Your Bloomerang database is the central donor management and fundraising platform for your organization, but Bloomerang likely isn’t the only app that you use day to day. We believe Bloomerang is your central system and that integrations supplement your Bloomerang database. Data entry, reporting, and automation should start from a lens that Bloomerang is core to your donor management and fundraising technology.

Bloomerang is now connected to Zapier and Zapier connects to 2,000+ other apps, including Eventbrite. The combination of Bloomerang and Zapier offers an all-in-one integration platform for automating your day to day workflows.

The goal of this webinar is to show you how Bloomerang integrations and workflow automation with Eventbrite can streamline processes, save time, and reduce effort.

During this webinar, you will learn:

• How Bloomerang + Zapier work together to make integration with any app possible and why Zapier integration is a key feature of your Bloomerang system
• How to configure your Bloomerang database to track special event data
• Explore and demonstrate how you can use the Bloomerang Zapier app with Eventbrite to…
  • Create donations in Bloomerang for event payments
  • Create interactions in Bloomerang for event participation

 
Webinar transcript (not including Q&A):

Good afternoon, and welcome to Bloomerang Academy! Thank you for joining us. My name is Diana Otero, and I am the Product Engagement Manager at Bloomerang. You might recognize me from attending Bloomerang Academy classes or listening to our release and help videos.

Today, we’re talking about “Bloomerang + Zapier: Managing events with Eventbrite.”  

[SLIDE]

I’d like to introduce our presenter today, Jessie Gilchrist. Jessie is a Zapier Certified Expert and Bloomerang Integrations Consultant at Sidekick Solutions. 

Sidekick Solutions is a Bloomerang Partner, specializing in system automations for Bloomerang. Sidekick Solutions has been a Bloomerang user since 2013 and most recently was part of the Bloomerang team that launched the Bloomerang Zapier app, which is a key component of today’s webinar. 

We’re excited to have Jessie here today to share her expertise and explore how you can use the Bloomerang Zapier app with Eventbrite to manage and track special event data. 

Thank you Diana. Hello everyone!  It’s great to be here.

[SLIDE]

The goal of today’s webinar is to show how Bloomerang integrations and workflow automation with Eventbrite can streamline processes, save time, and reduce effort by automating the flow of event data into your Bloomerang database. 

Our agenda today will…

• Introduce Bloomerang + Zapier, how it works and why Zapier integration is a key feature of your Bloomerang system
• Show you how to configure your Bloomerang database to track special event data
• Explore and demonstrate how you can use the Bloomerang Zapier app to…
  • Create donations in Bloomerang for event payments, and
  • Create interactions in Bloomerang for event participation

We’ve got demos throughout the webinar to show you how to set up these automations for your organization! 

As Diana mentioned, feel free to submit any questions during the presentation. We’ll take a couple of breaks to answer questions and then open up for more questions at the end.

Alright, let’s dive in.

[SLIDE]

First, a quick poll to see how many are using Zapier and how many are using Zapier with Bloomerang. 

[POLL]

[SLIDE]

Thank you for that feedback. Since we have a few that are new to Zapier, I’ll give a high level overview of “what is Zapier” and why we believe it is a key feature of your Bloomerang system. For more information, I recommend watching our previous webinars on Bloomerang + Zapier. 

You might be wondering why we are talking about Zapier, when this presentation is about Bloomerang and Eventbrite. That’s a fair question and offers an exciting answer.

Zapier is the software that enables Bloomerang and Eventbrite integration. It’s the middleware that sits in between your Bloomerang database and Eventbrite, helping them “talk” to each other. Zapier is automation software. Zapier is an integration designer that builds integrations with blocks called “triggers” and “actions.”  With Zapier, you can build one integration or many. With Zapier, you can automate hundreds of tasks around your Bloomerang system within a single platform. 

So, why get excited about Bloomerang Zapier integration? 

