It's less than a month until results day and only a matter of weeks before we're in the middle of your welcome week preparations. MSL is on hand to provide guidance and support with any queries you might have; here are some of our top tips to help you prepare for your events.

Don't forget our Knowledge Base is full of tips and advice for this time of year, but if you can't find what you need, you can always email us or speak to us on live chat, available on every support page.

1) Add requirements to tickets directly from Events Admin.

Quickly and easily limit who can buy your tickets by adding requirements to your tickets directly from Events Admin - take a look at our support page about this new development. We can also apply default requirements to tickets of certain types created by your student groups - get in touch if you would like more information.

2) Personalise your events pages with our new widget settings.

Our event list widget, used to display your events, can be set to show only events held by groups your members have a membership for. Create a 'Your Tickets' page using the 'Tickets held only' widget setting to show your members upcoming events for which they've bought a ticket. 

3) Use our new Online events fields.

Virtual events look set to continue growing in popularity! We have created some Online event fields that, when added to your event template, show a 'Join now' link on the event page when the event is due to begin making it easier for your members to join events held online. If the event has tickets, ticket holders will see the 'Join' link 5 minutes before the event starts on the event lists and the events page. If not, the event will show the 'Join' link and additional information based on the event's view permission (i.e. logged-in users, members only) set on the event details screen. To find out more, take a look at our "Online events" support page.  

4) Bulk import your events.

If you run lots of events and would like to import these in bulk rather than manually adding each one to your website, you can download, complete, and upload your events import spreadsheet in your Admin Website. Great for your 'Give it a Go' sessions or all of your Welcome Week events! For step-by-step instructions, check out our "Bulk importing events" support page.

5) Save your members time getting into events.

The system uses regular expressions to recognise University card/ ID numbers when they are entered by keying in or read with a magstripe or barcode reader. Once MSL's configured your card swipe pattern, you'll be able to bring up a student's account by swiping the card against a card reader/ scanner - you don't have to manually type and search for your member's name or card/ ID number. Email support@ukmsl.com if you'd like more information.

When you launch the Door Entry application, you can also enable the "Auto-reset search when all entry options are redeemed" option. This means rather than you having to click "Reset" once all the attendee's entry options have been redeemed, the application will instead reset to the admin attendee screen. Take a look at our Door Entry support page to see where you enable this option.

6) Ask about our Welcome Week microsite.

A fully mobile-friendly welcome week template to discover clubs and societies, events and get great deals and offers. Our Welcome Week microsite template has a refreshed look and feel and some great new features. As always, it's free to use - just let us know that you would like to use it; we will enable it on your site now!

You might also be interested in...e-Ticketing

Our e-Tickets feature delivers individual emailed tickets to your purchasers. A simple configuration enables your system to output an email containing multiple tickets as PDF attachments and each attached ticket contains a unique barcode (or ID) for validating individual entrance to an event or venue. The IDs are randomised rather than sequential. Find out more about e-Ticketing and how you could enable e-Ticketing on your system here on our support site.

Thank you!

We hope you've found some of these tips useful - please share your own tips with us, or get in touch by emailing support@ukmsl.com for help using any of these features.

If there is a particular theme or topic you'd like us to cover, please send us your suggestions and we'll bear them in mind when planning our next post.