BVIT: Online Entry Manual

The online entry system is a generalised system to allow you to configure online entries for various different types of events. This could be for a National Championship with multiple payment options, down to entry for a committee meeting with no fees at all, with the intention just to know who is going to attend.
The system provides the option of paying by credit card or printing an invoice and paying by cheque or other means.
There are several different ways of setting up an individual event, and it is strongly recommended that in order to become familiar with the system that you find some small events to try things out, and work up to larger events in the future. Do not use the system for the first time on your National Championship with hundreds of entries.

Reconciliation 
For the person taking the entries, the most challenging part is reconciling the entries with the payments. It is recommended that for your first event, you create some test entries and run through the reconciliation process in advance of releasing the system to the public as you may find out you require some additional information to add to the entry screens.

Divisions 
The system allows you to setup up multiple “divisions” or “competitions” within the event, and then allows for “optional extras” such as dinner tickets, t-shirts, additional information, etc. The divisions are fairly straight forward, but to allow for maximum flexibility, the optional extras are quite detailed, and therefore tedious to set up the first time. It is recommended that having become familiar with how the system works, you setup a dummy event (do not release it to the public) with every conceivable optional extra (insurance, t-shirts, dinner tickets, next of kin, etc) and then use this to copy to your new event and delete what you don’t require. This is much quicker than setting up the optional extras from scratch on each event.

Terms and Conditions 
It is also recommended that you setup a standard Terms and Conditions page. This is setup as a normal page on the website. Setup correctly, the same page can be used for multiple events.

Exporting data 
The hard part in this process is downloading the entries and importing them into the local results package. Each results package will have their own format for importing results, typically Excel or a CSV file. However, within the Excel file, the package will expect certain columns, codes for events, etc. It is strongly recommended that you test this process with some test transactions prior to opening entries for a major event.

General Approach


The following is the recommended approach to setting up online entries:


Do once only

  1. Setup online credit card facility. Contact BvIT to setup this up on your behalf. If you are setting up a new facility with a bank, this can take several weeks.
  2. Setup a generalised Terms and Conditions page in your website
  3. Setup a single event, with online entry with every conceivable option available (start off small and keep adding to it)


Do for each event

  1. Add the event to the calendar with all the relevant information
  2. Setup the basic online entry information, including a link to the T&Cs page setup above
  3. Setup the competitions for this event
  4. Copy the optional extras from the standard event
  5. Modify the optional extras
  6. Run through some test entries, including credit card payment if available
  7. Download the entries to the Excel spreadsheet and verify that the data collected meets your requirements
  8. Reverse the payments on the test entries
  9. Delete the test entries from the system
  10. Release the system to the public
  11. Advertise your event, including that fact that online entries are now open.

Terminology

Event - An event, in this manual, is one that appears on the calendar e.g. Australian National Championships
Competition - This is a sub group of Event – K1, C1, C2 divisions/4.7, radial, full rig divisions
 

Before you begin

  1. The online entry system can only be created for an event that is on your website’s calendar. Ensure that the event is displayed on your calendar before you attempt to create the online entry system.
  2. Make sure that the online entry system is created using the site of the organisation that wishes to receive the payments. For example, Black Rock Yacht Club is hosting the 470 world championships. This will appear on the BRYC website calendar as well as Yachting Victoria’s website, Yachting Australia’s, the International Sailing Federation’s and the 470 class associations’ websites at state, national and international level. Any one of these associations could be the official event organiser, and wish to collect the entry fee. The online entry system should be set up on the website of the organisation that is going to collect the money. Other websites can create a link to this online entry but cannot accept entries. The reason for this is that each website is connected to ONE payment account, so to ensure that the money goes to the correct organisation, it must be created on this website. For security reasons other accounts cannot be added for individual events.
  3. If you wish to use an online credit card facility, it is recommended to have this setup in advance as this can take some time to setup.

Getting Started

Logon to the website using a UserID with Admin access. Go to the calendar and click on your event and in the popup window, click on the Setup Online Entry button. This will only be displayed if you are logged on with Admin access.

Event Status – if this is set to Active/Live, then when a member of the public clicks on the event name in the calendar, there will be a button down the bottom of the new window asking if they wish to enter the event. It is suggested that you set this to Testing/Setup while you are making changes and then reset to Active/Live once you are finished

Entries Open – the public will not be able to enter this event until the specified time and date

Entries Close – the public can still enter the event after this time, but the late fee will be added to their entry fee

Late Entries Close – the public will not be able to enter this event after this time and date

Entry Button Text – the text that will be shown on the button linking the public to the online entry. The program will automatically put in ‘Enter this event’, but it can be changed to anything you prefer.

Credit Card Accepted? Invoice Payment Accepted? Are you GST Registered? Cheques made out to Payment can be accepted online via credit card (assuming you have previously setup this facility), or you can provide the facility to allow users to print off an invoice and send in with a cheque. It is highly recommended that the entry and the payment be accepted at the same time otherwise reconciliation becomes difficult.

