Within Eventsforce, event managers can restrict who can register in attendee categories by making categories “invitation only”. Setting up an invitation only category requires that the event manager know the email address of each person who plans to register in that category.

However, if the event manager does not know the email addresses of each person to register, a solution that can be implemented in Eventsforce involves creating a registration page that has an “access code” question and requires a certain answer to proceed with their registration.

The event manager must first create a new registration page to contain this question. We recommend adding this question to the new registration page. Once the page has been created, change the order so the new page is the first in the list, and rename as needed.

Once the registration page has been created, the event manager can add a new registration question to the page. We suggest using a name like “Access code” for the question. Within the question settings, make the question “mandatory” and add the text you would like to use as your access code into the “Custom validation” field. This is the code you will provide to attendees.

Tip: You may also want to add a “Validation error message” explaining why the attendee is unable to proceed with the code entered. For example, use an error such as “The access code entered is not valid, please contact the event manager”.

As attendees go through the registration process, they will see your “Access code” page, and can only proceed by entering the code that matches the value in the “custom validation” field. The below example shows an attendee entering an invalid code, followed by a valid code.

Note: Keep in mind that attendees may share the code. The only way to fully restrict who can register in a category would be to make it “invitation only”.