[SLIDE]

Three reasons…

1. Zapier connects to 2,000+ other apps. Any apps in Zapier’s directory can be connected to Bloomerang. If it’s on Zapier’s list it can be integrated with Bloomerang. That includes Eventbrite!
2. Zapier was designed for anyone to build integrations. You don’t need to know how to code to build Zaps. Anyone can build and maintain a Zap. We’re going to walk through some builds today so you can get a feel for what that looks like.
3. Zapier enables custom integrations. You aren’t limited to one-size fits all workflows, mapping, or formatting. You can build the integration that is perfect for your organization and your workflows. 

Flexibility is especially important because events come in different formats and approaches. We want to leverage Zapier’s flexibility via integration with Bloomerang.

Before we dive into the specifics for setting up Eventbrite automations, we need to make sure our Bloomerang database is configured to track special event data.

[SLIDE]

Let’s do a quick poll to see how many of you are already tracking special event data in Bloomerang. 

[POLL]

[SLIDE]

Thank you for that feedback. Since we have a few that aren’t tracking special event data in Bloomerang, we’re going to spend a couple of minutes showcasing how you can configure Bloomerang to track this information. 

Integrating Eventbrite with Bloomerang starts in your Bloomerang database. Even if you plan to use Eventbrite for all event-related actions—inviting constituents, registering and accepting event payments, communicating with registrants, and tracking their attendance—you will still want to add this data in Bloomerang.

[SLIDE]

We recommend that you use Bloomerang as your constituent relationship management system (CRM) and Eventbrite exclusively for the process of event management. Then, transfer event payments and participation data from Eventbrite to Bloomerang.

To do this, you will need fields in Bloomerang to track event payments and participation.

[SLIDE]

If you are capturing ticket purchases and/or donations with event registration, these transactions should be added to Bloomerang as donations. In order to report on event income, you must set up custom transaction fields. 

To categorize event payments in Bloomerang…

• Create a new Campaign value named for each unique event
• Use Appeals to identify different event related transaction categories (ex: tickets, sponsorships, auction, etc.)
• Create custom fields to classify and categorize event payments as your reporting requirements dictate (ex: Event Type, Eventbrite Order ID as linking reference)

[DEMO // 3 SLIDES]

Let’s go into Bloomerang and show what this would look like. I’m going to open the donation entry screen on a constituent account. You can see that we’ve set up Campaigns for our different events and Appeals for our event transaction categories. 

We can also see the Event Information custom fields we added to track the Event Type (ex: fundraiser, training, etc.) and map the Eventbrite Order ID. At a minimum, we recommend setting up a custom field for the Order ID as this serves as a linking reference between Eventbrite and your Bloomerang database. 

[SLIDE]

Now, let’s talk about how we can track event participation in Bloomerang. Event participation is best tracked on interactions in the constituent’s timeline in Bloomerang.

Consider the following when setting up your Bloomerang database to track event participation:

• Do you offer different types of events (i.e., fundraising, training, community, etc.)? 
• Do you need to know the exact event that a constituent participated in or just the type of event?
• Do you want to track who was invited, registered, attended, and/or did not show?

The answers to these questions will impact the design of your custom interaction fields in Bloomerang. 

[DEMO // 1 SLIDE]

If we go back to Bloomerang and open the interaction entry screen on a constituent’s timeline, you can see that we’ve set up custom fields for Participation Status, Event Name, Event Type, and the Eventbrite Order ID. 

• Participation Status is used to indicate if the interaction is tracking that the constituent was invited, registered, or attended our event. This allows us to log multiple interactions for the same event and constituent to show the participation lifecycle. 
• The Event Type and Eventbrite Order ID fields are configured the same way as the fields we just demoed for event payments. 
• Event Name is a new field that serves a similar purpose as the Campaign field for transactions. This is where we’ll identify which event the participation record is for. 

Now that our Bloomerang database is configured to track special event data, let’s shift to how you can sync event payments from Eventbrite to Bloomerang. 

[SLIDE]

Let’s take a quick poll to see what type of events your organization offers. 

