If you have customers who are signing up multiple times and creating duplicate submissions, you can enable a feature to prevent this with the Prevent Duplicate Signups setting.
Setup
Go to Settings > Site Settings > Site Details and click the check box next to Prevent Duplicate Signups
How it works
When this setting is on, we will look to see if any people on your list are using the same email. If the person with the same email address is not part of the current family, and they have a family member who is actively on the list, they will see the below error.
You can give your customers access to remove themselves from your list, or confirm their interest in it.
How to Access
There are two different ways a customer can get to this confirmation page. They can click on a confirm link you have added to one of your emails, or they can visit the page from their unique customer portal Url.
Email Link
In your email content, you can add a link or button that will take them directly to the confirmation page. Adding this to your email reminder content is a great way to keep your lists updated.
Customer Portal
If you have your Customer Portal turned on and have sent customers their unique URL, they can visit that portal at any time and click on the “Remove From List” link which will take them to the confirmation page.
Confirmation Checkmark
When someone confirms their interest in the list, we record the date they did so. On your list their name will have a green checkmark icon next to it. If you hover over it, you will see the last date that they confirmed their interest.
Removal
If your customer chooses to remove themselves from the list. They will automatically be taken off the list. Their information will still be available in the system, and you can search for them by name if needed. They will also appear on your home page in the Recently Removed widget.
Email reminders are a great way to keep your customers engaged and informed, and to also keep your list updated and accurate.
When turned on, your customers will be sent an email on a periodic basis to remind them that they are still on your list. The content of this email is fully customizable, and can include links for your customers to confirm their interest, remove themselves from the list, and/or visit their portal page to see their status.
Setup
Go to Settings > Site Settings > Reminders. Below is an overview of what each of the fields on this page does.
Active – The Active checkbox will turn this feature on and start sending emails within 24 hours.
Frequency – The number of months between the sending of email reminders. See below for detail on when an email is sent.
Customization
As covered in the Email Content help doc, you can fully customize the Subject and Body of your email. There is one placeholder that you should be aware of for Reminder Emails, the Confirm placeholder.
The Confirm placeholder provides a link or button for your customer to click on that takes them to your portal. There they can Confirm their spot on the list, or Remove themselves from the list.
The placeholder for a button is <confirm-button>. Alternatively, if you would rather have a text link that takes them to the same place, you can use <confirm-link>.
FAQ
When are emails sent?
The first reminder email will be sent out based on the Added Date of the customer and the interval you have set. The next emails will be sent based on the send date of the previous reminder email and the interval you have specified.
Example Scenario:
In this example, we activated this feature on June 1, and set the Frequency to 3 months
Person
List Added Date
First Email Sent
Second Email Sent
Notes
Jack
January 1
June 1
September 1
Reminder sent today because this person has already been on the list for 3 months
Jill
February 4
June 1
September 1
Even though they were added at different dates. Jack and Jill will be on the same schedule. Since they both start today.
Bob
March 9
June 9
September 9
Bob will get his first email in a few days as he has not been on the list for 3 months yet
Betsy
April 11
July 11
October 11
If you have people on the list who have been on for a while they may all get an email right away when you turn this feature on. If they have been on the list for longer than your frequency, they will all get an email within 24 hours of making this feature active.
Can I set the frequency to less than 1 month?
Unfortunately not. One month is the minimum frequency. WaitlistPlus is a long-term waiting list solution and most customers are on the waitlist for many months or years. Getting frequent emails over a long period of time could be a frustrating experience for customers.
In addition to a better user experience, we also need to protect email deliverability. Sending emails too frequently can trigger SPAM complaints, and can lead to future emails being blocked.
At the heart of WaitlistPlus is the ability to collect information from your customers. We have a default form which collects basic contact information, but you have the ability to customize this form in a few ways.
To make changes to your forms to Go to Settings > Site Settings > Form Fields.
Create New Fields
Near the bottom of the Form Fields settings page, click on the “Add Field” button. Here you can fill out all of the details for your new custom form field. For details on what each of these form field properties control, see below under Customize Fields.
Customize Fields
When adding or editing a form field, there are many properties which you can change to control the look and behavior of the field. These properties are:
Name
This will be the primary way to identify a form field. It will appear as a label next to the field on your form.
Required
When checked, this field will be required when visible. You will not be able to save the form unless this field has been filled out. Required fields will have an asterisk (*) next to the name on the form.
Show for Children/Adults
If you have a field that only applies to a child or adult, this is how you can determine which person types will see the field.
