The Manage Agendas wizard enables you to easily and quickly add or remove a group of registrations to/from an agenda item. You can also use the wizard to distribute registrants into a group of agenda items.

The Manage Agendas wizard is only available in Registration type reports. When the wizard runs, it will return two types of information:

• Errors – An error is returned when something prevents an agenda item from being added to or removed from a registration (for example, a time conflict on the registrant's agenda, or when an agenda item has reached capacity).

• Notes – A note is to alert you about something (for example, if you attempt to remove an agenda item from a registration that does not contain that agenda item).

Note that the Manage Agendas wizard will not add an agenda item to a registration if it creates a time overlap with an existing agenda item. Additionally, if an agenda item is full (all available inventory is gone), it will not be added to a registration.

The following options are available in the wizard:

• Assign – Assigns each selected agenda item to the group of registration

• Remove – Removes each agenda item from the group of registrations.

• Distribute – Distributed the group of registrations among the selected agenda items, in order. Once a session fills, it is skipped. The wizard will continue to run until it runs out of registrations.

• Allocate – Assigns registrants to the first agenda item until it fills, then goes to the second, etc.

You can also choose the number of agenda items you wish to assign, remove, distribute or allocate (up to 30 maximum) from the list.

You can optionally change the status of the registrations upon completion of the wizard by selecting a status from the list. If you select a registration status, you must specify when you want the registration status changed: only if all assignment changes succeed, only if at least one assignment change succeeds, or always.

On the next page of the wizard, you will be asked to select the agenda items. Note that the agenda items are sorted by date in the drop-down list, and are displayed in the following format: Start and End Times, [Code], Name, # Available/Total Inventory.

Use Case Scenarios

The Manage Agendas wizard can be used for the following scenarios:

Scenario 1: An Agenda Item is Cancelled or a Group Wishes to be Removed from an Agenda Item

If you need to cancel an agenda item – such as a class or tour, you will most likely want to remove this agenda item from your registrations and possibly, replace it with another. Similarly, a group of registrants may wish to be removed from an agenda item, or switched from one to another – from golf to tennis, for example. To remove the agenda item from your attendees' agendas, we recommend that you do the following:

Write a custom report that returns only registrations with that agenda item on their agenda and run the report. Run the Manage Agendas wizard, and select the Remove option. Select 1 from Number of Agenda Items to Manage and click Next. Select the agenda item you wish to remove. Click Next, and Finish to run the wizard.

Note: If you wish to assign a replacement agenda item, you should do that before you remove the original item. You can run the same custom report and select the Assign option in the Manage Agendas wizard to assign a new agenda item to the registrations.

Scenario 2: Random Distribution of Registrants Among Agenda Items (Maximum Diversity)

You can use the Manage Agendas wizard to randomly distribute your attendees among agenda items, such as classes or breakout sessions. This feature can be used to ensure maximum diversity in your sessions. For example, you may want to avoid having employees of the same gender or from the same branch office in sessions together.

This scenario can also be used to generate table/seating assignments for a function. In this case, you would set up each table as an agenda item, with an inventory limit equal to the number of seats. Note that the wizard currently supports only 10 agenda items at a time, so if you have a large number of tables, you will have to run the wizard multiple times.

For this scenario, we recommend that you do the following:

Write a custom report that sorts your attendees. For example, write a report that sorts by gender and office if you wish to diversify your groups based on these details. In the seating example, at a military function, you may wish to sort by rank – so that officers of various ranks are seated at the same table. Run the report, then run the Manage Agendas wizard. Select the Distribute option, and specify the number of agenda items you wish to distribute the registrations into. Note that the maximum is 10. Optionally, specify a new status for the registrations. In many cases, it is a good idea to define a custom status in your event so that you can track which registrations have been assigned to agenda items. For example, you could create a custom status called "Sessions Assigned" or "Seating Assigned." Click Next, and select the agenda items. Click Next again, and Finish to run the wizard.

Scenario 3: Allocation of Registrants to Agenda Items (Maximum Similarity)

You can use the Manage Agendas wizard to allocate registrants to agenda items. For example, you could use this feature to assign attendees to breakout rooms, so you can determine how many rooms you will need. In this case, the wizard fills the first agenda item, the moves on to the second, third, etc.

For this scenario, we recommend that you do the following:

Write a custom report that optionally sorts your attendees. If you wish to assign attendees to agenda items based on similarities, such as branch office or state, write a report that sorts on these criteria. Run the report, then run the Manage Agendas wizard. Select the Allocate option, and specify the number of agenda items you wish to distribute the registrations into. Optionally, specify a new status for the registrations. In this case, it is probably a good idea to define a custom status in your event so that you can track which registrations have been assigned to agenda items. For example, you could create a custom status called "Assigned to Room." Click Next, and select the agenda items. Click Next again, and Finish to run the wizard.

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