[POLL]

[SLIDE]

This next piece we are going to demonstrate will only apply if your organization hosts paid events and needs to sync event payments to Bloomerang. If your organization only has free events in Eventbrite, bear with us as we’ll get to logging event participation soon! 

[SLIDE]

When it comes to getting Eventbrite payments into Bloomerang, each new paid order in Eventbrite will first find or create a constituent in Bloomerang for the purchaser. Then, we will use a Google Sheet lookup table to pull in custom coding based on the specific event before creating a donation on the constituent’s timeline for the payment. 

If you find the addition of a Google Sheet in this workflow to be a bit intimidating, you can accomplish this same workflow without the Google Sheet lookup step. To do this, you will need to create a separate workflow for each event you host. Use one of Bloomerang’s templates in Zapier to get started with this simplified workflow. 

We are demonstrating the Google Sheet lookup step in this webinar as it creates a workflow that is scalable. Meaning, you can use a single Zap in Zapier for all events your organization hosts. 

[SLIDE]

We want to start by setting up our lookup table in Google Sheets before building the workflow in Zapier. We’ve added column headers that represent the data we want to pull into our integration for each event. For each new event created in Eventbrite, we’ll add the event name and ID to this lookup table and add the appropriate Bloomerang coding for the event.

Since we will use this Google Sheet lookup table for event payments AND event participation, we need to make sure we’re capturing the data that will map to Bloomerang for donations AND interactions. For example, we’ll need to populate the Fund, Campaign, and Appeal columns if the event is a paid event. We can leave these blank if it is a free event. 

Now, let’s hop into Zapier and set up our Zap.

• Select Make a Zap. 
• The workflow starts when a new order is submitted in Eventbrite, so that’s our trigger. Zaps start with a trigger, an event that happens in one app. The trigger prompts the integration to run. We are going to use Eventbrite’s New Order trigger. 
• Now we need to customize our trigger by selecting our Organization and Event Status. We want to make sure we trigger on orders for any event, so we’ll set the Event Status to All. 
• We want to keep the Event field on the trigger blank so our trigger will for any and all events on our Eventbrite page. If you’re designing your workflow to only apply for a single event and are not using the Google Sheet lookup step, select the appropriate event in this dropdown to filter your trigger to only a single event. 
• Next step is to test our trigger and generate sample data. This will return orders created recently. These are samples only and will not run through the integration because they were created before the integration is turned on. Zap triggers run in real time only. 
• Once we have sample data, we want to add a filter step to only continue the Zap if the order is for a paid event. If we review the payload from the Eventbrite New Order trigger, I can see that Costs Gross Major Value is the total purchase amount. We’ll set our logic operator as greater than and enter $0 in the far right field to ensure the Zap only continues if the total order cost is greater than $0. 
• After we’ve set up our filter, we’ll add our first action to find or create a constituent in Bloomerang for the purchaser. We’ll select the Bloomerang app and the Find Constituent action. We’ll select a Type of Individual.
• Next, map the purchaser’s first name, last name, and email to the appropriate fields in the search from the Eventbrite trigger. We didn’t configure our Eventbrite event to capture the address and phone for the purchaser so these search fields will be blank. We’ll leave the constituent’s cumulative giving and household information field blank as we don’t need the search to return this data. 
• We need to check the box at the bottom to create a constituent in Bloomerang if one is not found in the search. We’ll map the purchaser’s first name, last name, and email to the appropriate fields to create a constituent. Now we’ll click Test & Run to confirm this action is configured appropriately. 
• Next, we need to look up the custom coding for the event in our Google Sheet. We’ll select Google Sheets as the app and Lookup Spreadsheet Row as our action. After selecting our Google Sheet spreadsheet and worksheet for our Event Details Lookup table, we’ll set the lookup column as the Eventbrite Event ID and map the Event ID from the Eventbrite New Order trigger to the lookup value field. Now we’ll click Test & Run to confirm this action is configured appropriately and pull in the event-specific coding for the event in the order. 
• Next we’ll add our final action which is to create a donation in Bloomerang for the order. We’ll select the Bloomerang app and the Create Donation action. 
• To make sure we create the donation on the timeline of the constituent we found/created in the prior step, we need to map the Constituent ID from the Find/Create Constituent test to the Constituent field in the action. 
• Map the Date, Amount, and the Eventbrite Order ID from the Eventbrite trigger. Then, assign a method of Credit Card, and populate the Fund, Campaign, Appeal and Event Type from our Google Sheet lookup step. 
• Now, we are done editing and can turn on the Zap.

