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What's new with PlanetReg

2024

01 MAR - All email sent to registrants from the PlanetReg system is now sent 'From' confirm@planetreg.com as the default. This change is due to the widespread use of restrictive DMARC policies. If you would like to have such emails to be sent from your email address, contact us to see what is involved in setting this up.

COMING LATER THIS YEAR

- Transfer registrations from one event to another.

2023

Check in attendees via scanning QR code provided on tickets or confirmation.

 - for more on this see 'check in attendees' at the bottom of the Manage tab for your event

PlanetReg has two modes of operation, Basic mode and Pro mode. These modes have been in operation as of December 28, 2019.

For a discussion on these modes see:

Basic vs Pro Mode

2019

Two new features, available when you first log into your account, will allow you to search multiple events for registrants and create extracts/ reports spanning multiple events - see: 

Multiple Events: Lookup Attendee and ME Reports

You can now see your Merchant Account information on the My Accounts page. Merchant Account information is only used/ available if you are using anything but the standad Paypal account to collect money - see:

My account settings

Surveys can now be exported as a PDF file for archival storage, printing or general distribution, see:

Survey

There have been several updates to the report builder.

The Roster Report has been considerably expanded.

The Financial Reports have been expanded to include 4 reports now.

There is a new section where you can create forms for:

Registrant Sign In.

Registrant information (what did I sign up for).

Waiver signature form, so you can have a physical signature on each waiver.

There is a new section where you can create PDF facsimiles of your main page and questions page.

See:

​

Report builder

​Ticket stubs can be added to each confirmation via a check on the Extras page in Setup, see:

Event Tickets

​You now have the option of adding a processing fee to your registrants total fees. This is available only if you are passing the PlanetReg service fee on to your registrants, see:

Processing Fee

​Our current list of supported credit card processing gateways:

Authorize.Net 

eProcessing Network (ePN)

eWAY

Paypal Payflow Pro

Sage Payment Solutions

USA ePay

SecurePay (USA)

SecurePay (AUS)

GoEmerchant

Fat Zebra

Paystream

Stripe

BluePay

Merchant One

Elavon - Converge

BlueFin - PayConex

eWay Australia

Payeezy - First Data

CardConnect

MX Merchant

Payment Data Systems

  ​2018 

​1. You can now set up your event to accept partial payments. The system does not automatically send reminders for subsequent payments, but it is quite simple to send these reminders using the email attendees function.

​Partial or timed payments

2. You may set up your event to skip the first page and go directly to the questions page. This option is not available with free registrations. You should think carefully about using this option since it has several side effects - i.e. it automatically registers attendees using the first registration type on the Layout page, the attendee never sees the first page which usually has relevant information regarding an event. This feature, as well as others, is avaialble only for Pro mode events.

Auto Register

​3. Our current list of supported gateways for payment processing:

Authorize.Net  http://reseller.authorize.net/application/?id=5554250

eProcessing Network (ePN)
eWAY
Paypal Payflow Pro
Paypal Payments Pro
Sage Payment Solutions
USA ePay
Payment Express - PXPay
St.George Bank
Bank of New Zealand
Camtech
SecurePay (USA)
SecurePay (AUS)
GoEmerchant
Fat Zebra
Paystream
Stripe
BluePay
Merchant One
Elavon – Converge

4. For users who operate many events, we have added an Administrative Code which you can use to categorize events. The code will show up in all csv files and can be used to filter events on the 'my events' page.

Administrative Code

​​5. All help videos are now on YouTube, which does a better job of sizing videos for phones and tablets. The help system itself is now much more phone and tablet friendly.

6. There is a much expanded help section on using the mini-editor.

Using the mini-editor

7. Deleted and archived events may continue to show up in Google or other search engines long after they are over. If someone clicks on the event link they will get an "oops - can't find that event".

8. If you prefer to have a complete copy of the help system locally, you can now download a .pdf file of the help system. This then can be used as a complete user manual for the system. The only difference is that videos must be played via YouTube and you will see a black rectangle where the video used to be and under that a small icon: When you click that icon, the video will be played in a browser window.

The pdf is here: 

2017

1. Standard questions can now be limited to the lead (first) registration.

Standard questions

2. You can now add a service fee to registrants that pay with Paypal or a credit card, or alternatively have a fixed service fee that covers all or some of your processing costs.

Taxes and Fees

3. Sessions now allow for multiple choice of items (check boxes instead of radio buttons).

Sessions

4. On request only, we can condition registration types so that only one can be picked.

5. You can now share survey results with others via a unique URL, shown on the survey results page. This URL exposes the survey results only, without allowing admin access to your event. This is primarily useful for users who do not wish to use Excel to convert the survey results to other formats.

