them up for this event.

No match

If no one matches, you'll see No results with a link to create a new contributor. It opens the same create screen you use today.

What's shared between events and what stays separate

Adding someone from another event links their existing record to this event. It doesn't make a copy.

• Shared: Most details on the Contact tab, such as email, phone, address, and custom fields that have been configured for all events. Updating them in one event updates them in every event linked to that record.
• Brought over when added: The Individual/Company setting, the alternate ID, and SMS opt-in. If the contributor elected to opt-out of SMS for the event we found them in, we will give them another opportunity to opt in to SMS for this event.
• Set separately for each event: Contributor type, affiliation type, group, household, bidder number, meal, ticket, VIP, table assignment, and event specific custom fields. These don't carry over from the other event.
• Kept separate: Bids, purchases, payments, invoices and reports. Nothing from the other event appears in this one, and messages and links you send from this event take them to this event.

Frequently asked questions

• Does adding someone from another event create a duplicate? No. It links their existing record to this event.
• If I update a guest's email in this event, does it change in their other events? Yes, in every event linked to the same record.
• Will their bids or purchases from a past event show up here? No. Each event keeps its own activity, invoices and reports.
• Why can't I find someone from an older event? The search only includes contributors created in the past 24 months. Add them as a new contributor instead.