We don’t want to charge a credit card live during this webinar, so I pushed through a test order from Eventbrite before we started today. If we go to the constituent’s account in Bloomerang and go to his timeline, we can open the donation for this event payment. You can see the custom Fund, Campaign, and Appeal coding, as well as the custom fields we’ve set up to track special event data.

[SLIDE]

Before we move onto entering registrations and attendance from Eventbrite in Bloomerang, let’s take one or two questions.

[SLIDE]

The next piece we are going to demonstrate is adding event registrations and attendance as interactions in Bloomerang. If your organization does not currently use the Eventbrite check-in feature, the attendance portion will not apply to you. 

[SLIDE]

When it comes to getting Eventbrite participation into Bloomerang, each new attendee registered or checked-in in Eventbrite will first find or create a constituent in Bloomerang for the attendee. Then, we will use a lookup table to pull in custom coding based on the specific event before creating an interaction on the constituent’s timeline. 

The workflows for creating an interaction to log an event registration vs. event attendance are nearly identical. We’re going to walk through building the Zap for logging registrations and I’ll point out where variations would occur if creating a Zap to log attendance. 

[DEMO // 5 SLIDES ]

We’ll use the same Google Sheet lookup table we created for Eventbrite orders, which means we’re ready to dive right into Zapier to set up our workflows. 

• Select Make a Zap. 
• The workflow starts when a new attendee is registered in Eventbrite. We’ll use Eventbrite’s New Attendee Registered trigger. If you are also building a workflow to sync attendance, use the New Attendee Checked In trigger. 
• Same as we did for logging event payments, we’ll select our Organization and set the Event Status to All. Remember, keep the Event field blank unless you’re designing your workflow to only apply for a single event and are not using the Google Sheet lookup step. Now, let’s test our trigger and generate sample data. 
• Once we have sample data, we’ll add our first action step to find or create a constituent in Bloomerang for the attendee. We’ll select the Bloomerang app and the Find Constituent action. This action is set up exactly the same way for registrations and attendee check-in. 
• To find or create the constituent, we’ll select a Type of Individual and map the attendee’s first name, last name, and email to the appropriate fields in the search from the Eventbrite trigger. We didn’t configure our event to capture the address and phone for the attendee so we’ll leave those fields blank. 
• We also don’t need this step to return the constituent’s cumulative giving and household information. We’ll leave these fields blank. 
• We need to check the box at the bottom to create a constituent in Bloomerang if one is not found in the search. We’ll map the attendee’s first name, last name, and email to the appropriate fields to create a constituent, same as we did for event payments. 
• Now we’ll click Test & Run to confirm this action is configured appropriately and pull in the Constituent ID for the found or created constituent. We’ll need this in a future step. 
• Next, we need to look up the custom coding for the specific event in our Google Sheet. We’ll select Google Sheets as the app and Lookup Spreadsheet Row as our action. 
• After selecting our Google Sheet spreadsheet and worksheet for our Event Details Lookup table, we’ll set the lookup column as the Eventbrite Event ID and map the Event ID from the Eventbrite New Order trigger to the lookup value. Now we’ll click Test & Run to confirm this action is configured appropriately.
• Next we’ll add our final action which is to create an interaction in Bloomerang for the registration or attendee check-in. We’ll select the Bloomerang app and the Create Interaction action. To make sure we create the interaction on the timeline of the constituent we found/created in the prior step, we need to map the Constituent ID from the Find/Create Constituent test to the Constituent field in the action. 
• We’ll map the Date from the Eventbrite trigger. For registrations we’ll use the Created date and for check-ins we’ll use Changed. 
• We can customize the subject for the interactions the integration will create. We recommend customizing the subject to say “Registered” or “Attended” with the full event name from Eventbrite. 
• Select a Purpose of Special Events and Channel of Other. We also recommend setting Initiated by Constituent to “Yes”. 
• Now we move onto our custom fields. We’ll select the appropriate Participation Status (Registered or Attended) and map the Event Name and Event Type from the lookup table to the corresponding custom fields. 
• Map the Eventbrite Order ID from the Eventbrite trigger. 
• Select that you’re done editing and turn on the Zap.