Show on Online Form
If checked, this field will show on the Customer Signup Form. All fields will show in the Admin area of WaitlistPlus regardless of this setting.
Show on List
When checked, the value input will be displayed on your list. See below: The green pills are values input for two custom form fields.
Notes
This is additional text that will appear as a popup from the blue information circle next to your field’s name. If you leave this blank, the blue icon will not be displayed.
Type
The type property controls how the field appears in the form, and what type of inputs it will accept.
For system fields, the type cannot be changed. WaitlistPlus requires that these fields stay somewhat consistent as they are used throughout the app for various purposes. e.g. we send emails using the Email system field, we depend on that field being a valid email address.
Here is a list of all available types:
Textbox
Allows the user to type in their response for this field.
Medium Textbox
Same as above, but it’s twice as long to allow for slightly longer responses.
Big Textbox – Multiline
This is a much larger text box and allows for longer responses which may be full sentences or paragraphs. It will take up the full width of the page and multiple lines. It’s also expandable by the user if they really have a lot to type.
Date
This field type will provide a popup calendar and will make sure that the user enters a valid date.
Dropdown – Select One Option
A dropdown will be presented with a list of options specified in the Dropdown Options property. The user can select at most, one option. You can add as many options here as you like. Click Enter or add a comma to separate options.
Dropdown – Select Multiple Options
Similar to the above dropdown, but the user can select as many options as they like.
File Upload
Will prompt the user to select a file from their device and upload it to WaitlistPlus.
Change Field Order
The order in which the fields appear on the form can be changed. To change, go to the Form Fields settings page, grab the three dot icon just to the left of the field name, and drag the field up or down.
This order will be used when the form is displayed on the screen. The fields will be placed on the form in a left to right, top to bottom manner.
If you already have a long list of people on your list and want to import them into WaitlistPlus, we will import the list for you.
Requirements
You have a file that contains your list. Typically this is a csv, xls, xlsx file, but we could process other formats as well. See below for File Layout tips
You have paid for a 1 year subscription.
Steps To Import a List
Create a WaitlistPlus account
Setup your lists and custom fields and test out your setup during your free trial period
Send us a copy of the file you’d like to import so we can review it and let you know if:
It’s importable or not
If there are any changes we need you to make to the file, or your account setup
Pay for your 1 year subscription
Send us a recent copy of your list with any changes made that we have requested
Wait. We usually are able to process imports within a few days if not the same day. It partly depends on how much we have to modify the file to do the import.
File Layout
There are a couple basic rules that if followed we will almost always be able to import your data.
All members of a family should be on the same row. If you have two parents, and 1 child, they should all have their own columns on a single row. For example:
Name fields should be separated into columns for each part. In the example above, there is a column for first, and one for last name.
Each person on the list should have a DateAdded column. This is the indicator that a person should be added to a list, and is not just a family member added for additional information.
If you have date based lists, you must include a Birthdate column that has a valid date.
Can I import my data for use during my trial period?
Unfortunately not. We require a paid 1 year subscription to help offset the cost of doing the import. Every list we get is different and usually takes a few hours by a human to review and massage the data to guarantee a successful import.
While we understand there may be benefits to having your own data for a trial, that’s not really the purpose of our 30 day trial. The purpose of the trial is to learn the features of the software, and give you a chance to configure your account to your liking. This can easily be done by entering some fake person information, and/or your own information.
If you are happy with your account setup and would like to make a purchase prior to the expiration of the 30 day trial, that is perfectly fine.
There are a few emails which can be sent automatically by WaitlistPlus. You can modify the content of these emails.
Editing Email Content
Go to Settings > Site Settings > Email Content and click Edit next to the email content you would like to edit.
The Edit page allows you to modify the Subject and Body of the email that will be sent
Change Colors
The color of your emails can be updated to match your brand colors. The colors that appear in the email are the same colors you have specified in the Customer Portal configuration. To change those colors, go to Settings > Site Settings > Customer Portal and change the Primary Color and Secondary Color options.
Adding content from your list
Within the body of the email you can add placeholders that will be replaced with information about the people on your list. In the example above, the placeholder <to-person-first> will be replaced with the first name of the recipient of the email.
Placeholders
Below is a list of placeholders and an example output for an email sent to “Marry Poppins” about her daughter “Emma” who is on the waiting list.
