Creating a private - RSVP registration page

Before creating your registration page, make sure that you are familiar with the registration page capabilities and the distinct types of registration pages that you can create, by reading the Enable registration and build your own custom registration page article.
If you wish to create a public (open) or a combined public (open) and private (RSVP) registration page, please refer to:
Set up a public - open registration page
Set up a combined public - open & private - RSVP registration page

In this article we'll take you through the basic steps for creating a private (RSVP) registration page.

For the sake of understanding each component in the registration page, let's remember that a registration page is made up of:

• A landing page, with the event details and Update your profile button.
• A main form, with the mandatory fields and additional fields that can be added for attendees to fill in.
• Any optional additional forms, with more fields for the attendees to fill in, and that can be targeted. This means that you can decide if you want attendees to see these forms or not, based on their responses on any of the previous forms.

1 - Choose the Private - RSVP type of registration page and confirm the URL

To access the registration page module, go to Content > Registration in your workspace.

If you are creating the registration page, you will see the below screen:

The type of registration page that you select will have an impact on the settings available in the next steps of the configuration. This means that if you select Private - RSVP registration, you will only see the configuration and settings that are relevant to this type of registration page.

Important: Once you have set up your private registration page and sent the private RSVP emails to your attendees, do not switch the registration page type to public (open), as this will prevent your invited audience from completing their RSVP registration.

1. Select Private - RSVP.
   
   
2. Confirm or personalize the registration page URL.
   The first part of the URL will always be: https://webapp.spotme.com/login/eventspace/
   The second part of the URL will be automatically populated based on the name of the event, with dashes "-" replacing the spaces between words. This extension can be modified here, and later on if needed. Only use letters and numbers in this field, with dashes or underscores.
   
   
3. Click on Enable registration to continue.

2 - Add the event details to the registration landing page

In the Event details tab, you can:

1. Edit the URL of the registration page if needed (as mentioned above).
   
   
2. Add the customizable event details that will appear on the landing page:
   In the Description section, use the text editor to add and format your text, and add as may images as you like.
   For the text: text colors cannot be directly changed using the toolbar, however you can copy and paste text colors from external sources. There is no limit to the amount of text that can be added here.
   For the images: The space available for the description images is 685 px wide. Images that are less that 685 px wide will keep their file dimensions. If you intend to use the full width for your image, we recommend that you use an image that is 1370 px wide for the best result.
   Add sessions, speakers and sponsor information to your registration landing page, taken from the workspace at the click of a button. A great way to promote your event and encourage attendees to sign-up.
   
   
3. Preview your registration page: Remember to preview the page to see how it looks (especially after adding the design), using the Open page button. Below is a preview of the landing page created above, with the description text:
   
   
   
4. Remember to click on Save to confirm all the changes you have made.

3 - Customize the registration page design

In the Design tab you can customize how the event registration pages will look, including the banners and the colors used. This is the same for all types of registration pages. Find out how

4 - Add the fields to the registration main form

In the Form fields tab, you choose what fields will be present in the registration page for your attendees to fill in.

You will configure what fields will be added to the main registration form, as well as any optional additional forms that can be displayed to registrants after filling in the main form.

Mandatory fields in the private - RSVP landing page

The Email address, First name, and Last name fields are information that you must collect from your attendees in order to register them. They are mandatory and will always be present on the registration page main form (they cannot be removed).

Here, for the private - RSVP registration page, you will also find a default and mandatory Are you attending the event? field that attendees must fill in in order to respond to the RSVP, and that cannot be removed.

As part of the built-in RSVP registration journey, an additional form is present by default and mandatory, that contains a message saying We are sorry to hear that you are not attending...
This additional form is displayed to attendees that respond No, I will not attend to the RSVP, and also cannot be removed.

Adding more fields to the private - RSVP main form

To add more fields to the main form, click on the Add a field button, and select the field to be added in the dropdown list. 

The fields that are available to choose from are pulled directly from the user metadata in the workspace. You can therefore create new user metadata, which you will then be able to select as fields to be used in your registration forms, including hidden fields that will not be visible to the attendee and that you can use for targeting additional forms.

The types of user fields(i.e. the format of the user metadata) that can be added to the registration page in order to collect data during the registration journey, are the following:

• “boolean” (checkboxes)

• ”choice-list” (dropdown list, which is typically used for RSVP responses).

• ”choice” (radio button)

• ”email” (open text)

• ”locale” (country list dropdown)

• “number” (open text)

• ”text-multiline” (multiple lines of text)

• “text” (open text)

• “hidden” (text field that is not visible to the attendee and can be used for targeting any  additional "conditional" forms).

• "formatted-datetime" (used to add a date and time picker).

As you add fields to your main form, keep in mind that, if needed, you can add more forms that can be displayed to attendees, and that you can make these forms "conditional". This means that, based on the information provided by registrants when they fill in the main form and any subsequent form, you can decide whether to display or not a specific form to a specific attendee or group of attendees. More information below

You can use the Add a description button to add a free-form text section (perfect for section breaks, adding extra guidance or information, or adding legal disclaimers). You can also use the Add legal documents button to add privacy policies or disclaimers for attendees to acknowledge while registering.

