Importing additional guests into an event
In this article:
Enable your event to accept additional guests
Enabling the "Additional guests" setting for an event changes some aspects of the event. To determine whether you should use the "Additional guests" setting in your event, please read this article and consider whether it would be beneficial, given your organization's needs and goals regarding the event, to do so.
It is possible to import constituents and guests into events that you've enabled for additional guest tracking. To enable your event for additional guest tracking, edit the event:
...and then select the checkbox to enable additional guests within it:
NOTE: Keep in mind that if you enable your event to track additional guests, it will not longer be possible to make that event recurring.
Import additional guests into your event
This section walks you through an example import of additional guests into your event. Let's start by looking at the spreadsheet we'll upload. It's a simple one, containing just one row of data:
Here's what each of the columns represents:
First name: First name of the constituent (the primary invitee for this pair)
Last name: Last name of the constituent
Gen. event name: General event name, meaning the event we're adding this constituent to
Guest first name: The first name of the constituent's guest
Guest last name: The constituent guest's last name
Is a guest?: This required field tells LGL to create this person as a guest of another invitee
Gen. event name: This ensures the guest will be associated with the proper event
When we upload this file, the columns will all map automatically because we're using the exact same names for our column headers as the LGL field names. However, you will need to adjust the Invitation record number to tell LGL which fields belong to the guest invitation record versus to the primary invitee's invitation.
Here we are setting four fields to Invitation #2:
The record preview will show that this row represents both a constituent and a guest for this event:
Other event fields and custom fields for the event
It's likely that your import will be more complex, involving more data points, than the one shown above. For example, you might want to include standard event fields for your additional guest, such as:
- Attended?
- RSVP Status
You can certainly include those for both your primary constituent and additional guests. Just make sure to set the invitation # to the correct number (i.e., if these fields are for the additional guest in the example above, set the Invitation # to "2").
NOTE: It is not possible to upload data for custom fields for additional guests.
You can still upload custom fields for your primary constituent/invitee, as always, by setting the Flex Importer show custom fields for a specific event.