Placeholder
Description
Sample
<person>
The full name of the person on the waitlist
Emma Poppins
<person-first>
The first name of the person on the waitlist
Emma
<person-last>
The last name of the person on the waitlist
Poppins
<to-person>
The full name of the recipient of this email
Marry Poppins
<to-person-first>
The first name of the recipient of this email
Marry
<to-person-last>
The last name of the recipient of this email
Poppins
<confirm-button>
A button that will allow your customer to update their status
<confirm-link>
A link that will allow your customer to update their status
<portal-button>
A button to the customer portal for this person
<portal-link>
A link to the customer portal for this person
Custom Button Placeholder
If you have another url that you need to send your customers to and would like to add a styled button you can add a placeholder formatted as below.
Our API is in beta mode. If you are interested in participating in the pilot please contact support
Overview
WaitlistPlus has a webhook API available if you would like to integrate our data in your own software. A webhook is the act of WaitlistPlus making an HTTP POST request to your application’s API when an event occurs. This way we are able to immediately notify you when an event occurs.
This is an advanced feature and will require involvement from your IT/Development team to integrate with your software. Because of the complexity and variance of software systems, we cannot assist you with the implementation of this feature.
Setup
While in beta mode, you must contact support to enable this feature. You will need to provide your web service url that you would like the webhook POST requests sent to. To ensure your data is encrypted, we require using HTTPS (ssl) for your webhook url.
Data
Data about the event will be formatted using JSON. An example of the full JSON document that would be POSTed to your webhook URL is below followed by a brief description of some of the more interesting fields.
type – (AddPerson, UpdatePerson, DeletePerson) this describes the event that occurred. See Events below for more details.
PersonId – a unique identifier for this person
PersonGUID – an alternate unique identifier for this person, we use it in email notifications and links to portal pages
FamilyPersonId – the PersonId of the first person created in a family. You can use it to link all members of a family together.
Fields – a list of all custom fields you have created for your site. Since this list will change for each customer, the json above is only an example. Your list will likely differ.
Notes – a list of notes for this person. Each note will contain the following:
LastEditDate – when the note was created, or last changed if it’s been updated
LastEditBy – full name of the person who created the note, or most recently updated it
Text – the actual content of the note
Waitlists – the details of the list this person is on, if any
Name – name of the list
Position – the position that they appear in on the list. This is one of the few fields we do not track updates to. See Events below for more information.
Added Date – the date the person was added to the list (this may have a different name in your account)
Requested Date – their requested start date (this may have a different name in your account)
Events
Below is a list of events that will trigger a webhook notification to be sent to the web service url you have specified.
Person Updates
The following events within WaitlistPlus will trigger a webhook to be sent. This will be represented in the type field in the json response.
AddPerson – person created by admin or through customer signup page
UpdatePerson – any change to an existing person including:
Any of the person fields
All Note changes (Add/edit/delete)
Waitlist change or removal. This could be caused by a change manual change from the admin, a change to list settings like age range, or changed by our nightly process if they have aged out of an age based list
Customer portal confirmation
DeletePerson – when a person is deleted from your site. This is not the same as removal from a list, which is included in “UpdatePerson”
Events that will not trigger a webhook
List position update – for example, if you removed one person from a list, you’ll get a webhook for that person, but not all of the people behind them in the waitlist, that now have a position one higher than they did before.
Example of Integration
The below video provides a step by step example of using make.com and Google Sheets to integrate with the WaitlistPlus API . There are many other ways to integrate with the WaitlistPlus API, we are just providing a single example here for reference.
We don’t have a crystal ball, but we can give you a glimpse into the future to see what your lists may look like on a later date.
This feature only works for age based lists. See list types here: Setting up Lists
How to turn on
When viewing your list, click on the See the Future button near the top right of the page. This will pop up a calendar where you can choose a date in the future.
After selecting your date, the list will automatically move people around as if it were that date. Using the list above as a starting point, you can see below what happens when I choose a date 7 months in the future.
Mary has moved off the list because she is now 24 months old and too old for the 1 Year Old list.
Ben stays on this list, but you can see that is age has changed to 21 months.
Viewing other lists
See the future will stay on until you turn it off. If you click to view another list, your future date setting will persist. You’ll now be seeing that list as if it were the future as well.
How to turn off
To turn off See the Future click on the See the Future button which now has an eye icon and date. Then click Clear at the bottom of the calendar. This will turn off the feature for all lists.
which now has an eye icon and date. Then click Clear at the bottom of the calendar. This will turn off the feature for all lists.