EventON - RSVP Events Invitees

At a private event, whoever does not reply is your job

You are planning a dinner for clients and only want the people you chose in the room. You publish the event with open RSVP and names you did not expect start arriving. You close it by hand, write separate emails and note the replies in a spreadsheet. A week later, you have several names with no answer and cannot remember who you wrote to twice.

At an open event, people come to you; at an invitation-only one, the next step with each person falls to you. A guest's silence turns into a task of yours, and it helps to see it in the same place as the event.

RSVP Events Invitees adds invitation-only events to EventON. It limits RSVPs to invited people through unique links and brings the list, each attendee's status and the messages together in the event's edit page. It is an add-on: it works alongside EventON and RSVP Events.

The guest list lives inside each event

From the event's edit page in wp-admin, the invitee manager gathers the day-to-day work:

• Invite: you add each person and their unique invitation link is generated.
• Send: the link can go out by email or through public or private messages.
• Resend: you repeat the invitation from the back end for anyone who needs it.
• Follow up: you check each guest's attendance status and update their details.
• Complete: on each invitation's screen you can change some details and add additional information.
• Review: a button shows a preview of the invitation email.

Two ways for a guest to answer

The person can confirm from the email itself, without looking for the event on their own. Invitation responses are also built into the RSVP section of the event card, along with the other RSVP features.

That same section includes a message wall for communicating with invited attendees. From the back end you can write to one person or to the whole list, which is useful to announce a room change or ask a single guest for a detail without leaving the event.

Pieces and tasks outside the add-on

• It does not work alone. Without EventON and RSVP Events there is nothing for it to act on.
• The restriction falls on RSVPs. Test in a private window what someone without an invitation sees of the event before publishing sensitive details, such as an address.
• Payment is not among its features. If attendance is paid, selling tickets belongs to Event Tickets.
• Automatic reminders are separate. The Reminders add-on sends them.
• The email design is edited in a template. Changing it means copying a file to your theme, and that copy stays in the active theme.

Setting it up on EventON and RSVP Events

With EventON and RSVP Events already active, the path is this:

1. Install and activate RSVP Events Invitees.
2. Open or create the event in wp-admin, enable RSVP and save your changes.
3. In the event's RSVP settings, turn on Enable Invitee Only RSVP.
4. Open RSVP Invitee Manager and click Invite new to add guests.
5. Use the eye icon in the Actions column to edit an invitation, see its messages or write to that person.

To change the email, copy invitation_email.php from the add-on's templates folder to eventon/templates/email/rsvp/ inside your theme, and edit it there.

Add-ons for before and during the event

RSVP Events is the required base: form, spaces and attendee list. Reminders automates emails before and after the event, although it does not support repeating events. QR Code adds codes to RSVPs and records entry from one screen. If you would rather charge than invite, Event Tickets sells tickets from your site.

Running a closed list, point by point

Can someone without an invitation RSVP?

With the invitee option on, RSVPs are limited to invited people through their unique link.

Does the guest have to visit my site to reply?

They can reply from the invitation email. The response is also available in the RSVP section of the event card.

Can I write to all the guests at once?

Yes. You can address each person or the whole attendance list.

Can an invitation be sent again?

Yes, it is resent from the back end.

Can I change the email text?

Yes, by editing a copy of its template inside your theme.