Adding New Attendees

Tracking attendees through the sessions they attend, the surveys they complete or the timeline events added to their profiles is a key part of the process for many organisations. 

The first step though is to add these attendees to the system.

Adding new attendees can be done in three main ways:

1. An Upshot user inputs the details of an attendee via your internal registration form (People > Add new) from a physical registration form completed by the participant. 
2. A new attendee completes the external Attendee sign up form (a digital version of your registration form) that is either hosted on your website, or the link made available to potential participants via email, social media etc.
3. New attendee profiles can be created on mass via a process known as a Bulk Upload, allowing organisations to add up to 500 participants at a time via a CSV file. This can be helpful if existing attendee data is stored elsewhere.

Note attendees only ever need to be added once. If an attendee initially only attends one activity but then goes on to attend other activities or completely different projects on the account the same profile should continue to be used as this builds up a picture of all the work you have ever done with that attendee.

Once attendees have been added to the system in one of the three ways listed below, they will then have an Attendee Profile.

1. Registration Form

An internal version of your registration form is accessible via People > Add New. 

Organisations may have collected this information on a paper registration form, another system or via an alternative method and then enter this manually onto Upshot. 

When adding a new participant in this way, replicate the information from paper onto the internal registration form and click Add.

Once you have clicked Add users will then be on the newly created attendee's profile. 

To add another new attendee, go to People > Add new again and repeat the process.

Understanding the Registration form layout

The registration form starts off with Upshot default fields such as Gender, Ethnicity and Disability based on UK census options. If a UK postcode is input in the relevant field, Upshot will automatically generate information around this such as Authority, District, Constituency,Ward and information around this postcode in relation to the Index of Multiple Deprivation that can be used in later reports.

This is followed by a Permission section that automatically links/flags if you try to associate media, send surveys/emails out to the participant in other areas of the system later on.

Underneath these are Your attendee data fields. These are any bits of information you collect on participants outside of the Upshot default fields higher up on the form.

Finally, if applicable, at the bottom will be any fields created by the Facilitating account your organisation is linked to.

The registration form is usually configured during the account set up process but can be customised over time. New custom attendee data fields can be added and Upshot default fields removed if desired. Fields can also be made required.

Note that a First name or Nickname and Gender are always required. The Gender field does provide the options for "prefer not to say" and "not provided". This minimum amount of information is needed as a starting point to allow the system to flag potential duplicates for you.

Duplicate Warning

If the system flags that there may be Existing attendees that may match this one ensure you check the profile highlighted before clicking Continue. 

It is important for reporting later on that there is only one version of an attendee on your organisation's Upshot account. 

A good starting point to check before manually adding the information off the paper registration form is using the search bar in the top right-hand corner of the account to see if the attendee already exists. If needed, update the existing matching profile with the new information now in front of you, such as an updated telephone number.

2. External Attendee sign-up form

The Attendee sign-up form is an external registration form, which allows attendees to register themselves onto your Upshot database. This can reduce the admin time and paperwork from collecting and inputting the information off paper registration forms. 

The form can be sent out via a public form URL or embedded into your website. For more information please refer to the full guide found here and the video below.

Note: In order to access the Attendee Sign-up Form, the main administrator within your organisation will need to contact Upshot to arrange for this free function to be made available on your account. This will also serve as an opportunity to discuss the configuration of the sign-up form. 

3. Bulk Upload

Bulk Uploads involve a process of matching up existing data on participants, potentially from a different database export or Excel spreadsheet, to a CSV template of your Upshot registration form.

By copying the existing data to the fields on the template this allows organisations to upload up to 500 new participants with each file. 

This is particularly helpful when organisations first start using Upshot and have existing participant data held elsewhere, or when organisations have periods in the year when they have lots of new attendees, such as at the start of an academic year.

As this process involves adding lots of data to your account at once it is important the process is understood and it is completed correctly. 

If this process sounds helpful please do refer to the following guide.

Key Terms

Attendee sign-up form: