Event Lifecycle

Each event in Workshop Butler goes through several stages from its creation till the moment when the attendees receive certificates. Almost all processes are automated, however, you can manage them manually too.

Let’s have a quick look into what happens on every stage.

Before an event

1

Create an event

This is the first stage where you define event properties (location, language, public/private, paid/free, tickets, etc.).

You should configure some of the information before you start creating an event ( category and type, registration and evaluation forms), while the other data (location and language, description, tickets configuration, etc.) is added directly to the form.

Duplicate an event. If you plan to run the same event several times, you can create it once and just copy the configuration, making necessary adjustments to it (e.g. change date and time).

Read this article for detailed instructions on how to create an event. You can learn how to duplicate an event here.

2

Register attendees

You have created an event and wait for the people to register for it.

Automatically. New attendees are added to the system automatically when they fill in a registration form. Upon registration, they will receive a welcome email from the system. The content of the email is configurable. This message will also contain a calendar invitation with a .ics file so that people can mark an event date in their calendars.

You will receive notifications about new registrations to your profile email and see them on the Dashboard.

Manually. You can add attendees manually, from the Attendees tile, or transfer from another event (e.g., if it was canceled).

Read more about managing attendees here.

3

Confirm an event

When it becomes clear whether the event will take place or not, you should change its state on the Event State tile.

Confirm. Confirming an event will allow you to change the Participation status of your attendees. You can revoke the confirmation on the Event State tile if you clicked this button by accident.

Two days before a confirmed event starts, all registered attendees will receive a reminder from the system.

Cancel. If the event won't take place, you can cancel it. We won’t charge for a canceled event.

Change participation status

After you have confirmed an event, you can change attendees' status to Participated. You will later need this status to approve evaluations and issue certificates.

Read more about the participation status here.

After an event

5

Request evaluations

After an event ends, it's time to ask your attendees for their feedback.

Automatically. The system sends follow-up email messages asking for evaluation the next day after an event. If an attendee does not submit an evaluation, it sends reminders on the third and seventh days.

Manually. You can turn off automated follow-up messages and send a link to an evaluation form manually. In this case, you can choose the attendees you want to send it to.

In both cases, the content of this message is configurable.

You will receive notifications about new evaluations to your profile email and see them on the Dashboard.

Read more about sending follow-up emails automatically and manually here.

6

Approve evaluations

All evaluations arriving in the system need to be approved or deleted. Approving an evaluation triggers issuing a certificate, if there is one.

Automatically. You can enable the Automated Approval of Evaluations in the Account Settings. Then you won’t have to go through each message to approve it and your attendees will receive certificates as soon as they submit an evaluation.

Manually. All evaluations for an event can be accessed via the Evaluations tile. Here you can read the details of each evaluation and approve or delete it.

Approving an evaluation triggers a post-event email to an attendee.

Read more about evaluation statuses here.

7

Send certificates

If you have certificates for an event, they will be attached to a post-event email too.

Automatically. When you approve an evaluation, the system generates a certificate and attaches it to a post-event message.

Manually. You can send a certificate without an evaluation. For this, you should click on the Generate link in the list of attendees.

Warning: if you are running a licensed event for a certification brand and they have activated the Obligatory Evaluations option, it won’t be possible to generate a certificate manually, without an evaluation.

Changing the workflow

So, the standard workflow is the following: create an event -> wait for registrations (or register attendees manually) -> confirm an event -> change participation status -> request evaluations -> approve evaluations -> send certificates.

While it’s not possible to change the first part of the workflow (from creating an event to changing the participation status), you can alter the order of the post-event processes.

For example, you want to send certificates first and request evaluations later. Then you could do the following:

Generate certificates manually. They will be attached to post-event messages.
Send an evaluation link manually to all your attendees. After you approve an evaluation, a post-event message won’t be triggered for the second time.

You can turn off follow-up email messages for such events. We also recommend double-checking the post-event message to make sure it fits the situation where you send certificates first, and request evaluations later.

Note: this pattern is possible only if the Obligatory Evaluations option hasn’t been enabled for this event.