Aug
31
2009
UNews By Mackenzie | No comments yet

Participate in a Webinar, Win an iPod

Enter to win an iPod shuffle and learn how to eliminate the hassle of selling event tickets!
One way in which many churches celebrate Christmas is by hosting concerts and  performances for their church members and their communities. Organizing and planning these ticketed events is a big undertaking, and the ticketing process itself can be overwhelming with the additional work and stress.  TicketU can help simplify online ticket sales!

Simplify the process with TicketU
TicketU makes it easy to sell tickets online through your website without the need for any special software or a dedicated server. Our completely web-based ticket box office software is the solution to your current ticketing conundrum. We provide you with a customized ticket sales page that will match the look and feel of your website to make sure your patrons have the best online ticket experience possible.

With TicketU, you can:
• Sell tickets to any ticketed event including concerts, fundraising events, dramatic performances and MORE!
• Offer print-at-home e-tickets, ticket by mail, and will-call
• Accept payment online by debit or credit card, or by e-check
• Customize your seating charts to make it easy for attendees to choose their own seats from your website

Ready to learn more? Participate in a webinar, and you’ll be entered to win a free iPod shuffle!

TicketU webinar dates:

  • Thursday, September 3 at 2 p.m.
  • Tuesday, September 8 at 10 a.m.
  • Thursday, September 10 at 2 p.m.
  • Tuesday, September 15 at 10 a.m.
  • Thursday, September 17 at 2 p.m.

Register for a TicketU webinar where you’ll  learn more about how TicketU can dramatically improve the way you manage your online ticket sales.

Aug
31
2009
UNews By Mackenzie | No comments yet

Church Expands Outreach with TicketU

First time attendance for many in the community
Even though Family Church in West Monroe, Louisiana, has been putting on their musical “Scrooge” for 12 years, they found that many people in the community attended last year’s performance for the first time. The church credits TicketU, their online ticketing provider, with helping to make their production more accessible to a wider audience of community members.

“With online ticketing, we actually sold more reserved seats than ever!” Cheryl Ogle of Family Church says. “In some cases we had people come to ’Scrooge’ for the first time because we offered online tickets. They said they were more likely to get a ticket online than come up to the church office and get one.”

“In addition, the professional vibe that online ticketing gave our production was a benefit,” she says. “For those who had never been to a production, the website sent a signal that this is a professional production.”

Theater for the family and community
With an average attendance of 750 people per Sunday, Family Church is focused on building Biblical founded families. The importance of family to spiritual well-being is one of the reasons the annual production of “Scrooge” is so important to the church.

“Our productions allow the entire family to come out and enjoy the theater,” Olge says.

The 2009 production marks the 12th anniversary of Family Church’s “Scrooge” musical.  With eight performances over a two-week period, having an online ticketing system has been very helpful to Family Church.

“Using TicketU was by far one of the best decisions that we’ve made for ‘Scrooge.’ TicketU worked with us to make sure the tickets looked how we wanted them to look, the seating for our venue was correct and all of the information for the web site was correct.  Once those preliminary decisions were made, the rest was a breeze.”

Connecting with your patrons
Ogle says that one of the most beneficial aspects of TicketU is the ability to follow up with patrons after the event and enable families to give feedback about “Scrooge’s” impact on their lives. TicketU gathers pertinent information from patrons when purchasing their tickets online. This allows for follow-up communication and notifications.

“This allowed us to send ‘Thank You’ notes out daily to all that attended the event,” Ogle says. “It also has helped us this year as we are using those e-mails to advertise for this year’s performance. Many in the community replied to those ‘Thank You’ e-mails with what “Scrooge” meant to them and how much they enjoyed it as a family. It was very gratifying to read all those comments and know that we are making a difference.”

Tracking tickets with no guess work involved
For the first 10 years of their production of “Scrooge,” Family Church used its own “in house” system for distributing/selling tickets.

