But first we thought we’d have a bit of fun with the rollout…

The first 5 people to comment on what the new feature is win a limited edition exclusive gift for your iPad or IPod or iPhone.  Just add a comment below before the end of January, and the gift is yours!

Imagine the embarrassment a student would feel, not to mention frustration, if they wait in line for 40 minutes to buy their tickets to graduation. Only when they get to the front of the line, they are turned away because of outstanding student fees.

Or as a parent, perhaps you weren’t thrilled with having to leave work to pay school fees. Only to hear that fees are going up again so the district can make up a shortfall in funding — essentially making you pay for someone else’s child that hasn’t paid their fees.

Your school policy prohibits them from attending graduation until those fees are paid up so the student is sent away, either to a cash machine, their parents or perhaps after this negative experience they decide not to be part of grad at all.

Even the most stoic business manager would be a little emotional about this scenario, wouldn’t they?

This scenario could be avoided when using InviteRight. We can show you how to use InviteRight to collect those fees at the beginning of the year instead of having your office staff chase them at the end of the year.

OK, your interest is piqued. How does this work?

• We create your free collection form and link it to your school website
• Students or parents pay for textbooks, bus passes and rentals then pick their lockers
• Monitor collect fees and generate reports through InviteRight
• Students are emailed a receipt with a locker number and material list
• Collect fees at the beginning of the year or before school begins, saving teachers a bunch of after school time

There’s a little more to the process than what I’ve listed but you get the idea. If you want to capture some of that outstanding money and give yourselves more accurate budgeting, then call us (1-866-811-3144) or email sales@eventiq.com to set up a short demonstration.

Another aspect of InviteRight is that you have such great control over your grad ticket sales. For instance, if your school is using InviteRight to sell tickets to graduation then you can collect fees in the spring, when grad tickets go on sale, or give credits to a student for fundraising.

I love it when things are simple, don’t you?

Have you received your voter registration card in the mail yet?

I was happy to see that I can now register to vote by going online. How easy is that?! Personally, I see voting as a privilege but not everyone shares my enthusiasm and takes the step to register and then go to the polls on Election Day. It seems the only time voter turnout for a Canadian federal election or referendum is adequate (for the record, voter turnout in the 2008 federal election was 61.1%) is when either there’s a hot button issue or we as Canadians are so sick of the governing party that we just have to vote a new government in.

Now there’s a campaign in the U.S. that takes voter registration and technology to a new level — it could work in Canada just as easily — a QR Code is placed on a basic cotton t-shirt. Snap the code with your iPhone and you’ll get instant access to a mobile page where you can watch videos about the U.S. Presidential Election, engage with social media, and register to vote. Read more about this strategy here.

Brilliant!

Imagine going into your attic or crawlspace and pulling out an old shoe box, looking inside and finding some treasures that remind you of your high school days. Shoe boxes full of faded pictures and buttons are fun, but I’m not sure they will have the same appeal to kids in 2012.

Recently, I came across the term Infographic and realized that it does the same thing as the shoe box in the sense that you can use this tool to collect memories.

If you break down the word you can probably guess what an Infographic is — but the definition (I am paraphrasing Wikipedia here) is that Infographics are graphics that represent information, data or knowledge. They can convey complex information quickly and clearly.

So I got to thinking, this is a great tool for teachers! Infographics probably have plenty of uses in the classroom, especially when it comes to helping students better comprehend data sets. But here is a more practical idea.

Have students create an Infographic of their high school career and noteworthy events that took place in their life during this time — sort of like the shoebox idea. This is just one of many visual tools that teachers can use when trying to engage students and (to me) it would be a heck of a lot of fun to have the students interpret each others’ Infographics to see if they agree on what the most important or most memorable events from high school were.

What a great way to chronograph grad!

Seeing as it’s almost the holiday season, we wanted to surprise all of you with a special gift – a new feature that will surely add an interesting dynamic to your elections!