Once you have added the fields, you can move them up or down using the ≡ button next to each field. If needed, you can also make the added fields mandatory for attendees to fill in, using the Mandatory checkbox.

Below you can see a preview of how a private (RSVP) registration page main form can look to attendees when they access it:

5 - Add more form pages to the registration journey

You can, if needed, create additional forms that can be displayed to the registrants after filling out the main registration page form, and responding YES, I will attend to the RSVP main form.

As mentioned above, keep in mind that the private (RSVP) main form is always pre-configured so that, if registrants respond No, I will not attend to the mandatory Are you attending the event? field, they will automatically be taken to the We are sorry to hear that you are not attending... additional form, where they need to confirm their response:

By default, if people respond Yes to the RSVP, they will see the below screen indicating that they have reached the end of the registration process:

When creating your RSVP registration fields, you can add additional forms designed to collect information such as "Why are you not attending" (that will only be visible if the RSVP response is NO) or "How are you traveling to the venue?" or "Where are you staying?" (that will only be visible only if the RSVP response is YES). More information on how to do this.

6 - Choose which emails to send out to attendees as part of the RSVP registration process

Remember that the invitation email that you send to the potential attendees in order to invite them to RSVP and register for your event needs to be sent out manually. It is not set out automatically.

In the Emails tab, you can specify what emails will be sent out to attendees automatically, at each step of the private (RSVP) registration process:

By clicking on a step's dropdown, for example RSVP invitation accepted, you can select the email that will be sent out by the system for that step. Here, we can see the email that will be sent when registrants accept the RSVP invitation via the main registration form:

For each step, you can also choose to not send any emails, by selecting the No email option in the Default email dropdown list for that step.

Please note that depending on the settings you will enable for your registration page, some of these emails may or may not be configurable.

Below is a breakdown of the emails associated with a private (RSVP) registration page:

• Profile update confirmation email: Email sent to users after they have updated their profile information.
  -> No default email template . This is disabled by default and can be configured only if you enable the Allow attendees to update their profile information  option in the Settings section.
  
  
• RSVP invitation accepted: Email sent to users who have answered YES to the RSVP invitation email .
  -> Default e mail template: (RSVP) Private event invitation accepted
  Can be configured only if you enable the Allow invitees to submit and edit their attendance status option in the Settings section.
  
  
• RSVP invitation declined: Email sent to users who have answered NO to the RSVP invitation email .
  -> Default e mail template: (RSVP) Private event invitation declined
  Can be configured only if you enable the Allow invitees to submit and edit their attendance status option in the Settings section.
  
  
• Login email: Email sent to users when logging in to the event, or when they have fully registered for the event. It contains the "Access the event" link.
  -> Default email template : Invitation to access the event
  Can be configured only if you enable the Allow attendees to log in to the event app option in the Settings section.
  
  
• Unknown account email: Email sent to users trying to log in into the event via the registration page without having registered first via the registration page.
  -> Default email template : Registration - Registration not found
  Can be configured only if you enable the Allow attendees to log in to the event app option in the Settings section.
  

All the steps are pre-configured so that they send out the appropriate emails using the default email templates, except for the "Profile update confirmation email" (which can be created and configured if needed). No action is needed here unless you want to specifically change the email templates that are used, or disable the sending of emails for one of these steps.

In addition to the default email templates that are accessible via the Emails module in Backstage, you can also edit these templates or create your own new templates using the email editor.

Targeting tailored registration emails based on attendee information

In addition to the above described standard emails that are sent out automatically to attendees as part of the private (RSVP) registration process. You can also create tailored "sub-versions" that can be targeted to specific groups of users based on the information that they provide during the registration process.

As a basic example, in addition to the default "Private invitation accepted email" you may wish to have a targeted custom email that will be sent only to specific attendees that belong to a specific team or branch of your organization.

This can be done by clicking on the + Send a different email to a specific target group button:

Here you can select a custom email and set-up the targeting:

Above in the screenshot we have set-up the targeting so that, depending on whether the attendee fills in the Attending field as "in-person" or "virtually", they will receive a custom "Confirmation email" that matches their choice of attendance.

You can add any number of targeting rules, however please keep in mind that:

• Targeting rules are applied from top to bottom: target group 1 will be checked first, then target group 2, etc.
• A user will always get only ONE email. If a user meets the criteria of more than one target group, the first target group within which they fall will be applied.
• If a user falls within no target groups, they will receive the default email.

More detailed information on using custom email targeting

7 - Open and manage the access to the private RSVP registration page and the event app

Remember that for a private RSVP event, your invitees must access the registration page via the invitation link that is included in the RSVP invitation email. Otherwise they will see a message saying. "Sorry, it seems you are not allowed to register to this event...":

In the Settings tab, there are three settings. These settings allow you to display or hide the buttons that are present in the registration landing page, and that are used by attendees to access the RSVP registration main form and the event app.

Remember that the registration landing page is always accessible online via the URL. It's the action of inviting your attendees to complete the RSVP and the setting described below that will determine whether attendees can access the main RSVP registration form or not.

