What is the best way to use CiviCRM for on-site registration at an event?

Question

We have an event coming up and this is the first time we've used Civi to handle our registrations both pre-event and on-site. It is possible that we will have people attend who are not yet in our database. As I understand it the existing workflow for registering a new contact would be to add a new individual, enter their info, save the contact, click events, add event registration, pick the event, pick their options. [...]. That's a lot of different screens to jump through.

My solution for this piece was to keep the online registration open and add a menu item to a blank form. Then our folks doing registration can just bring up the form and key in the participant's info and event options (we have a couple lunch and banquet choices they get). However, we also want to record payments. This means having a second tab open, refreshing the participant list, editing the registration, and recording the payment. Which works if your "cashier" is a different person than your data entry person.

Has anyone used Civi for on-site registrations like this? Is there something I'm missing? Absent custom coding is there a way I can build a profile or use Drupal Webform to allow a registration team member to enter a new person, select their registration options, and record a payment all on one screen? I imagine if not, I can do it with the API and build a page, but I'm not sure I can get it done in the time I have.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Rachel

Answer 1

Yes, a Drupal-Civi webform will allow you to do just what you've described.

Note that if your event uses a price set, you will have to get creative (see below).

From Webform CiviCRM Integration:

Event registration via webform is extremely flexible; any number of contacts can be registered for any number of events on a single form. If your form has multiple contacts on it, you may choose to register them each separately for different events, or all together for the same event(s). If you choose to register them together, CiviCRM will show contact 1 as having registered the others...

With payment integration, events can be paid for online or offline via webforms (see notes below on supported payment processors). Note that CiviCRM pricesets are not supported and fees should instead be allocated using the "event fee" field provided by this module.

If you have your staff/volunteers using the webform on behalf of registrants, you can also have exposed Existing Contact fields to look up whether registrants are already in the system or not, all on the same screen.