Providing freelance website services to Shared Hope International for a number of years, I had the opportunity to create a new conference registration website to launch their event registration.
The JuST Conference is an annual event that supports those that fight against human trafficking in the field and in the courtroom, and provides a platform to discuss care for those that are victimized.
This annual event typically sees 1500 visitors welcomed every autumn and is held in unique locations across the USA.
Defining Conference Registration System Requirements
Many out of the box conference registration systems can sell tickets. In and of itself that requirement requires little more than a simple WordPress website, with an eCommerce connection to sell simple products. However, Shared Hope had a litany of thoughtful requirements for their new conference registration site. These requirements were:
- Obtain demographic information from the buyer
- Obtain accessibility and meal requirements from every attendee
- Push the purchase into Pardot (email management) to connect into future email campaigns
- Push every attendee into SalesForce
- Host a method for customers to request a proforma invoice (common for .gov agencies) and to pay by check.
- Offer multiple SKUs for exhibitors and the various services they require.
Shared Hope International also retained the services of the Chehalem Group to facilitate and design the SalesForce side of the project. ( I highly recommend them!)
The Tool Set for a Complete Conference Registration System
While there are a number of moving parts and connections, Shared Hope and the Remarkable Team LLC decided to move forward with the following tools and systems to build a complete Conference Registration Website.
- WordPress and WooCommerce
- Foo Events with Add-Ons (Event Management for WooCommerce)
- Custom Code for Attendee Ticket Data to send to SalesForce
- Zapier to glue together the website and SalesForce
With the decision on the basic flow, all of the project stakeholders had to be heard and pain points had to be smoothed over.
The Remarkable Team offered the below flow chart as a potential data flow for all of the systems, data, and processes. While this flow chart does not necessarily adhere to any charting standards, it told the story wonderfully for the group. (If you’d like to talk about creating flow diagrams LIVE, visit our Big Paper Strategy website)
The act of website design went very well. Utilizing an eCommerce friendly WordPress template, matched with an already designed color and font theme, and the excellent provision of content from the client allowed the entire team to deliver a pleasing prototype quickly.
The back-end development was also a success, thanks in part to the excellent support received from FooEvents. – We had to modify our system to utilize the specific data sets that the FooEvents system used to identify attendees. While they did not write code for us, they did point us in the right direction with specific exemplary code snippets to replicate.
Successful Event Registration Launch
We launched the site on a Wednesday, and the first day their orders were in line and better than previous years launch dates. The client is well pleased, and I look forward to updating the system to manage multiple events in the coming months.
Conference registration can be highly customized with multiple components. I am happy to work through your needs with you. Email matt@remarkableteam.com today if you are interested in upgrading your conference registration technology too.
