Creating and Managing Waitlists

Waitlists on Capitan can be used in a multitude of ways:

Automated waitlists increase the chance of running events at full capacity. More people booking onto an event means more revenue for your organization.
Waitlists let you gauge additional interest for your events, to let you know if you should offer them more frequently. Long waitlists indicate it may be worth adding more classes.
Waitlists offer a low risk way of gauging interest for a potential event. Set an event capacity's to "0" to make it waitlist-only and see how many people actually are interested in the event before committing to offering and staffing it.

Below are the steps for creating and managing waitlists for events.

Configuring Waitlists

Waitlists are managed at the Event Type level. To set up the waitlist for a specific event type, navigate to Event Setup and select the Edit option next to the event type, then navigate to the Waitlist section using the navbar. The following options are available:

Can customers join the waitlist via the Climber App when the event is at capacity? If this is set to "No", then the event's waitlist may only be managed via the Staff Site Scheduled Events page. To make the waitlist available for customers to join, set this to "Yes".

If the above is set to "Yes", an additional option, Should the waitlist count be displayed in the Climber App? is available. If this is set to "Yes", then customers using the Climber App will be shown the number of participants already on the waitlist for the event. The waitlist count is always shown on the Staff Site.

Should people be automatically invited off the waitlist when capacity becomes available? If this is set to "No", then customers must be invited off the waitlist manually by staff.

If the above is set to "Yes", an additional option, minimum number of hours before event start for automatic waitlist invite is available. This sets the time after which no further automatic invites will occur. Setting this to a nonzero value ensures customers are given sufficient notice prior to the event starting. Customers may always be manually invited off the waitlist by staff members via the Scheduled Events page, regardless of this setting.

How many hours does a waitlisted participant have to accept the spot once offered? (optional). This sets how many hours a waitlisted participant has to accept and pay (when applicable) for the event once a spot is offered to them. If left blank, the spot will be held for the participant indefinitely unless manually expired by staff.

Joining a Waitlist

When a participant is added to the Waitlist, the following information will be collected:

Participant Name and Birthday - This will be locked in and can not be edited later.
Notification Email - This email address will be notified when a spot becomes available for booking. For example, when adding a child to a waitlist, the parent's email address can be entered in the Notification Email field as they are responsible for completing the booking.

A participant may only be added to the waitlist if the event is at capacity. There are two ways a participant can be added to a waitlist:

Adding a Participant to the Waitlist from the Staff Site

On the Staff Site, waitlists are an option for all events (regardless of event type configuration). To add a participant to the waitlist, follow these steps:

From the Scheduled Events page, navigate to the event for which you want to add a participant to the waitlist. Select Open for the event and navigate to the Waitlist section.
Select the Add to Waitlist option. You will have two options:
1. Add participant via Climber App to collect participant details.
2. Add participant directly onto waitlist without collecting additional participant details. This will bypass any participant questions that pertain to this event's waitlist.

Adding a Participant to the Waitlist from the Climber App

On the Climber App, a participant may only be added to the waitlist if you have configured the event type to allow customers to add themselves to the waitlist. When a customer adds themselves to the waitlist, they will be required to provide a name, birthday and notification email.

Viewing your Waitlist Spots

Under My Bookings in the Climber App, a customer can see any of their current waitlist spots (including waitlist spots booked for them and ones they booked for others).

Accepting a Spot from a Waitlist

Customers that are invited off of the waitlist (manually or automatically) are given the choice to accept or reject the spot.

When a customer is invited off of the waitlist, the notification email entered when joining the waitlist will be sent a message with the event information, deadline to accept (if applicable) and Accept/Reject buttons.

To accept the spot, the participant must enter any event specific questions and (when applicable) pay for the booking.

Managing a Waitlist

The following are the different waitlist statuses and their various options:

Waiting

Status Explanation: This means a participant is currently waiting to be moved off the waitlist (either automatically or manually by staff).

Staff Site Option:

Invite off Waitlist - A customer can be invited off the waitlist at any time (regardless of whether the waitlist is set to automatically invite participants). If staff invite a participant off of the waitlist and the event is at capacity, the following alert will be displayed: "This event has no remaining capacity. By sending this invite, you will bypass the capacity limit, and if the invite is accepted, the event will go over capacity."

Pending

Status Explanation: This means a participant has been invited to book a spot for the event, but has not yet done so. If there is a time limit for how long a customer has to accept or reject the spot, the expiration date will appear in parentheses after the Pending status.

Staff Site Options:

Complete Booking: This will allow the staff member to accept the spot on behalf of the participant. Once staff submit this form, the participant's booking will be created and they will be removed from the waitlist. If payment is required for the booking, staff must complete payment within 15 minutes or the spot will be lost.
Modify: When modify is selected, staff have three additional options:
- Modify Booking Deadline. Staff can set a new date/time for when a participant must accept/reject the spot. Staff can leave the deadline field blank in order to have no deadline, in which case the waitlist entry will remain pending until it is manually expired.
- Expire Immediately: This will set the waitlist entry's status to "Expired", allowing another waitlisted participant to be invited to book.
- Revert to Waiting: This will set the waitlist entry's status back to "Waiting", allowing another waitlisted participant to be invited to book.

Accepted

Status Explanation: This means a participant has accepted their spot off the waitlist. Please note, if a customer accepts their spot but does not complete payment (when applicable), their booking will be canceled.

Expired

Status Explanation: This means the spot was not accepted before the deadline (which may have been set either automatically based on the waitlist configuration, or manually by staff).

Staff Site Option:

Re-invite to Book: When selected, the participant will be placed back into a pending state. If the event is at capacity, the following alert will appear "This event has no remaining capacity. By sending this invite, you will bypass the capacity limit, and if the invite is accepted, the event will go over capacity."