Events Overview
Events is an application that allows you to schedule and assign resources to recruiting events for your institution. Events interfaces with your Salesforce instance, allowing seamless integration between Events and your prospect/contact records. Once event attendee or registrant data is captured in Events, that data is likewise captured in your CRM. Any workflows or triggers on the updated records occur automatically without staff input.
When paired with Form Assembly or TX Forms, Events can capture prospect/contact data with intuitive forms.
Once logged in to your Salesforce account, you can find Events in the App Picker at the top-left corner of your screen. By default, the app is called "Events," but your institution can change or customize it. Check with your CRM Administrator if you don't see "Events" listed.
For details on creating and updating Events, see the article Creating and Updating Events.
Best Practices for Events Management
- Create Inquiry records off of Event registrations. This would allow the information to feed into TargetX Insights.
- When checking in Users at Events, use QR Codes or the Offline Check-In App.
Event Categories and Types
Categories and Types are two optional fields available when you're creating or editing an event. Incorporating Categories and Types into your event will help you filter events for reporting or target communications to potential attendees and will allow your students and other users to search for Events within specific parameters
Your Events App will automatically load a few common Categories and Types, but you can always create new, custom ones.
Categories
Categories are typically used to designate an audience, like students or alums. Types are used to specify the event, like an open house or a career fair.
Events come with pre-defined categories, but administrators can create additional Event Categories as needed. While it is valuable to have many different categories, keep in mind that having too many categories can become an administrative headache. New categories should be created only as needed. Categories can be used by CRM users to find specific categories of events by adding the category to the event URL.
Types
A further level of stratification in Events is event Type. Event Types can be used as a filter and to assist with targeting communication. Event Types can also be used as part of the URL to determine which events a given Events user can see and register for. Events come with a few pre-generated Event Types to get you started. Administrators can create additional Event Types as needed. While it is useful to have many event Types, be aware that creating too many event types can become an administrative headache. New Types should only be created as needed.
To create a new event Category or Type
- Navigate to Setup and select Object Manager.
- Select the Organization Event object
Note: If you are using Salesforce Lightning, go to Setup and search for "Object Manager," then click on the label for Organization Event object.
- In the Custom Fields & Relationships section, click either the Category or the Type field label
- Add to or update the values listed in the picklist value set section
Event Calendars
Events Organization Calendar
The Events Organization Calendar is a valuable tool for an at-a-glance review of events scheduled to occur in a given month. The Calendar Color field on the New Event / Event Details General Information section is useful for color coding events on the Organization Calendar. It is recommended that Events administrators determine a color coding system such that certain types or categories of Events are always the same color or events owned by a particular person are always the same color.
Navigating and Filtering the Events Calendar
The calendar page defaults to the current month. Click the Today, Week, or Day buttons to change the view. The calendar includes filter functionality to limit events displayed to those that meet your criteria. The default shows events for all owners and event types. To filter:
- Click the Filter button. A window will appear, allowing you to filter by Owner, Type, Category, Classification, or Location.
- Make your selections.
- Close or click outside the filter window to apply the criteria.
Note: Location filtering is only available for Classifications of "Event". If no Location records exist, the Location option will not be available for filtering. Location records that are missing the Filter Value will not display.
For information on Salesforce Events and Calendars, see the Salesforce Help & Training article: Events and Calendars.
Salesforce Calendar Integration
When creating an event, you can check the Copy to SF Calendar and Copy Edits to SF Calendar to synchronize the event to the event owner’s Salesforce calendar. This is useful for keeping event owners apprised of those events they are responsible. Once the event is copied to the Salesforce calendar, all the functionality available via the Salesforce calendar, including meeting/event sharing, reminders, and Outlook or Google integration, is available to the event owner.
Notes:
- The integration between Events and the Salesforce calendar is one way only. Changes made to an event in the Salesforce calendar will not be reflected in the TargetX event.
- Events do not have visibility to the Salesforce calendar and will allow you to double-book your Salesforce calendar.
Events Forms
Institutions can use Form Assembly or TX Forms to capture prospect/contact data. Data captured with FormAssembly is also saved directly to your Salesforce database, where all workflows and triggers automatically fire to update your data and kick off critical processes. If you have questions about using FormAssembly in conjunction with Events, please see our Form Assembly documentation. TX Forms allows institutions to configure Conditional questions, Option Groups, and customize sections and questions.
Travel Groups
Travel Group records are “buckets” that contain multiple Account records in your CRM, allowing you to attach a single Event record to these Accounts en masse.
For example, if you have a recruiter who represents your institution in Tennessee, and there is an upcoming Event to which all public schools in the metropolitan Nashville area are invited, you might wish to create a Travel Group that contains all of these schools.
This Travel Group can then be specified when you create the Event record so that each of the Accounts in the Travel Group will show a history of being affiliated with the single Event.
Note: There is a related list on the Account record called Related Visits that will show all Events that have taken place or will take place in the future and in some way were or are relevant to the Account.