Survey

1. New Open and Close Date options.

You can now specify more details regarding opening and close dates for your events.

See Open and Close Dates

2. Registrant change and cancel options.

You can now allow registrants to change and/or cancel their own registrations.

See Allow registrant Update and Cancel

3. If you maintain a database of registrants (i.e. a membership list), you can pass that data to a registration form.

See Pre Populate Forms (API)

4. Discount codes may be quantity restricted now. If you have a limited number of discounts available, you can specify a limit.

See Discount codes

5. Taxes and Fees may be added to your event pricing.

See Taxes and Fees

6. There are several new selection options in the Report Builder.

See Report builder

7. There are several new options available when setting up registration types.

See Registration type

8. You can optionally offer your registrants an option to automatically add your event to their electronic calendars.

See Include an Add to Calendar button

9. Free events are now limited to one ad supported event. Subsequent free events that are operated at the same time must have ads removed (.50 per checkout charge). We have also changed our terms of service regarding high volume free events and may either restrict the volume or ask for a subscription to offset high costs to support large volumes of free registrations.

Also, we have noticed that a few clients do not understand our terms regarding events that must be paid for by registrants. Those events are not free, regardless of how the client collects funds. Any event that requires payment, must have the payment noted in the registration and thus will be charged a fee by PlanetReg.

10. We have added an explanation regarding exactly how our inventory control functions. This is occasionally an issue for projects that have critical availability and short registration windows.

See Inventory control

11. As an administrator, you may now update/ change registration type on any registration.

See Attendee maintenance

12. We have added examples of the Paypal Pro vs Paypal business account usage to the description of Paypal Pro.

See Paypal PRO

Sessions provide a way to ask for priced and/or inventory controlled items on a registrant by registrant basis. The traditional usage of the word implies a list of options/ classes/ etc., occurring at the same time, with registrants asked to choose from one of several. The option can also be used for simply asking individual registrants to choose optional, priced or unpriced options.

The following table will give you a guide as to when to use which type of question format on the Questions page:

Need Answer for each registrant	Need Price	Need Inventory	Use
NO	YES	YES	Additional Items
NO	YES	NO	Additional Items
NO	NO	YES	Additional Items
YES	NO	NO	Custom Question
YES	YES	NO	Sessions
YES	NO	YES	Sessions
YES	YES	YES	Sessions

See Sessions for additional examples and more details.

You now have the option to personalize your event link. Rather than: htttp://www.planetreg.com/E1119124098723 you can publish:
http://www.planetreg.com/2013 Denver Annual 10k For Hunger.

See Publish event for more details.

You can now have your events populate a landing page automatically. This feature is designed for users who have on-going events, such as training sessions. As soon as you open an event, it will appear on your landing page and will persist until you close it.

See   Dynamic event display on landing page

If you have an event with inventory control at the registration type level, you can now enter a combined inventory that cannot be exceeded. An example might be an event where you have a maximum of 100 seats and you have 2 registration types - one for regular members and one for guests. Should you want to limit guests to 20 seats, you can now specify your 100 seat maximum, while also limiting guests to 20 registrations maximum while allowing up to 100 regular members. The total will not exceed 100.

See  Setting overall inventory

Free events in PlanetReg are ad supported. If you prefer not to see ads, there is a link on the event dashboard to turn off ads. There is a cost for that - .50 per checkout. You can turn ads back on at any time.

See Event home overview

If you wish, you can use the event dashboard to create a colorful 'register' button for your web site. There are a few restrictions depending on the type of web software you are using, but they are explained in the new function.

See  Publish event

In the past, PlanetReg required a contact box at the beginning of each registration in the questions screen. This has been changed so that you will not see that box if you require email address in the standard questions. If you do, the contact panel will not be created. A contact section will still be created, but it will use the email address of the first registration entered. If there are multiple people entered for a registration, the first email will become the contact. The review screen will continue to show the contact box and there will be an edit button for that box if the registrant prefers to have a different contact email address - including an email address that is not present on the registration.

The 'Find me' panel on the registration screen will now allow either an email or last name as an entry. Last name is not required.

See Using the email standard question

Paypal help goes into more detail regarding how PlanetReg interfaces with Paypal see Paypal issues for details. We also discuss what to do when your Paypal processing fails When my Paypal fails.

For heavy credit card users, we suggest you take a look at: Paypal PRO, and if you are a non profit organization, you should take advantage of a significant discount on your credit card and other processing fees with Paypal Have a non profit - get a break from Paypal.

The FAQ section has been separated into new categories that make it easier to find what you are looking for:

Fees
Setup
Operation
Paypal
Email

See also