A 10:00 school program is not a 10:00 job. Someone has to set chairs out at 9:30, a docent has to be assigned, and the room needs to be clear before the 11:30 birthday party arrives. Altru knows the 10:00 part. It holds the program, the event date and time, the location, the capacity and what has been sold. The rest of what your education and facilities staff need tends to live in a separate spreadsheet, a whiteboard, or someone’s head.
This guide explains what Altru can hold for an event, where you can reasonably add setup, cleanup and staffing information, and when it makes more sense to keep that information somewhere else and connect it back.
What a program event record is built to hold
A scheduled program event in Altru is mainly a sales object. It exists so the program can be priced, sold through daily sales, advance sales, group sales or a web form, and limited by capacity. Its core fields are about that job: the program, the date, start and end times, the location, and how many people it can hold.
In a standard setup, the event record doesn’t give you dedicated fields for setup time, teardown time, a day-of contact or staffing notes, and there are no built-in tabs for tasks, expenses or documents. If you think your configuration might differ, confirm with Blackbaud support before building around it. Everything below is a workaround, and each one has a tradeoff.
Option 1: Attributes, if your event records support them
Attributes are Altru’s custom fields, and they’re the cleanest place for structured information like “Setup minutes,” “Cleanup minutes,” “Lead educator” or “Room configuration.” Whether you can add an attribute to a program event, rather than only to the program itself, depends on the record types your version of Altru offers for attributes.
Check this before you plan around it. In the attribute setup area of Administration, create a test attribute category and see which record types are offered. If program events aren’t in the list, test in a sandbox if you have one, or ask Blackbaud support whether event-level attributes are available to you.
If the record type is there, a few habits keep attributes useful:
- Use numbers for times. “Setup minutes: 30” can be queried and summed. “Come early-ish” can’t.
- Use code tables for people or roles where you can, so “Maria,” “Maria G.” and “M. Garcia” don’t turn into three staff members in your reports.
- Keep free text for genuine notes. One text attribute for “Setup instructions” is usually enough.
If attributes only exist at the program level, they’re still worth adding there for anything that’s true of every occurrence (“Planetarium show: 15 minutes reset between shows”). Put the per-date exceptions somewhere else.
Option 2: Block the time on the event itself
Some sites simply extend the event’s start and end times to include setup and cleanup. It’s quick, and it stops anyone booking the room during the reset.
The problem is that the times you enter are the times guests see. A 9:30 start on a 10:00 program is likely to show up on confirmations, on your website calendar and on sales screens. Only do this for events that are never sold to the public, such as private groups where you control the communication, and test what the confirmation shows first.
Option 3: A separate internal event or location hold
Another approach is a second, non-sellable record that occupies the location for the setup or cleanup window, named clearly (“SETUP – Classroom B – for 10:00 Dino Discovery”). It keeps public times accurate and makes the room conflict visible to anyone scheduling.
The downsides: it doubles the number of records, it can clutter program lists and reports unless you filter it out, and if the main event moves, someone has to remember to move the hold too. If you try it, pick one naming convention and exclude those records from sales and attendance reporting by name or by a dedicated program.
Option 4: Keep operations notes outside Altru, keyed to the event
For many teams the practical answer is a shared run sheet that pulls the schedule out of Altru and adds the operational columns Altru doesn’t have.
- Build a query of upcoming program events with the program name, date, start and end time, location, capacity and current sales.
- Export it on a regular schedule into a shared spreadsheet.
- Add columns for setup start, cleanup end, staff assigned, day-of contact, supplies and notes.
- Include a stable identifier from Altru in the export so the notes stay attached to the right event when you refresh the data.
This gives facilities and education staff something they’ll actually read, and nobody has to touch the sales setup. The weak point is the refresh: if an event is rescheduled in Altru and the sheet isn’t updated, the notes point at the wrong time. Whoever owns the sheet should check for changed and cancelled events at least weekly.
Choosing between them
- Need to report on it (staff hours by program, setup time across the season)? Use attributes if they’re available, otherwise a structured spreadsheet.
- Need to stop double-booking a room? Use a location hold, or block the time on non-public events.
- Need a daily sheet for the floor? Use a query plus a shared run sheet, even if you also use attributes.
Most organizations end up combining two: attributes or program-level notes for standing rules, and a run sheet for the people working that day.
Quick answers
Can I add a “Notes” tab to scheduled events?
Not as a custom tab. Use an attribute if event records support them in your system, or keep notes in a linked run sheet.
Will padding the event time change capacity or pricing?
It shouldn’t change price, but it changes the times guests see and can affect how timed events line up next to each other. Test on a non-public event first.
