The waitlist feature works when limits are assigned to registration options on your form. Once a limit is reached, a waitlist option will automatically show on the form if you have enabled it for the field. If space becomes available because an existing registration was changed or deleted or because more space was added, the system will automatically assign the spot to someone on the waitlist for that item or alert them by email that a spot is available to claim.
There are several parts to setting up waitlists, please use this list to help ensure your form is properly set up for how you need it to work.
To get more information about many of the settings when doing your setup, hover over grey question icons -
Setting up a Waitlist
These are the general steps to follow when setting up a waitlist:
- Add Limits - go to the limits tab under advanced settings and add your limit. See help on adding limits if needed.
- Add or edit fields where you want to have a waitlist option
- add a checkbox, radio button or drop down list field or go into an existing one
- Choose how limits are applied, this will trigger the waitlist options to show, see the image below:
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Some default waitlist text will appear. This is the text that will appear on the form when an item is sold out and the waitlist options appear. You can edit this text as needed.
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Finish setting up your field options and apply the limits.
- Choose what happens when space becomes available for waitlisted fields.
In the Form Setup area, go to Advanced Options then to the Waitlist tab.
- Choose one of the 3 options for what to do when space becomes available:
- Do nothing - this is best if you want to collect waitlist details as people register, but then decide who will get any available spot and manually and let the registrants know.
- Automatically Assign - with this options the system will choose the first person on the waitlist and give them the spot they requested. You will want to configure an email that the system will send when a spot is assigned to let the registrant know. See below for some suggested text.
- Email the next person on the list - if you want the system to simply notify the next person on the waitlist and then let them choose if they want the spot or not choose this option. In most cases you will want to have enabled form logins so that the registrants can login and claim their spot. If you don't enable logins, you can direct registrants to contact you directly and then manually assign the spot. See below for suggested email wording for this option.
For steps to how to enable Form Logins: Click here
- Do nothing - this is best if you want to collect waitlist details as people register, but then decide who will get any available spot and manually and let the registrants know.
- Add the Waitlist Block Merge Field to thank you pages and confirmation emails (optional)
- You may want to make it extra clear to registrants that they are waitlisted and not registered for certain items on your form. To do this you can insert the merge field called "Registration Details - All Waitlist Details" into the confirmation email and on the thank you text pages. This field will only show up where you insert it if the registrant selected a waitlist option on the form. If it shows up, it will include any text that you enter for the merge field on the Waitlist settings page plus details of what they are waitlisted for.
- Test your form
- To test the waitlist functionality, temporarily change a limit to be 0 for a field where you have a waitlist enabled and then load the form, you should see the waitlist options show up.
- Submit a test registration selecting to be on the waitlist.
- Change the limit so that space is available for the sold out option.
- Check that the waitlisted test registration gets the spot assigned/gets notified depending on how you have the waitlist set up.
- Remember to change your limit back to the proper value.
- Check the Waitlist Report
- Under reports - more reports you will see a waitlist report. This report shows you who is on the waitlist, when they were added, who was notified, etc.
Notes on how the waitlist feature works
Please review these points to understand how this feature works:
- There is a process in the system that runs every 5 minutes that checks for changes to the waitlist settings and limits. If you increase a limit, it could be up to 5 minutes before emails are sent to people on the waitlist or the spots are auto assigned.
- If you have people on a waitlist and increase a limit, the space will first go to people on the waitlist. If there is more space added than there are people on the waitlist, the remaining spots will be available on the form.
- If people on the waitlist don’t claim the spots within the specified time, that space will become available on the form to new registrants.
- If someone gets an email that a spot opened up and they don’t claim the spot, their waitlist selection is cleared.
- If you have limits shared between multiple forms, the waitlist feature will work only with the manually assign mode.
- If you have group registration on your form with waitlists enabled for options within the group section, the main registrant will receive the waitlist notification emails. If the registrant needs to login to claim the spot and more than one person in that registration are on the waitlist, the main registrant will be able to choose who gets the spot.
- When a form is closed to registrations, all auto assigning of spots and notifying of available space is stopped.
- If a registration has the pending status and they are on a waitlist, they will still get assigned a spot or emailed about a spot if one becomes available.
- If you delete a registrant that had been notified of a open spot, and they are still in the period where they could have claimed it, the second person on the list gets notified right away. If the first registration is restored, the second person will not be able to claim the spot as they will be second in line for the spot again.
- Ticket sales forms (or forms using the value limit)
When you are using a value limit with a waitlist, the waitlist options that show up are for the total number of tickets a registrant wants, not for how many tickets they want to be on the waitlist for. For example if field is setup to allow the selection of 1 to 10 tickets and there are only 4 available, the waitlist will show options for 5 to 10. If the registrant wants 6 tickets they would select the 4 available and then choose 6 in the waitlist option.
This situation will only occur when the number available is less than the number the field is set up to allow registrants to select, but it’s not fully sold out. Once the items is fully sold out, only the waitlist options will show on the form. To make this clear to registrants, the waitlist text should include text such as “Waitlist - choose the total number of tickets you wanted to purchase. If space becomes available we will notify you by email.”
Warning - be careful using the auto assign spots option with tickets. For some ticketed events, people may only want the tickets if they get the full number of tickets they requested. Using auto assign means that someone wanting 2 tickets could get assigned just 1 tickets if a spot became available. To avoid this, you many want to set the system to manually assign or notify when space if available.
Suggested Email Wording
Email to registrant when space is auto assigned:
Dear [First Name]
This email is to let you know that you are now registered for the following items that you were waitlisted for:
[WaitlistFieldNotification]
If you have any questions, please call [FormContactName] at [FormContactPhone].
Thank you.
Email to registrant to tell them that space is available:
Dear [First Name]
This email is to let you know that there is now space available for the following items that you were waitlisted for:
[WaitlistFieldNotification]
To claim the spot(s) please login to your registration at:
[FormLoginLink]
Password - [LoginPassword]
You have (enter amount of time) to claim this spot.
If you have any questions, please call [FormContactName] at [FormContactPhone].
Thank you.
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