You ran a great member preview night in spring, and now you need the fall version: same prices, same registration options, same capacity, different date. The natural instinct is to look for a “copy” button. Whether you’ll find one in Altru depends on which kind of event you mean, and that distinction saves a lot of wasted searching.
First, which “event” are you copying?
Altru uses the word “event” for two fairly different things, and the answer to “can I duplicate it?” is different for each.
- Program events. These are the scheduled occurrences of a program you sell as admission: a 10:00 a.m. planetarium show, a Saturday camp session, a guided garden tour. The program holds the shared setup (prices, capacity defaults, location), and each event is a dated instance of it. They show up in daily sales and advance sales.
- Special or fundraising events. Galas, member nights, donor dinners. These carry their own registration options, prices, invitations, and revenue tracking, and are managed more like a project than a timeslot.
Most “how do I duplicate this?” frustration comes from treating the second kind like the first.
Program events: you usually don’t need to copy anything
For timed programs, the program itself is the template. When you schedule new events against an existing program, they pick up the program’s setup, so you’re really just adding dates and times rather than rebuilding the event.
When you schedule, check whether your Altru environment lets you add several occurrences at once on a repeating pattern (for example, every Saturday through the end of the season) instead of one at a time. If you’re scheduling a whole season one event at a time, that’s worth confirming with Blackbaud support or testing in a sandbox, because doing it individually is slow and invites typos.
A few things to look at before you bulk-schedule:
- Is the program setup current? If prices or capacity changed since last season, fix them on the program first so new events inherit the right values. Changing them after you’ve created fifty events is a much bigger job.
- Do any dates need exceptions? Holidays, facility closures, and private rentals are easier to remove after scheduling a pattern than to remember while creating events one by one.
- Will these sell online? Confirm the new events are set to appear wherever you sell online. Staff often schedule correctly and then wonder why the website shows nothing.
Special events: plan on rebuilding, and make rebuilding easy
For fundraising-style events, be honest with yourself about what Altru gives you. We aren’t aware of a dependable one-click way to clone a special event with all its registration options, prices, and related setup in every Altru environment. Features can change, so test it: open last year’s event and look for a copy option, or ask Blackbaud support directly. If it’s there, great. If not, the workaround below is what most administrators end up doing anyway.
Keep a setup sheet for every recurring event
The real time sink isn’t clicking through screens, it’s remembering every decision you made last year. Before you close out an event, write down:
- Event name convention (include the year so reports and queries sort cleanly)
- Each registration option and its price, plus any deductible or benefit value
- Capacity and any per-option limits
- The designation, campaign, or appeal revenue should be tied to
- Who gets invited and the selection or query used to build that list
- Coordinators, location, and any expenses or tasks you track
Store it in a shared folder named for the event, not in one person’s inbox. Next year, rebuilding from that sheet takes far less time than reverse-engineering last year’s record.
Reuse what can be reused
Even without a copy function, plenty carries over. Saved queries and selections for your invitee lists can be pointed at the new event. Smart fields and reports built on event attributes keep working if your naming is consistent. Letters and email content can be updated rather than rewritten. The more of your setup lives in reusable pieces like these, the less a missing duplicate button costs you.
Don’t edit the old event into the new one
It’s tempting to open last year’s gala, change the date, and call it done. Don’t. You’ll lose the historical record of who attended, what they paid, and how the event performed, and year-over-year reporting breaks because two years of registrations now live under one event. Always create a new event (or new program events) and leave the old one alone as history.
A quick check after you build the new one
Before you open registration, put the new event side by side with the old one and compare. Run a test registration if you can, then confirm the revenue posts where you expect and the attendee shows up correctly. Then delete or reverse the test according to your organization’s usual process. Ten minutes here prevents a week of fixing misposted revenue later.
Quick answers
Can I copy a single program event to a new date?
You generally don’t need to. Schedule a new event against the same program and it inherits the program’s setup. Only event-specific changes need to be made by hand.
Will a rebuilt special event still compare to last year in reports?
Yes, as long as you keep naming and categories consistent. That’s the main reason to include the year in the event name and reuse the same revenue coding.
