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New Box Office Features |
Coupon information copied from Venue record to new performance recordThe process of creating a new performance now copies the coupon information from the Venue record to the new performance record so that you only have to enter the coupon information once and it will be applied to all the performances you create using that Venue. Once the performance record is created, changes to the Venue record do not affect it. Performance and show date entered by picking date from calendarThe performance date field now has a date picker widget that lets you click on the performance date. The same is true for the Show sort date. Subscription order statusThe boxoffice can now maintain the Subscription order status: Active, Boxoffice only or Inactive. When the Subscription order is in Active status, the link for subscription orders appears at the top of the Available performances page. Order time membership authenticationOnce TicketStage enables membership paytype for the theater, the payment selection step of the patron order process will present a drop down box with credit card and membership as the paytype for each seat in the order. Typically the theater will instruct members to enter some identifying information such as their name and telephone number in the membership information field. If the theater uploads the membership information to TicketStage, including an email and password then the system can do the authentication of memberships seats when processing the order. See details at Order time membership authentication Added payment type selection to order display formThe Display/Download Order selection form now has a Order Payment Type section:
Summary order reports has section totaling different price text valuesStarting 4/19/2010 around 4 PM, the system collects and stores the price text. The summary report has a section that totals the seats for each price type for each performance. Orders entered before 4/19/2010 do not have the price text saved so the report will not include those orders. Summary order reports has section totaling the use of coupon codes when presentIf any of the selected order in the report have a coupon code, the report adds a section that summarizes the coupon use. It totals the number of orders, ticket total, and discount for each coupon code. Order display and download now include a separate column for contributionsThe list of orders displayed from the Edit, display or download orders now has a new column that displays the contribution amount. The downloaded order information now has the contribution column as well. Credit Paid Reports now include archived orders up to two years old and ticket net, contribution and contribution net columnsPrior to this the Credit Paid Report list of check dates only included orders for unarchived shows. So depending on how soon a show was archived, the credit report might not be accessible. The check dates and the underlying reports are now display for all orders within the last two years. Three new columns have been added: contribution and contribution net to the theater, and one that totals the ticket net (Theater net minus contribution net and subscription net) System requires email for boxoffice credit ordersStarting May 1, 2009, the system requires an email in order to process a credit order. This will ensure that the patron will receive a confirmation email reminding them how the charge will appear on their credit card bill. Please adjust your boxoffice procedures to collect the email address along with the other credit information. The reason we require the patron's email is because without that, they never receive any notification that the charge will be listed on their bill as MMCIS/Ticketstage. So when they get their bill they don't recognize it and they often lodge a complaint with their credit card company and we are charged $20 for having to produce proof that it is a valid charge. The bank doesn't return that $20 even if the charge turns out to be valid. Select orders that have been reseatedThe order selection page has a new option that lets you limit the orders to those that have been reseated.
Payment selection screen text; Credit Only paytype for a performanceTwo new options have been added to the Performance Maintenance screen. The first allows you to specify special instructions for the payment selection screen during the patron order process. This is the screen that follows the seat selection. For example, one theater used this to explain a pricing error in a printed flyer. The second option allows you to restrict payment type to credit card only for that performance. This option only appears if the default paytypes for the Theater include Membership. Canceling Subscription OrdersThe system now allows you to cancel open subscription orders. Up until now it had just ignored the request. Assigned SeatingA third performance type has been added to Reserved and General Admission: Assigned Seating. Assigned seating is similar to General Admission in that the patron does not get to select the exact seat. The boxoffice will assign the seats and notify the patron. At some future time, the system will permit the boxoffice to use the the reseat capability to allocate the seats in the system so that the seating chart will reflect the actual assigned seating. Coupon support addedTicketStage supports coupons for discounts on tickets. Coupons are associated with a performance. The performance edit screen has a coupon section right below the seat price maintenance section. The coupon fields are: Coupon Code: The code that the patron must enter to get the discount. This code cannot contain a colon character (:) To establish multiple coupons for a whole show, enter the coupon information in the venue record before creating the performances. To delete a coupon, blank out the coupon field and update the performance. Each time you add a coupon and update the performance (or venue) record, the system will give you a new coupon entry row at the bottom so that you can add an unlimited number of coupons. If a performance has a coupon code associated with it, the patron payment screen will include a field to enter a coupon code.
