In anticipation of the need for performance cancellations and postponements due to the current Coronavirus pandemic, we have just released some changes to improve the way crowdEngage handles cancelled shows.
Send messages for cancelled shows
Previously, crowdEngage would skip performances that were marked as cancelled in order to avoid messages being sent inadvertently. Now, when you set up a message template you can choose whether it will send for live shows only (the default) or for cancelled shows as well.
For your standard messaging, you'll always want to use the default, which is Only send for live instances (shown above). But if you need to cancel a show, you can now select the new option, Send for both live and cancelled instances. This means that when you need to send out a cancellation notice you can do it quickly without needing to think about whether it has been marked as cancelled in the ticketing system or not.
You'll see a big red warning when you select this option to draw attention to the fact that it's not the behaviour you'll usually want:
Realtime cancellation status
This small tweak means that crowdEngage will now check the cancellation status of performances with your ticketing system in realtime before sending out messages. Previously cancellations were synced across from the ticketing system on an hourly basis.