“Our ‘in house’ system worked, in terms of having each performance full, but it took a lot of manpower to make the event happen and our tracking for how many tickets were ‘reserved/sold’ was always, at best, sketchy,” says Ogle.

Ogle says TicketU allowed volunteers to track how many tickets were sold for each performance with no guessing involved.

Professionalism, accountability, ease-of-use, and increased visibility — these are all benefits TicketU brought to Family Church to help make an annual event even more successful.

Aug
10
2009
Uncategorized By Lauren | No comments yet

Heritage Preparatory School Utilizes TransactU

Heritage Preparatory School Takes Payments with Ease

heritage_kids_in_uniformHeritage Preparatory School of Atlanta, Georgia has offered its students an exceptional educational experience for more than 12 years.  Heritage’s educational approach is specifically classical-Christian; the best of Western art, literature, and scholarship is systematically studied to best prepare students for a modern future.  Heritage has successfully brought a small-town classroom feel into the heart of the big city for its 143-member student body and their parents.

Simple Advancements;  Revolutionized Results
The 12-acre campus features a main school building with more than 16,000 square feet of space, including classrooms, a media center, science, art, and nature studies rooms, as well as a computer lab. The campus also offers a full size gymnasium, a beautiful sanctuary, and outdoor playgrounds and courtyards.heritage_soccer

With such a large selection of facilities available for events and actives, Heritage recognized that keeping track of event registrations was becoming increasingly difficult.

“Compared to many of the larger private schools in Atlanta, we do not have as many administrative resources,” says Rev. Dr. W. Davies Owens, Head of School at Heritage Preparatory School.  “We are also unique in that we expect our parents to actively participate in many aspects of school life, especially volunteering.  TransactU has revolutionized how we register our students and collect funds for events, and more importantly TransactU allows our parents the convenience of never having to write a check again.”

Dr. Owens remembers when he first came to Heritage, parents would drop off their children in the carpool line and hand him a check for an upcoming event at the same time.

“I heard from more than one parent that the only time they would write a check was to pay the babysitter and pay for school events,” says Dr. Owens. “Even though we were a small organization, we needed to find a tool that could help us evolve into the 21st century and provide our parent community the conveniences they deserved.”

Technology to the Rescue
Enter ServiceU.  Dr. Owens had previously crossed paths with Tim Whitehorn, president and CEO of ServiceU, and knew of the company’s expertise in working with small organizations and schools.

“The more I analyzed our vision and what ServiceU could provide us with its TransactU product, the more sense it made,” says Dr. Owens. “Just the convenience factor ServiceU could provide our parents sold us on the product.”

Today, Heritage’s parents can register for school, sign up for events and pay tuition and fees right from their own computers via Heritage’s website.

“TransactU handles all of the economic transactions a school needs to make on a day-to-day, week-to-week, and month-to-month basis,” notes Dr. Owens. “Additionally, ServiceU’s customer service has been extremely helpful, and the company is always on the cutting edge of technology and updates as they become available. It has been an unbelievable partnership between Heritage and ServiceU.”

TransactU has allowed Heritage to focus on what it does best—teaching their youth and combining its unique balance of stellar academics, authentic Christ-centered teachers, and a community of like-minded parents and friends.

“ServiceU really is a turnkey option for schools and other non-profit organizations,” says Dr. Owens. “They offer organizations such as Heritage the tools they need by fulfilling unique and distinct needs at a price even a small organization can afford.  It is a win/win situation for everyone involved.”

Aug
10
2009
UNews By Brian | No comments yet

Chrome™, Safari® and Opera® oh my!

Do you think Google™ Chrome is cool? Would you rather use the browser that came with your Mac®? Are you trying to push the limits of your PDA?  If you can answer yes to any of these questions then you will probably be excited to know that you can now log into the ServiceU system with an unsupported browser.  Yes, you read that correctly. I can almost hear the cheers while I type.