Multiple Votes per Ballot

Multiple votes per ballot (aka Weighted Voting) is a way of allowing one person to have more influence on an election than another voter. We wanted to implement this feature as a way of tackling the condominium board community and homeowners associations. It is also extremely useful for proxy voting at board elections. We have gotten a lot of requests for this feature, so I’m pleased that we able to introduce it to everyone! In the past ElectionBuddy operated on a “One person, one vote” tallying system. With this new feature, organizations can assign multiple votes to a ballot, when elections are set in the First Past The Post, and Referendum method.

Who uses Weighted Voting

While weighted voting can be used for a variety of applications, it is prominently seen in elections done by homeowners associations and condominium boards – where multiple votes can be assigned to a ballot. For more information on how condominium boards across Canada operate their elections, I invite you to read our Condominium Board Blog Series. We have also looked at US Homeowners Associations and Condominium Boards to see how ElectionBuddy might be beneficial to them.For example, in a Condominium Board Election, John owns 5 units in a building totaling 18,000 sq. ft. and Amanda only owns 1 unit for 2000 sq. ft . The way votes are completed for this board are such that John would receive 18 votes and Amanda would receive 2 votes, on their respective ballots.  You will notice that most condominium bylaws state that number of votes someone receives is set by how much square feet they own.

How to Use it in ElectionBuddy

We realize most elections operate on “a one person, one vote” tallying system, and didn’t want to impact those who use it that way in the slightest. ElectionBuddy users love the simplicity of the software, so we wanted to keep it out of the hair of users who won’t be using it. Here’s how to use it:

1. In Step 1: Election Details, elect either First past the post or Referendum. A new option will appear below where you can assign how many ballots each vote is worth. Note:  If you select “One vote per ballot”, then ElectionBuddy will appear as normal.
2. If you chose “Multiple votes per ballot”, you’ll notice a brand new email address and voter information field on Step 3: Voter Setup. Whether you select,  Email ballots, printed ballots, choose to distribute ballots yourself, or a combination of the three, you will be able to assign multiple votes per ballot!
3. The Ballot Identifier is our unique way of attributing a number of assigned votes to a certain person. For example, if you are using manual keys, then you need to which voting key is whose, as they will be weighted differently. The Ballot Identifier could be an apartment number, phone number, really anything that you’ll know how many votes a voting key is worth.

We’d love to hear what you think about this new feature. We are all extremely excited about it and hope you are too! Please leave us a comment below, or reach out to us on Facebook and Twitter.

It’s been a while since InviteRight has acquired a new appearance. Over the past few months, we have worked attentively at the design of the application and always considered users on how confortable and enjoyable it is to create new events and view and extract all the data gathered from the system. Some of the changes have been drastic while others are very subtle. The new design will be implemented in the next few weeks so in the meantime; I will provide a sneak peak at some of the new look and feel.

Administration Area
You may notice that our mascot “Dwight” will be emerging more in our system. He is here to aid and direct you through any problems that you may stumble upon. When you first log into the system, you may spot Dwight at the top of the screen. This new administration bar Dwight sits in extends across the screen allowing you to easily see your login information, sign out button, help button and the capability to jump to any of your events instantly.

Buttons
The buttons on the site are now rounder and colourful. In sharp glance, all of the action buttons are more visible and invoke a more gratifying feeling.

Event List
The data in the event list is now simpler to read. The heading of the columns are bold and data is separated within a table. Subtle shades of grey and white are alternated between each row for ease of viewing large amounts of data.

These are just some of the alterations we have implemented. We hope you enjoyed this sneak peak of the design changes we have implemented just for you! Stayed tuned for the system update!

For the past couple of weeks, I have done a year-end review of all the features we’ve implemented since last summer, as well features you maybe not have been aware about. I realize it’s still August, but I explain why a recap was done now rather than December/January. Part 1 and Part 2 can viewed here and here.

But before I invite you to help us develop and introduce new feature, I would first like to thank you for a great year. We’ve had so much fun at watching your elections take place. We passed 1000 elections in April. We’ve seen ElectionBuddy used for all different types of organizations, including a number of non-profits and prestigious schools  And just last month we ran our biggest ever election! So from all of us at EventIQ… Thank You for the great year!!!

