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:

1. 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.
2. 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.

Participants outside the event type's age range: when you add a customer directly and their age falls outside the event type's Minimum Participant Age or Maximum Participant Age, the form shows a warning naming the customer and the limit, such as "Ava Smith is 7. This event type requires participants to be at least 8 at the event's start." Add To Waitlist stays disabled until you check the "Bypass the age restriction for the participant listed above. This will be recorded in the activity log" option. The age is measured at the event's start. On an event type's waitlist, which has no single start date, the customer's age today is used. A customer with no birthday on file is never flagged.

The age range is always enforced in the Climber App: adding a participant via the Climber App refuses anyone outside the age range, so use the direct option to make an exception.

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.

Before sending any invitation, staff can add an Invite Note (optional). It appears in the invitation email underneath the event information and the booking deadline, and it is saved on the waitlist entry, so a later resend is prefilled with the same note. Clearing the field sends the invitation with no note.

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

Accepting never fails on age or capacity: the participant's age and the event's capacity are settled when the invitation is sent, not when it is accepted. A family invited with the age restriction bypassed, or invited to an event already at capacity, completes the booking the same way as any other invitation.

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."

Inviting a participant outside the event type's age range: the invitation form shows the same age warning as the Add To Waitlist form, and Send Invite stays disabled until the bypass option is checked. Each bypass is recorded in the activity log with the staff user who sent the invitation, and again each time the invitation is sent with Resend Invitation. Example: a 7-year-old is on the waitlist for a session with a Minimum Participant Age of 8 and turns 8 the week after it starts. Staff check the bypass option and send the invite, and the family books the spot without being stopped by the age restriction.

Automatic invitations are not held back by age: a waitlisted participant outside the age range is still invited automatically when a spot opens, and the activity log records the bypass with no staff user.

The invitation form has an optional Booking Deadline (optional) date and time, which sets when the invitation expires. Picking a date fills in a time of 11:59 PM, so the deadline falls at the end of that day unless you change it. Leave both fields blank to use the event type's "How many hours does a waitlisted participant have to accept the spot once offered?" setting; if that setting is also blank, the invitation does not expire. Example: to give every invited family until the end of October 1, pick October 1 and keep 11:59 PM, whichever day the invitation is sent.

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.

Deadlines are in the event location's time zone: the deadline fields name the time zone they use, and the expiration shown after the Pending and Expired statuses is in the same time zone. Staff viewing the waitlist from another time zone see the same deadline the participant was sent.

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 20 minutes or the spot will be lost.
• Resend Invitation: This sends the participant the same invitation email again. The entry stays Pending. Two optional fields are available before sending: New Booking Deadline (optional), which replaces the entry's current deadline, and Invite Note (optional), which is prefilled with the note from this entry's last invitation. Leave the deadline blank to keep the entry's current deadline, or to leave an entry that has no deadline without one. When to use this: a participant says the invitation email never reached them, or the deadline is close and they need longer to respond.
• 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.

Resending every pending invitation at once: the Resend Pending Invitations button at the top of an event's Waitlist section sends every Pending invitation for that event again in one action, instead of one entry at a time. It is disabled when the event has no pending invitations. The form lists each pending participant with their current deadline and sends each invitation unchanged: the booking deadline and invite note stay as they are, and every entry stays Pending. Check "Send invite to linked parents & guardians" to copy linked parents and guardians, as on any invitation. A participant outside the event type's age range shows the same age warning as a single invitation, and the bypass must be acknowledged before the Resend … Invitations button, which shows the count, is enabled. When it finishes, a message says how many invitations were resent and names any that could not be, with the reason. When to use this: a session changeover has left a class with dozens of unaccepted invitations and the booking deadline is near.

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." The form offers the same optional Booking Deadline (optional) as an invitation off the waitlist.

Viewing Waitlists Across Events

The Waitlists tab under Scheduled Events lists waitlists across events, so staff can see which events have people waiting without opening each one. It has two pages: one for waitlists shared across an event type, and one for waitlists that belong to a single event. An event type's Waitlist Scope setting, in the Waitlist section of Event Setup, decides which kind it uses.

Event Type-Wide Waitlists

Go to Event Type-Wide Waitlists (Events > Scheduled Events > Waitlists > Event Type-Wide Waitlists). The page lists each event type whose Waitlist Scope is Shared across event type, with its # Active Waitlist Entries. The dropdown above the list switches between Active Event Types, Draft Event Types, and Retired Event Types, and selecting a row opens that event type's waitlist.

This page was previously named Event Type Waitlists and sat directly under Scheduled Events. Old links to it redirect here.

Example: a Summer Youth Team event type shares one waitlist across all of its sessions. One family waiting for any session shows as 1 in # Active Waitlist Entries.

Individual Event Waitlists

Go to Individual Event Waitlists (Events > Scheduled Events > Waitlists > Individual Event Waitlists). The page lists upcoming events that have participants on a waitlist, one row per event. Waiting and Pending show how many entries are in each status; see Managing a Waitlist for what each status means. The Location column appears only for organizations with more than one location. A multi-part event shows its number of parts after its name.

Select Open, or anywhere in a row, to go to that event's Waitlist section, where staff invite participants off the waitlist.

Edit Filters opens these filters, and the active ones appear next to the button:

• Location: shown for organizations with more than one location. It starts on the staff user's default location; All lists every location.
• Event Type: limits the list to one event type.
• Event Start Date: an On or after date and an On or before date. Leave both blank to list events that have not yet started.
• "Show every event in the date range, including events with no waiting or pending entries" option: lists events with no one on the waitlist, with 0 in both counts.

Export List opens the Export Individual Event Waitlists dialog. Change the Download File Name if needed, check the columns to include under Export columns (Select All checks every one), and select Export to download a CSV with every event that matches the current filters, not only the page on screen. The columns cover what the table shows plus Event ID, Event Occurrence Name, Event Start Timestamp, Event End Timestamp, Time Zone, Event Number Of Parts, Event Is Private?, Event Capacity, Event Type ID, Event Schedule Type, Location ID, # of Active Waitlist Entries (Waiting plus Pending), and Staff Site URL, which opens the event's Waitlist section.

Events on a shared waitlist show 0: an event whose event type shares one waitlist shows 0 in both counts, and appears only when the show-every-event option is on. Its waitlist is on Event Type-Wide Waitlists. Canceled events and events of rolling event types are never listed.

Example: to find who needs an invitation this week, set On or after to today and On or before to seven days from now, then select Open on each event with a nonzero Waiting count. A Kids Climb Club session with 3 waiting and 0 pending is ready for invitations. A session with 0 waiting and 12 pending a few days before its booking deadline is the one to open and select Resend Pending Invitations on.