Altru gives you more than one way to set up something that happens at a set time, and choosing the wrong one tends to show up months later: a summer camp you can’t pull a roster for, or a planetarium show that makes cashiers type in a name for every ticket. Choosing between a preregistered program and a scheduled program is mostly about one question: do you need to know who is attending, or just how many?
The short version
- Scheduled program: a timed offering with limited capacity where you sell tickets to a specific occurrence. Think theater shows, guided tours, animal encounters, timed entry. You care about seats and times, not names.
- Preregistered program: something people sign up for ahead of time, where you track individual registrants. Think camps, classes, workshops, overnights, lecture series. You need a name (and often more) for every person.
Plain general admission with no time slot usually belongs in a daily admission program, not either of these. Keep that as a third option in mind before you build anything.
How the two behave differently
Who the ticket belongs to
A scheduled program ticket is attached to the buyer’s order. If a parent buys four tickets to a 2:00 show, Altru knows there are four seats sold to that order. It does not need to know the kids’ names.
A preregistered program is built around registrants. Each person attending is tied to a constituent record, which is what lets you produce class rosters, sign-in sheets, and attendance history later. That extra detail is the whole point, and also the extra work at the point of sale.
Where it gets sold
Scheduled programs fit naturally at the front desk and in daily sales, because a cashier can sell seats to the next show in seconds. Preregistered programs lean toward advance sales and online registration, where there is time to collect registrant details. Exactly which sales channels and web forms each program type can use depends on how your Altru environment is configured, so confirm with a test transaction in a sandbox (or ask Blackbaud support) before you promise anything to program staff.
Capacity and events
Both types use events with dates, times, and capacity. With scheduled programs you typically create many recurring occurrences (every show, every day). With preregistered programs you usually have fewer events, and the number that matters is registered people rather than tickets sold. If a camp runs Monday through Friday, think through early how that should appear: as one registration covering the week, or as separate events. Build a sample and look at what your reports produce before you load the whole season.
Reporting afterward
This is where the choice usually matters most. Ask the program team what they need after the fact:
- “How many people came to the 11:00 tour?” Either type can answer that, but scheduled is simpler.
- “Who was in the Tuesday pottery class, and which of them came back for the spring session?” That needs registrant data, so preregistered.
- “Which camp kids have allergies, and who is authorized to pick them up?” Preregistered, plus a plan for where that information lives (attributes or notes on the registrant’s record, or a separate form your team manages).
A quick decision checklist
- Will staff ever need a list of names for this activity? If yes, preregistered.
- Do walk-up guests buy this at the desk on the same day? If yes, and names don’t matter, scheduled.
- Is attendance a multi-session commitment? Camps and course series usually point to preregistered.
- Is the main constraint seats in a room or slots on a tour? Scheduled.
- Do you need to follow up with each attendee individually (waivers, post-class surveys, parent emails)? Preregistered gives you the per-person records to query against.
When the answers split, lean toward the type that matches your reporting needs, not the one that is fastest to sell. You can train cashiers around a slower checkout. You can’t retroactively capture names you never collected.
Configuration tips that save cleanup later
- Name programs for the public, not for staff. Program and event names often show up on receipts, confirmations, and web forms. “Little Explorers Camp, Week 3” beats “CAMP-W3-AM.”
- Set price types deliberately. Decide up front whether members get a different rate and whether that is a separate price type. Changing pricing structure mid-season makes revenue comparisons messy.
- Set realistic capacity. Hold back seats for staff or comps intentionally rather than editing capacity on the fly.
- Build the report before launch. Write the roster or attendance query you’ll need and run it against a few test registrations. If it can’t answer the program team’s questions, fix the setup now.
- Don’t switch types mid-stream. Moving an activity from scheduled to preregistered (or the reverse) generally means creating a new program, and history stays with the old one. If you’re unsure, pilot one session first.
Common gray areas
Field trips and school groups. You usually care about the group, not each student. Many sites handle these through group sales rather than either program type. Talk with whoever books schools before deciding.
Ticketed lectures. A one-off talk with assigned capacity is usually fine as a scheduled program. A lecture series where you track repeat attendance or award credit leans preregistered.
Behind-the-scenes tours. If you only need a headcount, scheduled. If you require waivers or minimum ages per person, preregistered gives you somewhere to attach that to each attendee.
Whichever you choose, document the reasoning in a short internal note next to the program. The next person to build a similar offering will copy whatever is already in the system, so make sure what’s there was a deliberate choice.