Right, now on to the good stuff!

As always, we value your feedback. It’s how we can improve our services, and develop a community of election organizers, and introduce new features.

What would you like to see in the near future? Are there any features that you think we can introduce to aid in your elections?

Leave us a comment below or drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter. Whoever comes up with the next great feature that we should develop, will get a very nice prize!

Please welcome the newest addition to InviteRight…the Status Bar! This little guy plays a big role in enhancing the registration experience of your guests.

As I had mentioned in my previous post, EventIQ is very attuned to details and we’re constantly tweaking and improving InviteRight and all of our products. A crucial element to the registration experience that we are very attentive towards is immediate user feedback – when you click on a button you want to know right away if: 1) you have activated the action 2) your action is being processed. This is where the Status Bar really shines.

Now any time a green proceed forward button is clicked you will know right away that your registration information is being processed. There’s absolutely no chance for confusion nor the need to senselessly click the proceed button repeatedly (I’ll save you my rant on those repeated Elevator and Crosswalk button mashers!)

All improvements to the guest registration experience have been met with extensive testing. For example, the buttons on the Visual Floor Map likewise offers immediate feedback on such information as seating availability, and names of other seated guests. Most importantly our system allocates Table/Booth selection priority on a first come first serve basis right down to the very nanosecond! For events that can expect a mad rush of registration, InviteRight is well equipped to ensure a fair and equitable registration.

Immediate feedback is also important in the creation status of events. A similar progress bar appears whenever you click on the Save button when you are Creating your events, so you will know that all of your important changes have been committed.

At EventIQ, every step of your guest registration experience is important to us, and the Status Bar offers a logical and intuitive indicator that will help to reduce confusion during the registration process. This ultimately this will save you time and effort in having to answer fewer phone calls or emails from guests wanting to confirm their registration.

See, a little bit of smart design goes a long way!

Spring time is upon us and with it comes the excitement of change and renewal. Here at EventIQ we’re starting the season off with a fresh new look to Inviteright. If you’ve logged onto your account recently to create a new event or edit an existing one you’ll have witnessed the improvements first hand.
Our re-designed interface is even more intuitive than before, mirroring the look and format of the registration page that are used by your guests. The colour coordination and blocked off titles for each section allow for easy navigation and logical work flow from one area to the next. You’ll find creating your events even easier and faster than before! This new design will save you time, which makes it easier for you to create even more events in Inviteright.

I can attest to how this design has already made a tremendous impact on my setups with our clients. Every week I juggle between the creation of several new events so I spend a great deal of time within the Create status. With the smart new layout, my eyes move from one important detail to the next with ease. Now admittedly this may not seem as though it should warrant such enthusiasm, but believe me, as any event organizer will tell you, the success of any event is in the details, big or small. At EventIQ we place a great deal of emphasize on our attention to details, because the absence of such details can have a major impact on your Guest’s registration experience. The new design maps everything out cleanly and logically so that I won’t miss those details…and neither will you!

This is only the first of many improvements that we’ve made recently and I’m very excited to show them off in the coming weeks. You’ll learn about fantastic new features in InviteRight, and I’ll even uncover some old features you may have never known about before. Feel free to check out www.inviteright.com for yourself and take a look at all our new features.

The lull of winter is over, and we’re ready to spring into action, so let’s go!

We built a website awhile back – www.cheercards.net.  We did it because there are are number of people on our team who used to play competitive sports and some of us have kids who are playing now and we wanted to give something back…

Cheercards.net helps you create wallet sized team rosters for kids sports – soccer, basketball, football.  Coaches give them to parents, parents hand them out to relatives.  Fans cheer using team players’ names – no more “Go Number 7!” Or print game, practice and snack schedules, coach and parent lists and much more…

We’ll email you the cards so you can print them yourself, or we can print and and mail you the cards cheer cards.

And while we support the website with donations, the reality is we do it for free… the hope and the payback is that we put a smile on a kids face

If you have used cheercards.net, and it has put a smile on your kid’s face, please tell us the story to put a smile on OUR team’s face.