POSTPONEMENT TOOL
Our Postponement Tool is really a communications tool: a simple pop-up for your website that can help events communicate their status, give participants options, and provide actionable reports to race directors.
All language and participant options are fully customizable.
Step 1: Navigate to Postponement Tool
You can setup your tool by navigating to: Race -> Cancel or Postpone Race and clicking on "Set Up Cancellation"
Step 2: Set Type of Change
Choose postponed, changed to virtual, or cancelled. If you mark postpone, it will ask for a date. Three common options are:
For Postponing, there are three common options:
- Set the date to next year if you are going to not try to have your race this year. This is fairly common.
- TBD – If you are going to try to reschedule later, then you can simply mark TBD. You can change this later when the date is confirmed
- Set confirmed new date.
Note that setting the date will do a strike-thru wherever a date is shown to participants on your website:
Please note: if you DO have a new date to enter here, it does not actually change the date on the race. To update the race date throughout the race, you'll want to update the date in the race wizard, as well as to update any dates for participant management options (like collecting giveaway sizes).
Step 3: Setup options for participants
There are 4 default options that you can provide participants. However, you can customize these to be whatever you want (or not include them at all). No actual participant management actions take place from this tool - it simply creates reports that you can use to transfer participants, provide refunds, complete deferrals, etc. The default options are:
You can click on each one to open an editable title and explanation.
What Participants See:
When participants come to your website, they will get a pop-up with your messaging and their options.
If the participant is logged in, clicking continue presents the participants under the account so they can easily check themselves off:
People staying in the race will not be able to change their answer once they have selected it. Note: the option shown here (like "Stay in Race" or "Switch to Virtual Race" will mirror what they selected in the pop-up before hitting "Continue".
Participants who are not logged in will see a page like this:
If they enter their email address and are not registered under that address, they will receive an email like the one below, and you will have reporting to see all non-registered participants who went through this process.
Step 4: View Reports
You can find your reports at Race >> Cancel or Postpone Race. The first report shows you who confirmed their preference through a logged-in process:
The second report shows the people who entered their emails but never completed the final confirmation while logged in - including both people who typed in the wrong email, and those who included a correct email but did not confirm:
Step 5: Take Actions
The Postponement Tool does not take actions such as actually transfering participants, or completing refunds. You can use the reports above and go through the proper participant management actions.
Support Documents for Participant Management:
Bulk Transfer Tool (to move large numbers of participants to a new event, like a virtual option, or to a different race that you own, on a different date):
https://runsignup.blog/2017/05/10/bulk-transfer-improvements/
Bulk Refunds (to refund large numbers of participants):
https://help.runsignup.com/support/solutions/articles/17000064223--how-do-i-issue-bulk-refunds-
You will need to make sure you have enough money in your Refund Reserve to cover the refunds. There is more information about this here:
https://runsignup.com/Race/CoronaVirus/Page/refunds
Individual Participant Management (for one-off participant management actions, such as making an exception to a refund policy for a participant who is significantly impacted by the crisis):
https://help.runsignup.com/support/solutions/articles/17000063222--manage-participants
