Participant Management

Modified on 22 April

Offering flexible participant management options can make you a favorite among runners and set your race apart... but manually managing all those participants can be a huge time drain for a race director. Matt Sinclair will run you through a few features to make both runners and race directors happy. 

 - Refunds & Refund Reserve
 - Editing Participant Info
 - Event Transfers
 - Bib Exchanges
 - Deferrals
 - Giveaway, Add-On, and Question Management
 - Waitlists

Watch the recording of RunSignUp 201: Participant Management

To SignUp for future webinars in our Endurance Event Education Series, please go here:
 http://resources.runsignup.com/webinar-calendar/

As a recap and reference guide, here are the quick paths to finding some of the key Participant Management features we discussed.

Participants >> Participant Management >> Search Participants
Search for participants by various data and manage via the "MANAGE" button to the right of the screen.
 
Participant Management options are off by default, but you can make your job easier by empowering participants to manage their own records.
 
Participants >> Participant Management >> Refund Reserve
We are a payment facilitator, so we do not take possession of your money (it gets passed to you!). Because of this, if you want to have the flexibility to give refunds at any point, you will want to turn on the refund reserve to have a small amount of funds held back until the conclusion of the race so that you can process refunds.
 
Participants >> Participant Management >> Participant Info
Allow users to update their registration record for the race (for example: they realize they entered their birthdate incorrectly).
 
Participants >> Participant Management >> Refunds & Refund Policy
Completing your refund policy so that runners agree to it (and it displays on your race page) will help fight chargebacks and runner complaints in the future.
 
You do not need to turn on refunds here to allow you (the Race Director) to initiate a refund; you would turn them on here if you want to allow your runners to initiate their own refunds (I.E., if you have a waitlist to take their place).
 
Blog: https://runsignup.wordpress.com/2016/04/06/refund-policy-page-on-race-websites/
 
Participants >> Participant Management >> Bulk Refunds
A time save in the event that your race is cancelled or you have a large number of refunds.
 
Blog: https://runsignup.wordpress.com/2016/07/11/bulk-refunds/
 
Participants >> Participant Management >> Event Transfers
Increases in prices will be automatically charged. You have the option to allow only specific transfers.
 
Participants >> Participant Management >> Bib Exchange
Options to allow a Gift Transfer (no refund given, no new charge for new runner) or Transfer for Refund in which the original runner is refunded once the new runner registers.
 
Participants >> Participant Management >> Deferrals
Allow runners to defer entry until the following year; reports can be used to download deferred entries so that you can setup a coupon or reserved entry for them to register the following year.
 
Participants >> Participant Management >> Giveaway Management
Participants >> Participant Management >> Add-On Management
Participants >> Participant Management >> Question Management
Participants >> Participant Management >> Corral Management
Allow management of sizes, etc, for giveaways, add-on's, question responses, and corral management. These settings allow runners to update information they may have rushed through initially and want to update later (I.E. sizing, anticipated finish time, emergency contact info, etc.)
 
Participants >> Participant Management >> Race Transfers 
If you own a series of races or several races, this allows you to let runners transfer from one race to another.
 
Participants >> Participant Management >> Bulk Race Transfers
For a series in which you allow people to register for a series of races in a single transaction and want to get them registered in each individual race.
 
Blog: https://runsignup.wordpress.com/2015/07/27/multi-race-bundles/
 
Participants >> Participant Management >> Reserved Entries
Allows a free or set price entry and allow people to register via a specific link(s).
 
Blog: https://runsignup.wordpress.com/2016/02/16/reserved-entries-upgrade/
 
Participants >> Participant Management >> Waitlist >> Waitlist Setup
Options for a lottery or first-come-first serve waitlist setup. Note: there must first be a participant cap set under Race >> Registration >> Participant Cap
 
Blog: https://runsignup.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/updated-waitlist-management/
 
Add an Edit Registration Widget on your Race Page:
Promotion >> Widgets >> Create New Widget
Adding this widget to your race page can help you by allowing runners to verify that their registration is correct when they are signed in, and update any information that is incorrect.
 
How-To's for Runners that you can use to direct runners to manage themselves (mostly under Registration): https://runsignup.com/How-To/Category/Runners
 

Watch the recording of RunSignUp 201: Participant Management