Last year’s holiday lantern walk sold well, and now someone wants to set up this year’s version “just like last time.” You open the program forms list in Altru to see how the old one was configured, and the event isn’t there. The form still exists, the sales are still in Altru, but the event has dropped out of view.
That’s the usual experience: the area where you manage program and event web forms is built around what’s on sale now and what’s coming up. Once an event’s dates pass, it tends to stop showing up where you’d naturally look for it. Below is what that means in practice, where the information actually still lives, and a few habits that make next year’s setup much less of a scavenger hunt.
Is the past event gone, or just hidden?
Almost always it’s hidden, not deleted. Program records, event records, the sales tied to them, and the constituents who bought tickets all stay in the database after the event date passes. What changes is which events the form management screens choose to display.
Exactly how that filtering behaves can depend on your Altru version and how the program and its events were set up, and there isn’t a documented “show past events” toggle we can point you to with confidence. If you need to know for certain whether your list can be made to include past events, ask Blackbaud support or test it in a sandbox before you count on it. Don’t change settings on a live program just to see what happens.
Where to look instead
It helps to start from why you need the past event, because the right place to look differs.
You want to copy last year’s setup
Go to the program record itself rather than the form list. The program holds the prices, capacity settings, and event schedule, and its past events are typically still visible there. Write down what you need (price types, capacity, times, any restrictions), then build the new dates.
If the program is the same each year, consider adding new events to the existing program rather than creating a brand new program. That keeps the history in one place and usually means the web form you already have keeps working with the new dates.
You need to check what a guest bought
Start from the constituent record. Their revenue and order history will show the past purchase with the program and event date, regardless of whether the event appears in any form list. This is the fastest route for “I bought tickets to the event in October and was charged twice” calls.
You need numbers for a report or board update
Use queries and reports, not the form screens. An ad-hoc query on events or sales lets you filter by program and by event date range, including dates in the past, and pull attendance, revenue, and capacity together. Standard program and sales reports can also be run for a past date range. If you’ll be asked the same question every year, save the query with a clear name so it’s ready next time.
You need the old form’s URL or settings
This is the hardest case, since form-level details (wording, confirmation text, which events were linked) aren’t as easy to recover from queries. If the program screen and the form list both come up short, a support case with Blackbaud is the honest next step. They can tell you whether the form is still reachable in your environment and how.
Habits that save you next year
You can’t always change how Altru filters the list, but you can make the gap matter less.
- Keep a simple form log. A shared spreadsheet with the program name, form name, public URL, event dates, price types, and who built it. Five minutes per event, and it answers most “how did we do this last time” questions without opening Altru at all.
- Use consistent names with a year. “Lantern Walk 2026” is easy to find in queries and on constituent records. “Holiday Event (new)” is not.
- Snapshot the form before the event ends. Copy the description, confirmation text, and any custom wording into your log while the form is still easy to open. Screenshots work fine.
- Save a “past events” query. A query of events by program with dates before today, sorted newest first, gives staff a reliable way to see what ran and when.
- Reuse programs for recurring events. Annual and seasonal events are easier to manage as new dates on one long-lived program than as a fresh program every year.
Quick answers
Did deleting or ending the event remove the sales?
An event passing its date doesn’t remove sales. Revenue and orders stay on constituent records and in queries. Actually deleting a program or event is a different matter; check with Blackbaud support before deleting anything with sales history.
Can I just change the event date to make it show up again?
Avoid that. Editing a past event’s date to bring it back into view can confuse reporting and anyone who bought tickets for it. Look it up from the program record or a query instead.
