Introduction
Welcome to Grenadine Event Management Software! This article will guide you through the steps needed to organize and publish your event. In no time, you’ll be able to start selling tickets, taking registrations, and publishing event websites as well as mobile apps (depending on your sign-up package)! Continue reading below for an overview of the fundamentals of Grenadine Event Management Software.
Accessing Grenadine Event Management Software
During the sign-up process, you chose a name to generate a Grenadine URL specific to your organization. Your Grenadine URL looks something like this:
http://your-organization-name.grenadine.co/
“your-organization-name” is the name or abbreviation of your company, association, organization or team.
This URL allows you to access the Grenadine Event Manager which is the main component of the Grenadine Event Management Software. The Event Manager allows you to pilot multiple events at the same time if required. To get started, go to your Grenadine URL address and begin creating your first event.
Suggested Steps to Start Planning Your Event
- Specify the venue (or venues) where your event will take place. This is available in the Event -> Venues menu. By clicking here, you can add venues and the addresses of those venues for your event. Please note that the “venue” is the building or area at which your event is being held, for more clarification on terms, please check out our glossary here.
- Make sure each venue has at least one room. “Rooms” are the specific areas within the venue in which events are held, for example, “Conference Room A”, or “Theatre”. After adding a venue, you will be prompted to add rooms. Adding a room does not have to immediately follow adding a venue. However, adding a room is a prerequisite to creating a session if your event is being held in a physical location.
- Add one or more session(s) to your event’s schedule. Sessions are the individual activities taking place at your event, for example, panel discussions, meet and greets, presentations, etc. You can easily add them by going to the Schedule area. Remember, if your event is physical, you need to have created a room before creating a session, but don’t worry, the room can be changed at any time during the event.
- Add a participant and assign them a session. Participants are people who will be presenting something at the event. “Participant” is a generic term used in Grenadine to represent speakers, moderators, performers, panelists, instructors, etc. When you select a session, you can assign participants to that session in the “People” tab for that session, and you can specify their exact role.
- Add one or more organizations. Organizations are sponsors, exhibitors, partners, and suppliers. By adding their information in the organizations section, you can manage their role and visibility. By this, we mean that you can display pertinent information on your sponsors and exhibitors. As for suppliers, their information will not be made public. However, the organization screen allows you to keep track of the budgets you allocated to your suppliers.
- Create free or paid ticket types so guests can register for your event. Creating ticket types allows you to offer different tickets to meet the needs of all your attendees. Anticipating a lot of students at your event? Create a discounted student ticket using the ticket types feature.
- Publish your event on a Grenadine-generated micro-website. You’ve done it! You’ve successfully laid the groundwork for your upcoming event and now it’s time to share it with the world. Your Grenadine Event Micro-Website will now present your event, display your schedule, sell tickets, receive submissions (if applicable), link to your social media and more! To access your event website, go to the Website -> Login to Event Website menu item and this will log your in to your event micro-website.
- Configure general settings for your environment. To make sure you have a system that responds to your needs, take a minute to review the system settings and verify that they suit your needs:
- Go back to the Home page and make your way to the Settings menu item. Run down the series of system-wide options to make sure that they match the setup you need. We recommend you check the following:
- Go to Emails and Notifications and check that the Info Email, Reply-to Email, and Test Email are correctly set to addresses that make sense for you. You can put any address that you own in here. If you want to change the “From Email”, you’ll need to contact Grenadine to authorize us to send an email on your behalf, but all other addresses can be set as you wish. Check out this doc that explains custom email addresses in detail: Sending emails from your own domain
- If you will be selling tickets, go to Payment Processing and link your Stripe.com payment or your Paypal business payment account (or both). This is required so that we can deposit funds directly to your account every time a ticket is sold. If you are an enterprise customer, you can also elect to use alternate payment processors such as Moneris (in Canada) or Paysafe. Please contact us if you require assistance with this step.
- Now that your payment account is set up, let’s make sure your currency is the right one. Go to the General Settings menu and make sure that the default currency is set to your preferred currency (CAD, USD, GBP, etc.). This is the currency that will be used to count your income and expenses, as well as the currency used to sell your tickets. Note that you can choose any currency here, but choose one that’s supported by your payment provider.
Happy event planning!