A Custom Form With All The Wixins!

As you may or may not have read in my first blog post, "Why Wix For This Website," I have been working with my favorite non-profit, Down 7 Up 8 Inc. (D7U8), to help streamline some of their processes. This post will detail some of the pain points experienced whenever D7U8 hosted an event using their initial event registration and check-in process. Then I will provide a high-level, non-technical, overview of how I used Wix, blood, sweat, and tears to alleviate some of the pain.

Events, Registration, and Check-in, Oh My!

D7U8 had been utilizing an online forms platform for an extended period to manage event reservations. They would distribute emails to their subscribers containing a form link. Upon form submission, an email notification was received by D7U8, leading to an overwhelming influx of emails. Subsequently, the team manually inputted the data from these emails into spreadsheets, which were later printed and utilized for on-site event registrations.

The pain points of the process I just described were as follows:

1. There were two points of data entry. First, the guardians would fill out the form. Then, a volunteer would enter the data into a spreadsheet.

2. Guardians had to reenter their own relevant data with each child registered. Meaning, guardians had to provide their first name, last name, email, phone, address, etc... for every child they registered. Ugh!

3. The volunteer processing the emails needed to keep track of which children were with which guardian as they entered the data, from the emails, into a spreadsheet.

4. Prior to the event in question, the spreadsheet was printed out multiple times for each volunteer assisting with registration. That's a lot of wood!

5. After the event was over someone would collect the registration forms and enter who actually attended into the original spreadsheet. Bartender, one Carpal Tunnel please.

6. After all of that, the event data collected was placed on a drive in the cloud, never to be analyzed for metrics. Because who, realistically, can keep track of spreadsheet-after-spreadsheet, month-after-month, year-after-year, continuously merging them for metrics? At that point you need an expert in Excel.

Wix Will Make You Pivot.

Addressing the aforementioned issues using Wix should be straightforward, right? With the Events & Tickets app, Wix offers a solution that is easy to activate and provides various features such as reservations, RSVP, check-in, and event management. Let's explore how my approach, in conjunction with Wix's constraints, led me to swiftly overcome obstacles one after another.

The Strategy

As a reminder, the event in planning is for children in the community and each child's guardian is D7U8's contact expected to make reservations.

Let's get into the strategy step-by-step as I discuss the plot twists along the way.

Step 1: Create a ticketed event.

My primary reasons for using a Ticketed Event vs. an RSVP Event are as follows:

A) D7U8 can create tickets visitors can then order from the website.

B) Guardians can create a single order with as many guests (children) as is needed.

C) Additional data (e.g. birthday, clothing sizes, etc...) can be collected for each child.

D) Each child will get a ticket with their name on it.

E) During the event, tickets can be scanned at check-in which should mean, no mo spreadsheets at the front desk.

Task complete. Easy-peazy, George and Weezy. We're moving on up!

Step 2: Create a ticket for the event.

This particular event is free for all children attending. Therefore, only one type of ticket is necessary.

Task Complete. Winner, winner, ticket dinner!

Step 3: Customize the default event ticket registration form (TiRF).

My intention was to customize and utilize the TiRF that was automatically generated when I created the ticket in step 2. Unfortunately, after customizing and experimenting with the various options of the TiRF, it became clear that it would only address four out of the six pain points in the initial process. To me, sixty-seven percent is considered an 'F.' What the 'F', Wix?! So, where did Wix miss the mark?

One of the pain points, number 2, was that "Guardians had to reenter their own relevant data with each child registered." In Wix, when information is needed about the person making the reservation and different information is required for each guest, the TiRF consolidates all the necessary fields in one place for adding guests. Dagnabbit!

Regarding pain point 6, "...data collected was placed on a drive in the cloud, never to be analyzed for metrics." Wix Events allows administrators to export event data, such as placed orders and guest lists, into spreadsheets! To quote Terrance Howard, "dang mane, we're right back where we started mane."

Task completed with unsatisfactory results.

Step 4: Create a reservation form from scratch using a custom page, JavaScript, and the Velo Application Programming Interface (API).

By implementing this backup plan, I was able to address all the challenges of the original process. Additionally, there were significant advantages gained by developing the form using code. This method allowed me to:

• Store form data in a Wix collection, an external database, or an external API. This made it easier to aggregate event data for reports compared to using Events data alone (exported .csv).
  

• Implement custom form validations, including:

• A birthday field with age restrictions.

• An email confirmation field in the form. "Currently in Wix Forms, there is no existing field requiring visitors to validate their email address by entering it twice before submitting a form." Wix support.

• Modify user input as data was being entered into the field. For instance, the TiRF would only display an input phone number in the format 1234567890, but I used JavaScript to format the phone number as (123) 456-7890.

While there were more benefits, the ones mentioned above are the most significant, in my opinion. The most important thing is...

Task accomplished. Call me Lionel Richie, I'm dancing on the ceiling. WE ARE DONE!

Wrap Up

As of now, the event is yet to occur. Registration for the event commenced immediately after the form passed Quality Assurance. Within a span of ten days, a total of eighty-two orders were placed, resulting in the distribution of 233 tickets.

The customized form functioned flawlessly, requiring guardians to input their information only once. Adding data for each child was simple. The information is stored in collections that can be easily accessed for report generation. During the event, volunteers will be able to check in each child using the Wix Check-in Mobile App. How convenient!

Keep an eye out for upcoming articles where I will delve deeper into the technical aspects of this project. I will provide insights into the approaches used to maximize code reusability. I will also address the challenges faced when attempting to perform tasks like hide or disable the default registration form which remained accessible from the default Events page.