Credit Card on Invoice? – some people are uncomfortable about using their credit cards online. This option allows for the entrant to print off an invoice page, fill in their credit card details and send it in to the organisation.
Public View of entries – It is recommended that this remains turned off until there are a reasonable number of entries because too few entries will discourage others from entering.

Terms & Conditions page – here you must enter the page ID number of your page of terms and conditions that all competitors must agree to. This must be set up separately. It is recommended that the organisation has a standard Terms & Conditions page that is used for all events. For an example of a Terms & Conditions page visit http://www.yachting.org.au/?id=18510

Website – the website of the organising body, automatically entered in

Reply Email – who it will appear that the conformation email has been sent from, and who entrants can reply to.

CC Email – the email that is sent to the competitor will also be sent to this address

Event Pre-Amble – appears at the top of the first page of the online entry

Event Post-Amble – appears after the entrant has paid by credit card.

HTML Hyperlink – this is the HTML that can be put into any other website to create a link to the online entry system. It will be automatically generated. Cut/paste this link into a page of another site to create a direct link to your online entry for this event.


Competition setup

Within an event, there may be several divisions, referred to as Competitions in the online entry system. This does not have to be each individual event such as 100m, 200m, 400m freestyle in swimming, but could be split into Junior, Senior. It is common to split the comps into the different price ranges, e.g. Single Handers $30, Double Handers $40.

It is recommended that each individual division should be set up as a separate competition if there are only a few divisions (e.g up to 15). At the very least, competitions would usually be set up by price, as there can only be one entry fee per competition, although this can be modified using the optional extras. For example one may be tempted to only set up two competitions for the Australian Flatwater Championships – Canoe and Kayaks. If the entry fees are different for the C1 C2 and C4 divisions though, it is recommended that they be separated.

To get to the Competition setup screen, you must first be in the Setup Online Entry screen. Down the bottom of the page, you will find the Competition Setup button

There will be no competitions on screen so you must click the Add button to create one.

Competition Title – the title of the competition or division

Class – the type of boat used within this class. If there is no specific boat, there is an option for an open event (Yachting only)

Members Only – is this competition open to competitors who are not a member of the National body?

Non-Mem Fee? – the entry fee for those who are not members of the National body. Do not leave blank if the fee is the same as the members fee, enter the same number

Entry Fee$ - entry fee for members

Late Fee$ - the extra amount to be charged to the late entrant on top of the usual entry fee

Age Based? – does the age of the competitor matter?

Minimum Age – used if the competition is a Masters comp, for example

Maximum Age – used if the competition is a Youth comp, for example

More than one person per entry? – used when the competition is for teams with more one member.

Number in Team? – how many are in the team for this entry?

Optional extras


The optional extras options create a form that entrants are required to complete following the original registration details in the opening screen. The final form may look something like this:


To add in optional extras, you need to go back to the event setup page, and down the bottom of the screen click on the Optional Extras button


If your organisation has a common set of input items used repeatedly, you can type in the event ID of another event and the system will copy all of the optional items from this event.


It is strongly suggested that you take the time to do this to save time later on. Otherwise, you will need to create each item line by line. You do not need to worry about the order items are entered in, that can be changed later.

Type of optional item – refers to how you wish the person to give you information:

Short input text box – a short box in which one can enter text (used in the sample form for presentation night tickets)

Medium input text box – used in sample form for sail number

Long input text box – used in sample form for boat name

Radio buttons – where only one option can be selected (used in the sample form for t-shirt size)

Check boxes – several of these options can be selected (used in the sample form for ‘Competing in’)

Text – this is used for giving information to the entrant (used in sample form in bold italic)

Thick horizontal line – used in sample form at the top and bottom of the sample form. Simply used to format the look of the page

Thin horizontal line – used in sample form to separate the business side of things and the more light hearted, fun stuff. Purely aesthetics.

Input on this line is Mandatory – if Yes is selected, then the entrant must answer the question before they can continue with their online entry (will have an asterix next to it on the final form)

Description – the question that the person entering will be responding to.

Font style for text – some basic font styles, suggested that you just play around with them until you find the one you want

Cost per Item – only applicable for input text boxes (used in the sample form for presentation night tickets)

Request quantities – only applicable when using a small input text box (used in sample form for presentation night tickets)

Multiple options – only applicable when using check boxes or radio buttons.

Altering optional extras

Once all optional extras have been added, scroll to the bottom of the window and press the ‘Cancel – List all’ button.

All optional extras will be listed in the order they were created.

To change the order, swap the Line Order numbers around into the order you want.

Once you have changed them, you can click the Update button and the list will appear in the new order.

You can edit any of the optional items by clicking the Edit button on the right, and can delete them by clicking the DELETE button. You can also see what the page will look like to the entrant by clicking the Preview Form. This should help you decide what order you want your items in, as well as features such as fonts.