If a patron enters an invalid coupon code or a valid coupon code that has expired (count has gone to zero or end date has passed), the system will ignore the discount and display the reason next to the coupon code in the order display. If a valid coupon is entered, the system calculates the order discount by multiplying the coupon discount amount by the number of paid tickets (i.e., it will not count seats paid for by membership). The system will then subtract that many uses from the use count. Currently if there are more paid tickets on an order than there are remaining uses (as long as the remaining uses is greater than 0), the system will give the discount for all of those tickets, resulting in an overall use count that may be greater than the specified coupon max use count. Coupon can be limited to a specified number of tickets per orderThe coupon specification on the performance maintenance screen has a Uses/Order field. If you put a number in this field, the system will limit the coupon discount to a maximum of that number for each order. So if the coupon discount is $2 and the Uses/Order field is 2, an order for 1 ticket will get a $2 discount, an order for 2 will get a $4 discount, orders for 3 or more will also get $4. Confirmation email subject now contains Theater nameThe subject of the confirmation email patrons receive for regular orders, contributions, or subscriptions now reads: TicketStage for THEATERNAME Confirmation: xxxxx-xxxxx Limited Access LoginsYou can now request that a login be restricted to the following capabilities:
All other functions are prohibited, including creating shows or performances, member record maintenance, updating theater options, display or access to credit information. Just request this when updating or creating a user login. Subscription Order ReportThe Order Report selection screen contains a "Limit to Subscriptions" choice. The resulting report lists the order number, date, name, order total, subscription total, fee total and contribution. Contribution (Donation) paymentsTicketStage supports online collection of donations or contributions. Theaters can ask for donations separately or as part of a ticket order. See the full explanation here Preview subscription order formThere is a new link on the Theater Options page if you have a subscription form that lets you preview that form before it goes into production. Credit Paid reportYou can now view your credit paid reports from the Reports menu item. Choose Credit Paid Reports from the Reports drop down menu. Print confirmation from boxoffice order completionThere is now a Print Order Confirmation link on the order display, order edit, and closed order edit pages that will display a confirmation suitable for printing in a new window for that order. Membership or subscription order processingThe system allows membership or subscription orders to be processed. See the detailed explanation of this feature. Ability to clone an orderThe system now allows you to "clone" an order from the display or edit order screens. This allows you to enter multiple orders for the same patron without having to re-enter the patron information each time. Click on the "Clone this Order" button at the top of the Display Order screen or at the bottom with the other buttons on the Edit Order screen. This copies all the information except for the performance and seating information to a new order, and puts you into the select performance screen. If you do not immediately select a performance for the new order, you can resume assigning the performance and seats by clicking on the Reseating button on the Edit, Display, Download orders screen. Confirmation email messageThe order edit page contains a new field: Confirmation Note. The contents of this field are included in the confirmation email sent when the boxoffice clicks on the "Update and send confirmation email" button for this order. This allows the boxoffice to include messages about reseating or other adjustments to an order so the patron can distinguish between the original confirmation email and the updated one. Outlet Ticket HandlingA new Outlet order source value has been added. This new order source is totaled in a new column in the Number of Seats by Order Source summary report. The boxoffice can use this in conjunction with the Outlet paytype to maintain visibility of seats that are on consignment to an outlet while producing counts of seats actually sold through the outlet. Outlet (and Email) have been added to the Order Source limiting field on the Order Display selection page. The recommend use is as follows:
Order information download now includes Last Name and First Name fields in addition to NAMESeveral theaters asked for the Last Name field to be broken out for ease in sorting order information. The download file now contains the Last Name and First Name fields in addition to the Name field. Boxoffice menu now available at top of every pageThe boxoffice menu selections are now available at the top of every boxoffice page, reducing the number of clicks it takes to get from one maintenance to another. Seats released when reassigning are placed in RESERVED status instead of OPENIn order to give the boxoffice full control over the reseating process, the seats originally owned by the order are placed in RESERVE status instead of OPEN. This prevents these seats from being selected by a patron before the boxoffice has a chance to assign