Profiles contain contact (name, position, email address, etc.) and profiling (demographics, product interest, business category, etc.) information for current and past attendees, and individuals who might attend future events. Profiles may be potential attendees, previous attendees, existing customers or members, exhibitors, sponsors, etc. 

A new profile is created automatically with every new registration entered into the database. Each account has its own database of profiles, enabling you to separate the contact information of different companies or divisions into different accounts.

The Difference Between Profiles and Registrations

A profile contains the information about an individual that does not change from one event to the next, while a registration contains information about an attendee that is specific to one event.

If your account's customers or members attend more than one of your events, then you should use the profile database to collect and store information from one event to the next, rather than asking the attendee to re-enter that information with each new registration.

Setting up Custom Profile Information for an Account

Since each account has its own profiles database, the account structure must be established prior to setting up custom profile questions for an account. (See Planning the account structure for your business) After the account structure is finalized, then you need to determine what profiling information you want to collect for each account, remembering that profile information should be independent of any event.

For example, if you have a Technical Group account and a Marketing Group account, then sample custom profile questions might be:

• Technical Group Account

• • Select job classification (IT, developer, webmaster, other)

  • Select areas of interest (Software, hardware, networks, other)

• Marketing Group Account

• • Years of experience (>20, 15-20, 10-15, 5-10, <5)

  • Media used (TV, radio, newspaper, magazines, email, other)

In the above cases, the answers to each custom question is something that provides more detailed information about a specific profile, and it is independent of any single event.
Bad examples of profile questions are:

• Are you bringing a guest?

• Will you attend the pre-event dinner function?

The answers to those example questions are event-specific and may change from one event to the next, so they should be created as custom registration questions, not as profile custom questions.

Once you have decided what questions should be stored with profiles, you can create up to 30 questions of any type (including pre-defined answer options) for your account. The custom profile questions are created in Account Settings > Custom Profile Data.

How to set up custom profile questions for an account (details)

How to set up custom registration questions for an event (details)

Managing Profile Information

The profile database can be managed independently of a single event. Click the Profiles tab to search for an individual profile record (using QuickSearch or Query Profiles), and then select a record to view or modify. Profiles contain the following information:

• Contact information

• Other information (custom profile questions)

• Alternate address

• History

Modify profile information (details)

Sending Messages to Profiles

A user can send email messages to individual or groups of profiles. Common messages include:

• Invitations to an event

• Solicitations to exhibit or sponsor an event

• Reminders to potential attendees who have not registered yet

• Routine communication (newsletters, etc.)

How to send email messages to an individual or group

Allowing Profiles to Access Information Online

Profiles can use their username and password to access their personal information online, in order to make modifications to their profile record, or to register for an event. The username and password combination must be unique, and is created in one of these ways:

• The planner sets up the online registration form to collect a username and password. In this case, Certain validates that the username is unique in the database, before accepting the username request.

• The planner assigns the username and password when they create the registration (manually or via data import).

• The planner has the Certain automatically generate a username and password when the profile is created.

Modify profile information (details)

Planning the account structure for your business

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