This tab is used for setting up CiviPlus to allow users to register themselves for events online. The normal flow for this is:

To start setting up online registration for your event, navigate to the Online Registration tab and tick the Allow Online Registration check box.

You will now see the list of fields and options necessary to set up online registration.

Firstly, enter the text that will appear in the button inviting the user to register into the Registration Link Text field, for example “Register Now”. You can also provide start and end date/times that the online registration will be allowed:

Now you have the option to allow a user to register additional people on the event by selecting the Register multiple participants tickbox, and selecting the number of additional participants that can be registered in the Maximum additional participants field. For example, if you choose '2' then the lead booker can bring 2 guests; there would be a limit of 3 participants in total per booking.

By default, this option requires a different name and email address for each person registered, but if you click the Same email address tickbox then a single email address is used for all registered names. In either case, CiviPlus uses a separate contact record (an existing one if the contact is already in the system, otherwise a new one is created) for each individual registered. Your event will use the Unsupervised duplicate matching rule to match participants in anonymous registrations with existing individuals, unless you select another rule to use instead by choosing one from the Duplicate matching rule picklist field.

You specify a time limit in hours for confirming/finishing registration by participants with any of the pending statuses. Enter 0 (or leave empty) in the Pending participant expiration (hours) field to disable this feature, otherwise specify the number of hours.

Finally to complete this section you can specify whether you want to allow registered participants to either cancel their registration OR transfer it to another participant. If the Allow self-service cancellation or transfer checkbox is selected, event confirmation emails will include a link to a Cancel or Transfer form. Note: automated refunds for cancellations are NOT currently supported. Participants who have paid for an event will be notified that cancellations are not refundable. If you have allowed transfer/cancellation, you can say the number of hours prior to the event start date self-service cancellation or transfer is allowed in the Cancellation or transfer time limit field. Enter a negative number of hours to allow cancellation after the event starts. Enter 0 (or leave empty) to allow cancellation or transfer up until the event has started.

The next step is to define the text and the fields for collecting information that will be displayed on your online registration page.

The introductory text comes at the top of the page and the footer text at the bottom. In between will come some, or all, of: profile, fee selection, credit card details, additional profile(s) in that order.

So to start, let’s fill in the Introductory Text and Footer Text fields using the rich-text editor which allows you to create compelling content including photos, images and formatted text.

Now we come to the crucial part of event registration, collecting participant information. The best and easiest way of doing this is to include one or more “profiles” in your event configuration. What is a profile? Well, simply put it is a collection of fields from the CiviPlus database, grouped together so that you can simply refer to them en masse rather than having to specify each one individually. They are used throughout CiviPlus and sometimes referred to as Field Sets. There is a separate article explaining how to create and use Profiles here

You can include one profile immediately after the introductory message and one or more profiles under any fees and payment details you need to collect.

Let’s start with the profile at the top of the page, which is going to gather the basic participant information. The Include Profile (top of page) defaults to the "Your Registration Info" profile which consists of three fields: first name, last name and email address. (Hint: Click the PREVIEW button to see what fields exist in any of the selected profiles ). If you require fewer, or more, fields you could of course EDIT 'Your Registration Info' or a COPY of it, or indeed CREATE a brand new profile with fewer fields. However, if you choose not to collect email addresses, be sure to uncheck the option Send confirmation email? at the bottom of the page. And be careful editing an existing profile whilst configuring your Online Registration page - the changes you make will apply everywhere that profile is being used. So unless an existing profile exactly matches your requirements you should really copy the profile, then rename and edit the copy as required.

Also be aware that a number of the Advanced Settings for profiles take effect when a profile is included in event online registration. You cannot edit these from the editing interface within the online registration settings; you must go to the main profile settings form to make changes.

You can also add a profile gather additional information at the bottom of the page by choosing one from from the Include Profile (bottom of page) dropdown list. In the example below we are choosing to include the Dietary Preferences profile .

For paid events a Confirmation Screen is shown to the user so that they can check the registration details before committing to payment. For free events the Confirmation screen is skipped.

Complete the Title, Introductory Text and Footer Text fields in this section if appropriate.

Now for the Thank You screen, as with the Confirmation Screen, you just need to complete the Title, Introductory Text and Footer Text fields.

For most events you'll want to enable the Send Confirmation Email feature. For paid events, the confirmation email also acts as a receipt. Make sure that the Confirm From Email address entered is a valid email account on your mail server.

When selected, you enter the following fields:

Text of the confirmation email

Confirm From Name the name that appears in the from field

Confirm From Email the email address that the mail is sent from

If you want real-time updates on who is registering for your event add one or more staff emails to fields (enter one or more email addresses separated by comma):

Cc Confirmation To

BCC Confirmation To

Note: Make sure that the email addresses entered into the CC Receipt To and BCC Receipt To fields are correct and do not bounce or return an error email. Any return emails received by CiviPlus will be interpreted as a bounce for the CiviPlus Contact that the receipt was sent to and not as a bounce for the CC/BCC email address. This can have the adverse impact that the CiviPlus Contact's email address is put On Hold and cause future emails to not be sent.

Figure 9 - Email confirmation fields

That’s it! Click the SAVE AND DONE button to save the online registration form as part of the Event Template.