Creating Meeting Fees that are ‘Special Deals’
NOTE: Buy one get one deals do not work unless the Infinite Fee Date Ranges Upgrade is in place. You can look to see at the available upgrade list to see if this upgrade is not in place for you.
Step 1
Staff should set the meeting for Group Registration because Special Deals Quantity Pricing is only available with Group Registration; NOT with classic flow.
Step 2
Staff should set up Fees that are Special Deals on the Intranet-side.
These are stand-alone fees (not sub-fees of existing ones). i.e., staff will add additional fee codes based on quantity, each with its own account code, sort order, name, etc.
These fees are similar to quantity-based pricing in Commerce Store …
- Commerce handles quantity pricing with separate fees, so we wanted to be as consistent as possible between modules.
- Commerce uses min and max quantities and has validation that looks for breaks in the min/max flow. But this can be tricky with registration, so we’ve simply put in a Minimum field and no Maximum to allow the last fee to cover all quantities.
Reporting Note: Many meeting reports report by member fee code, and the date range functionality is all based on separate fees rather than sub-fees, so having these be separate fees allows this existing reporting to continue to function well whether deals are involved or not.
Step 3
Staff should reflect the type of quantity fee that this is in the Fee Name (e.g., Member Quantity 5 or more).
When setting up a registration fee, staff have two additional fields once Group Registration is turned on.
Staff have a choice between two types of ‘deals’: a Group Quantity-based discount fee and a Rule-based deal fee.
If a Deal is quantity-based, you’ll make the deal a Minimum Group Size deal …
- What is minimum group size
- The field is a numeric field that defaults to null/blank.
- Staff will fill in the minimum number here. e.g., if a quantity discount is 5 or more, then the minimum number to put here is ‘5’.
- Once you fill in a number, then a second new field ‘opens’ up and appears .
- Is Minimum Quantity based on Group Size or Number of Registrants?
- Defaults to “All Registrants in Group” if all the association cares about is that the group itself meets the minimum.
- Also available is “Only Registrants Using this Fee” which will validate that at least 5 users are actually registered at the quantity fee before allowing the coordinator to continue.
If a Deal is rule-based you will choose ‘Buy one Get One‘ and must answer 3 critical questions …
- How many registrations do you sign up for before a registrant qualifies for this special fee? (If you’re doing ‘Buy 2 get 1’, the number is 2. If you’re doing ‘Buy 1 get 3, the number is 1)
- Which fees quality? (Multi-select of available registration fees.)
- How many special fees do you qualify for at this point? (Unlimited is blank, or any other number. So if you’re doing ‘Buy 2 get 1’, the number is 1. If you’re doing ‘Buy 1 get 3, the number is 3)
Step 4 : WWW side behavior/display changes appropriately
Staff should craft the name of the fee itself to reflect the fact that the fee is a quantity discount.
Note: In Commerce, there is a graphical “Quantity Discount” box that the user clicks on, and then sees the quantity discounts, but we have gotten mixed feedback on this and are not trying to repeat it.
The minimum-quantity fee will only show if a group is the number of individuals (including placeholders) to qualify for the rate.
If the group qualifies for a minimum-quantity fee, this rate will show in the meeting fee selection list.
As with any other fee code, the order of the list is determined by the Fee Code of the fee. Staff setting up the meeting should keep this in mind when determining these codes and orders. For example, if there is a low group rate for more than 5 staff but a SUPER LOW rate for board members, then you might want to make sure that the board rate is higher in the sort than the group rate, so that it will be seen.
If the association staff have chosen to make this minimum-quantity-fee dependent on a certain number of registrants choosing it, there will be additional validation on the ‘Fee’ page when the coordinator tries to continue to the next page in the process.
What This Upgrade Is Not
Deals do not include any of the following nuances:
- This is a WWW feature only and is planned to always be this way. On the staff/intranet side, meeting staff can assign whatever fees they want to individuals, so validation is not compatible with this flexibility.
- If staff cancel one of the registrations within the group, there is no automated recalculation/rebilling if that calculation puts them below the quantity threshold.
- This upgrade does not include validated group rates for events within meetings; it is for the meeting registration fee only. We have not had any requests for such a feature at this point, so are not currently planning for such an expansion.