Invitations Workflow

The creation and management of invitations for an event requires multiple steps.

• From Marketing and Communications, create the export definitions for event invitations. The export definition determines the fields in an export file for an invitation, such as for merge with Microsoft Word or an email application.

• From Marketing and Communications, create the packages for the event invitation for mail and email. When you create a package, you select the content and export definition to include in an invitation. When you add a package, you can also specify its cost.

• From the event record, add the invitation to the event. You can add an invitation to send through multiple channels such as mail and email. When you set up an invitation, you select the packages to use with the invitation for the selected channels. You can also specify addresses, name formats, and packages to use for invitees. For information about how to add an invitation, refer to Add Event Invitations.

• Add invitees to the invitation. To receive an invitation, an invitee must be a constituent in your database. You can add a constituent or a selection of constituents as invitees. For information about how to add invitees, refer to Add an Invitee to an Invitation or Add Multiple Invitees to the Invitation.

  Tip: To add invitees to an event, you can copy the invitees from another event. For example, for an annual event, you can copy the invitees from the previous year’s event. For information about how to copy invitees, refer to Copy Invitees.

• After you set up the invitees, run the process to send the invitation to the invitees. When you run the send process, the export definitions of the selected packages create invitations for the invitees marked to be included in the next send process. For information about how to send an invitation, refer to Send Invitations. After the invitations are sent, the invitees display on the Registrations tab of the event record. Their default status is “No reply.” From here, you can mark them as declined or register them for the event. For more information, refer to Event Registration.

• Depending on the channel, download the invitation output or merge the output with Microsoft Word or your email client to create and send the invitations to the invitees. For information about how to download the output, refer to Manage Invitation History.

• After you send invitations, you can manage your invitations from the event’s Registrations tab. For more information, refer to Registrants and Guests.

• From the Invitations tab, you can continue to add invitees to an invitation and generate the invitation for additional invitees. For information about how to manage the invitees and their response, refer to Manage Invitees.