For a long time ServiceU has resisted allowing browsers other than Internet Explorer® and Firefox™ mostly because of known compatibility issues.  Years ago I can remember testing Safari® in the ServiceU system and some of the weirdest things would happen, such as empty drop down menus and weird formatting on pages.   The times have changed and so have internet browsers and ServiceU.

browserblurb2

Here is how it will work:  ServiceU officially supports Internet Explorer® and Firefox® as approved browsers.  Although you will be able to log into ServiceU with an unsupported browser, you may find problems related to that browser.  If you do find a problem, you are welcome to let us know about it; however, if the problem is related to the browser, the only solution we can offer will be to use a supported browser.

We have already been doing our homework here in support and this is what we have found so far:

  1. Google™ Chrome, no known bugs in EventU and TransactU
  2. Safari® for desktops, no known bugs in EventU and TransactU, but possible issues in TicketU with bar codes.
  3. Opera© for desktops, no known bugs in EventU and TransactU
  4. Safari® for the IPhone® has a problem with the second tier of menus, but you can still get around


All brand names or trademarks or registered trademarks used in this website are the property of their respective holders.

Aug
7
2009
UNews By Lauren | No comments yet

Schools simplify with TransactU

Back-to-School Headaches? Simplify with TransactU

Fall is almost here and for many private schools and colleges, it is a time when educators and administrators look forward to helping a new group of students continue their academic journey.  During this busy back-to-school time, many schools and colleges are offering many events for parents and students as well as launching new fundraising programs.  This often means mountains of paperwork and accounting for faculty and staff. While fundraising and event management might be considered among the unpleasant aspects of operating a private educational institution, TransactU can help simplify the process.

“If you are responsible for administrating these projects, you know all too well the headaches that can accompany the process,” says Tim Whitehorn, president and CEO of ServiceU. “From managing information sent out to students, parents, and the community, to keeping track of pledges and donations, to hosting fundraising events, there are many factors involved. TransactU can help you simplify the process. It’s the uncomplicated, straightforward, easy-to-use online solution for keeping track of donations, event registrations, and online payments.”

TransactU can help your school with event registrations and online donations

TransactU offers everything you need to accept online registrations, payment and donations with a credit card or online check in a secure, hosted environment. Patrons, whether they are parents, grandparents, or friends of your organization, can simply visit your school’s website when it’s convenient for them, 24/7, whether your office doors are open or closed.

Here’s how TransactU can help your school:

Online event registration and payment – Your school has a lot going on. From workshops to alumni reunions to athletic training camps, there are a lot of ways for people to get involved. Make it easy for students, parents, alumni, and guests to participate in your events by offering online event registration and payment. Because TransactU enables your school to accept payments, you can use it to set up tuition payments and help your staff more effectively manage their events using TransactU’s powerful reporting capabilities.

With TransactU, there are no more hand-written forms to be filled out. People can simply go to your website to register for events and pay using their debit or credit card, or an e-check.

Online giving – Alumni may not return to the campus as frequently as they would like, but they can keep up-to-date with your organization through your website. Many busy parents and distant grandparents would like to contribute to the school or college, but don’t always have the time or the ability to go to your school to drop off a gift. Give them to the opportunity to make online contributions to your school, directly from your school’s website.

In addition to ongoing giving opportunities, TransactU is also a helpful addition to your development team’s fundraising efforts. As your school launches annual fundraising campaigns, your campaign materials can direct patrons to your “online giving” section of your school’s website. From there, patrons can contribute online.  By asking your patrons to give online, you can save your school countless dollars on postage and printing costs.

With TransactU, your patrons can:

• Set up recurring gifts and select amount
• Make payment with debit or credit cards, or e-checks
• Select which fund their gift goes to from a drop-down menu of choices

Sign up for a TransactU demo today and learn how to get a handle on the fundraising process, online donations and payments, and event registrations. Call us at 1.866.709.7420  today to get up-and-running in a week or less!

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