Registration page is fully closed

If all settings are disabled, the invitees will not be able to access the registration page at all from the landing page.

Registration page is fully closed - "Update your profile" button is not available

Open your registration for RSVP and allow attendees to complete their profile info:

If the Allow attendees to submit and edit their response and the Allow attendees to update their profile information options are enabled, the invitees will be able to fully access the registration page from the landing page.

As mentioned previously, for private - (RSVP) registration, you will need to have invited your attendees to RSVP via email in order for them to have access to the registration main form.

RSVP is open - "Update your profile" button is available on landing page:

Registration page main form is fully open:

Allow your invitees to update only their profile information (and not their RSVP response)

If the "Allow attendees to submit and edit their response" option is disabled and the "Allow attendees to update their profile information" option is enabled, the invitees will only be able edit their profile information:

Registration page main form is accessible but only the profile information can be modified

Allow your invitees to access/edit their RSVP response (and not their profile information)

If the "Allow attendees to submit and edit their response" option is enabled and the "Allow attendees to update their profile information" option is disabled, the invitees will only be able edit their RSVP attendance status:

Registration page main form is accessible but only the RSVP status can be modified

Choosing what fields can be edited by registrants in the forms

With this option enabled, in the Form fields section, you can select which fields can be edited by the registrants, using the Editable check boxes:

Please note that attendees can never update their email address, and the "Are you attending the event" is always editable (this cannot be changed).

Allow attendees to log in to the event app from the registration page

You can use the Allow attendees to log in to the event app option, to enable or disable the Log in button in the registration landing page:

Enabling the Allow attendees to log in to the event app option means that the "Log in" button will be available for attendees to use in the registration page in order to access the event. If this option is disabled, the "Log in" button will be hidden.

Attendees who have already registered to the event can click on this Log in button, enter their email, and receive a "Log in" email with a link to access the event app.

If this option is enabled and users have already logged in to the event app, if they return to the registration landing page they will see a Continue to the the event link that will take them to the event app, as well as a Sign out button:

8 - How to invite your attendees to RSVP?

Once you have finished preparing your RSVP registration page, by following all the steps above, and that you have enabled the necessary options in Settings > Access limitations, you can go ahead and invite your potential attendees via email.

Again, remember that attendees will only have access to the private (RSVP) registration page if they use the links present in the RSVP invitation email that you need to send them.

Important: Once you have set up your private registration page and sent the private RSVP emails to your attendees, do not switch the registration page type to public (open), as this will prevent your invited audience from completing their RSVP registration.

To do this, you need to follow the below steps.

1 - Upload your list of potential attendees to the users list in the workspace

More information on how to add/upload users to the workspace

Important:
- When uploading users via XLS in view of sending invitation emails to them: leave the status columns empty ("fp_rsvp_status" and "fp_status"), as they will be automatically populated by Backstage during the import.
- If you want to accept your invitees' RSVP response via Backstage on behalf of the users, set the fp_rsvp_status for that user to "Yes, I will attend" AND the fp_status to "Active".
- If you want to decline your invitees' RSVP response via Backstage on behalf of the users, set the fp_rsvp_status as "No, I will not attend" AND the fp_status as "Cancelled".
The same approach can be followed by updating the invitees "fp_rsvp_status" and "fp_status" manually in the user profile in Backstage.

2 - Send the first RSVP invitation to your attendees

To send the invitation email to your potential attendees, go the Users list in the workspace and (without selecting any users) click on Send email:

Next, in the Target field, select RSVP - not invited:

And select the (RSVP) Private event invitation email template:

Finally, click on Send to send the email:

More information on how to send emails.
All email templates are fully editable. More information on editing email templates.

To note, attendees will by default have the following statuses in the users list:

• User is added to user list in Backstage and has not been invited: Not invited
• User is added to user list in Backstage and has been invited: Invited

3 - Send custom targeted RSVP reminder invitations or follow up emails

To encourage your invitees to respond to the RSVP, you can send RSVP reminders to your invitees.

To do so, use the Custom targeting option when sending an email:

Here, you can use the targeting rules to send the email to your attendees based on whether they have already been invited or not, using the Invited: True/False rule:

And you can combine the Invited: True/False rule with other rules (including using custom metadata) to target any specific segment of your audience. For example Invited: True/False + Are you attending the event: No/YES

You can combine as many of these rules as you like in order to reach a specific audience.

Important use cases to be aware of:

In the case that you want to email all the people that have not yet been invited to RSVP:

OR

If you use “Invited to event (RSVP) = true”, it will include all the invited people BUT exclude the ones that declined the invitation.

In the case that you want to email all the people that have already been invited but have not answered yet:

In the case that you want to email all the people that already been invited and have answered "YES":

In the case that you want to email all the people that have already been invited and have answered "NO":

In the case that you want to email all the people that have been invited:
(assuming that invitees can only answer "yes" or "no" to the question "Are you attending the event?")

If you only use “Invited to event (RSVP) = true”, it will include all the invited people BUT exclude the ones that declined the invitation.

9 - How to see if my RSVP invitees have accepted or declined the RSVP invitation?

Read the dedicated How to track event registrations, access analytics, and see use registration statuses article.