them. Don't forget to use seating chart maintenance to make them available if that is the intent. Seats allocated to Outlet orders now show up as a different color in boxoffice displaysThe seat image displayed in performance seats charts such as boxoffice seat selection, seating chart maintenance, and the first screen of the edit performance screen is now a different color for seats allocated to an order where the payment type is outlet. This lets you see at a glance which seats are really sold vs. those which are held by the outlets. Submit credit orders from boxoffice (for theaters using TicketStage Merchant Account)Organizations using the TicketStage Merchant Account can submit credit orders entered by the boxoffice for credit processing. If the TicketStage Merchant Account is being used, the Order Edit maintenance screen has a "Submit Order for Credit Processing" button when:
When the order is submitted for credit processing, any missing or invalid fields will be reported as an error in a message just under the menu across the top of the blue section of the result page. Once the credit card has been processed successfully, the order is CLOSED since the credit card has been charged that exact amount. To reseat this order, you must first change it back to CONFIRM status, and then the reseat operation must result in the same exact order total. Remember last performance optionsThe system now remembers the last performance record you updated, and uses the specified properties of that performance for creating the next new performance. So things like admission type, special notices, and price levels only have to be entered once, for the first performance of a new show. Theater Options MaintenanceThe boxoffice can now edit
Sold Out PerformancesWhen generating the list of active performances, the system checks for no more seats available. If there are no seats available, the performance is listed without a link with the message that the performance is sold out and to contact the boxoffice. Enhanced Show MaintenanceThe system now generates the show code so that it is guaranteed to be unique and the correct format. Shows cannot be deleted without first deleting the orders and performances associated with that show. There will be a new function for archiving show (along with the associated performance and order records) after the show is complete. Currently archiving is done by TicketStage webmaster. You can associate a sort date with the show that is used to sort the shows in the order maintenance and performance maintenance screens General AdmissionThe system now supports General Admission performances. Use the Reserved Seating/General Admission buttons on the performance maintenance screen to select General Admission. The default is Reserved Seating. There is no difference for the admin side except that for all order screens, the seats are simply a sequence number within that order (seat 1, 2, 3, etc. ). From the patron side, instead of getting a seat selection chart, the patron gets a page that lets them select the number of seats in each different price class. When you set up the performance, you must specify price text that is meaningful for the patron. Sort Order Display by SeatThe Display, edit, cancel orders menu has a new Sort by option: Seat Number
The orders are listed in the physical order of the seats, which may not correspond to the Seat Numbers. In the physical order, seat # 1 is the left most seat in the first row, and the last seat is the rightmost seat in the last row. Multi-level pricingFor each seat type in a performance, you can specify multiple levels
of pricing (e.g. senior citizen or student pricing). The performance maintenance
screen has been enhanced with input controls for the pricing and the text
associated with each price. Normally the first price you specify is the
norma pricing and you do not supply any text with it. The performance
maintenance screen always shows one more price level than is currently
defined. To add more levels, enter the next price level and click on the Update Performance Record button. The screen will then display an additional empty price level/text/pair. Multiple VenuesTicketstage now supports multiple venues for each theater. You will notice a change in the show creation and maintenance forms. These now contain a drop down selection for the venue
Also the Maintain Default seating chart form on the Performance maintenance menu contains a drop down select box for selecting the venue. New venues must be installed by the TicketStage webmasters. We need the seating chart with default pricing for each different class of seat. Order Selection by ShowThe Display, Edit, Cancel Orders selection form now has a section that lets you select all the performances for a show by just specifying the show rather than having to do a multiple selection of all the performances. Bulk Update of Delivery Options for OrdersThe Display, Edit, Cancel Orders selection form now has a button labeled: Update Delivery Options. You specify the orders to be processed in the usual way. When you click on Update Delivery Options, you will get a listing of the selected orders with a radio button cell for each record that lets you update the Delivery Options. Simply set the delivery option for each record and then click on the Update Orders button at the bottom. The orders will be updated and redisplayed.
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