I have live Zaps built to demonstrate these workflows, so let’s do that next. I’m going to go to the registration page for the event and add a new registration. Now, if we go into Bloomerang, we can open the constituent’s account and see the interaction for the registration on her timeline. Now, let’s go back into Eventbrite and check her into the event to trigger an attendance interaction to be created. Ok, now that we’ve checked her in, we can go back to Bloomerang and see the interaction for the attendance in the constituent’s timeline. 

[SLIDE]

The last piece to discuss when it comes to an Eventbrite integration is how to report on the data once it’s in Bloomerang. There is a long list of special event reports you can create in Bloomerang, but a few of our favorites are…

• All payments for an event, using the Campaign for the event as our criteria to only return transactions with that event’s Campaign
• All ticket purchases for an event, using the Campaign for the event and our Appeal of “Events – Tickets” as our criteria
• List of all registrants to take to a remote event via spreadsheet to track who attends for “check-in” in Eventbrite post-event
• Constituents who registered but didn’t attend to see how much attrition you saw for your event

[DEMO // 1 SLIDE ]

We can’t recommend this last report enough. Let’s hop into Bloomerang and show how to set this up. If I go to my Reports List in Bloomerang, I’m going to create a new constituent report from scratch. For my “include” filter, I want to include constituents that have an interaction with 2020 ACB as the Event Name and a Participation Status of Registered. Now let’s set our exclusion filter. We want to exclude the constituents in this segment who have an interaction for 2020 ACB with a status of Attended.

This will leave only those constituents who registered but did not attend our event. We recommend targeting this group with a special communication highlighting the success of your event and providing the opportunity to donate to your organization since they were unable to attend. 

[SLIDE]

To wrap up today’s presentation, I’ll leave you with a few thoughts on the power of Bloomerang integrations with Zapier. 

We believe Bloomerang is your central system and that integrations supplement your Bloomerang database. Data entry, reporting, and automation should start from a lens that Bloomerang is core to your donor management and fundraising technology. 

Eventbrite supplements Bloomerang and extends Bloomerang, it doesn’t replace it. By syncing special event data into Bloomerang, you can run meaningful reports on key event metrics and see a constituent’s full engagement with your organization within Bloomerang. 

[SLIDE]

Next step is getting started. 

1. Sign up for a Zapier account, it’s free with a trial and free up to certain limits, nonprofits get a discount
2. Connect your Bloomerang and Eventbrite accounts to Zapier
3. Grab a Bloomerang template and customize it to match your workflow and mapping requirements 
4. Turn on your Zap and monitor it, watch as tasks queue in your task history, resolve errors and high-five for successes

[SLIDE]

Thank you for attending today. Again, my name is Jessie Gilchrist. My email is here and my door is always open.

[SLIDE]

If you’d like to work with a consultant to set up Zaps or develop a custom Bloomerang integration to address a unique use case, please don’t hesitate to reach out. 

I will hand it off to Diana for a quick poll before we open up for more questions.

[POLL]

[SLIDE]

Thank you so much, Jessie, and thank you to everyone for joining us today. We, at Bloomerang, are very excited for this Zapier integration and we’re very excited to see where all of you will take it. Zapier has an integration with over 2,000 different apps and we’ve only just scratched the surface of what you can do with Bloomerang and Zapier. We hope that you can find a way to automate your processes and work better with Bloomerang using Zapier.