A virtual lecture sells out, everyone gets a receipt, and then twenty minutes before start time the phones light up: “Where’s the link?” The registration worked. The confirmation email just never had the one piece of information the guest actually needed.
Getting a Zoom (or Teams, or Google Meet) link into the hands of Altru registrants is mostly a question of where the link lives and when it gets sent. There are a few reasonable ways to do it, each with tradeoffs. Pick the one that matches how many virtual programs you run.
First decide: confirmation email or separate “join” email?
It’s tempting to put the link straight into the confirmation. That works for a one-off event, but it has two problems:
- Confirmations go out at the moment of purchase. Someone who registers three weeks early will have buried that email by event day.
- Confirmations get forwarded. A link in the receipt is a link anyone can pass along, which matters if the program is paid.
Many organizations end up doing both: the confirmation says “Your join link will arrive the day before and again one hour before the program,” and a separate email carries the link itself. If you only have time to set up one, put the link in the confirmation and add a clear “save this email” line near the top.
Option 1: An event-specific acknowledgement template
The simplest approach is to give the virtual program its own confirmation email template, with the link typed directly into the body, and point that event’s registrations at it instead of your standard template.
This is fine when you run a handful of virtual events a year. It gets messy when you run a weekly series, because every new session means a new or edited template, and an outdated link left in a template is an easy mistake to make. If you go this route:
- Name templates with the event date so nobody reuses last month’s version by accident.
- Send yourself a test registration before the event goes on sale and click the link.
- Put the passcode in the email too, or use a link with the passcode embedded.
How finely you can assign templates (per event, per program, per price type) depends on how your Altru events and sales are set up. If you’re not sure your configuration supports a separate template for one event, test it in a sandbox or ask Blackbaud support before you build the event around it.
Option 2: A query-driven email to registrants
For anything recurring, a query is more dependable. Build an event registrant query (or a sales query, for a ticketed virtual program) that returns name, email address, and the event or program date. Then use it to send a “Here’s how to join” message on a schedule you control, typically the day before and again an hour or two before start time.
The advantages:
- Late registrants are picked up automatically, as long as the query runs close to event time.
- You can change the link up until the send without touching your confirmation templates.
- The same query tells you who registered but never got an email address recorded, which is worth catching before the event, not after.
The weak spot is the manual part. If someone has to remember to export the query and send the email for every session, it will eventually be skipped on a day that person is out.
Option 3: Zoom’s own registration, linked from Altru
Some organizations keep payment and attendance in Altru but turn on registration inside Zoom, so each attendee gets a unique join link from Zoom itself. Your Altru confirmation then contains the Zoom registration link plus an instruction to complete it.
This gives you per-person links that are harder to share, and Zoom can send its own confirmation and reminder emails. The cost is a second registration step for the guest and two lists to reconcile. It suits paid programs where link-sharing is a real concern more than free community talks.
Small things that prevent most “where’s my link” calls
- Put the date, time, and time zone right next to the link. Virtual programs draw people from outside your area.
- Use a plain-text fallback. Some email clients mangle buttons. Include the full URL and the meeting ID and passcode as text.
- Tell the front desk what’s going out. Give staff a copy of the join email so they can resend it from their own inbox when someone calls.
- Check email addresses on registrations. Phone and walk-up registrations are where missing or mistyped addresses usually come from. A virtual event is useless to someone you can’t email.
- Record the link change policy. If a host’s Zoom account changes, decide who updates the template or the scheduled email, and write it down.
Automating the join email
Option 2 is the one that holds up best over time, and it’s also the one that depends most on someone doing the export and send. Email Designer sends branded, automated emails from Altru queries without manual exports, so a registrant query can drive the “how to join” message on its own schedule while Altru keeps the registration and payment data.
Quick answers
Can I add a custom field for the Zoom link and merge it into Altru emails?
Possibly, depending on what fields your templates can merge for events and sales. Test it on a sample registration before relying on it. If the field doesn’t merge, put the link in the template body or send it by query instead.
Should the link be on the public event page?
Only for free, open programs. For anything paid, keep it in emails to registrants.
