There are two types of batch printing available via the Box Office - Order Batches and Event Batches. This article will explain the difference between each, when you pick one over the other and how to print your tickets. To begin with, you should have a clear idea of how you intend to have your tickets collected or delivered. It is important to plan this in advance.
Order Batch vs Event Batch
There are two questions you should ask yourself in relation to your ticket printing. This will help you figure out which method you should use, if not both.
- Are you going to post tickets to customers?
- Will it be optional to receive tickets by either post or collect at Box Office?
If you answered Yes to either question, then it will be a mix of both Order and Event Batches.
If you answered No to both, then you can use Event Batch on its own.
What is an Order Batch?
Order Batches are used to print orders with a Postage Fulfilment option that have not yet been fulfilled (i.e., printed or downloaded as an e-ticket).
An order is added to the Order Print Batch when the following takes place:
- A customer places an order online, outside of the Postal Guard, and selects the Postage fulfilment option.
OR
- An order is placed at Box Office, outside of the Postal Guard, with the Postage fulfilment option (or no fulfilment option) selected AND at the point of confirming the order, the Order/Postage Batch option is selected.
We recommend printing Order Batches daily in the morning. When you select Print Order Batch, then all unfulfilled (i.e., not printed or downloaded as an e-ticket) orders that fulfil the above two criteria will be printed.
The "postal guard days" setting limits when a customer booking online can select a Postage Fulfilment Product, as well as determining whether or not tickets for the event will go into Order, or Event Batches.
What is an Event Batch?
Event Batches are used to print all tickets for an event(s) that have not yet been fulfilled (i.e., printed or downloaded as an e-ticket).
Tickets are added to the Event Print Batch when the following takes place:
- The tickets for the event(s) have a Postage fulfilment option select but are within the Postal Guard (so can't be added to the Order Batch because it is too late for posting).
OR
- The order has a Collect at Box Office fulfilment option (or no fulfilment option).
OR
- The order has a Print at Home/E-ticket fulfilment option and when running the Event Batch the Include Print at Home option is selected.
We recommend printing Event Batches a couple of hours before the event(s). When you select Print Event Batch then all unfulfilled tickets (i.e., not printed or downloaded as an e-ticket) that meet the above three criteria will be printed. By default, only tickets for the selected event(s) will be printed, but the option can be selected to print full orders if required.
How to print Order Batches
1. Go to Box Office > Print Tickets.
2. The Order Batches tab will be displayed.
3. You can now select the options to create the Order Batch:
- A. The first field indicates the maximum number of orders that can be put into a batch. This is for logistical reasons, and we recommend that you keep the maximum at 25. In this example, we can see that there is 1 unprinted order waiting to be batched.
- B. All order types means all orders will be put into the batch, no matter how it was placed. We recommend you keep it to this setting, as you may miss orders which won't appear elsewhere. However, you can filter by Box Office orders, Online orders, or Phone orders.
- C. All dates brings in orders from any date. You can filter by order date here if you wish to.
- D. All show tags allows you to only batch orders from shows with a specific tag.
- E. All product tags allows you to only batch orders for products with a specific tag. Note: You do not have to filter using the Tag 'postage' to bring in orders with postage - they will be bought into the batch automatically. If you do run the Order Batch filtered by the Tag 'postage', the Permit Printed Receipt? option must be enabled on the Postage Fulfilment Product.
- F. Preview allows you to see which orders will be included in the batch, and remove any orders from the batch you don't want printed.
- G. Batch will group the selected orders into a batch for printing. Note, this is irreversible.
4. The order batch will now appear at the top of the print batches list ready to be printed. From here you can click the 3 dots icon to print the batch, download the batch as a PDF, preview the batch, or custom print.
After printing, all orders printed in the batch will now be marked as fulfilled.
How to print Event Batches
1. Go to Box Office > Print Tickets.
2. Navigate across to the Event Batches tab.
3. You can now select the options to create the Order Batch:
- A. The first field indicates the maximum number of orders that can be put into a batch. This is for logistical reasons, and we recommend that you keep the maximum at 25.
- B. The calendar is where we select the date of the event we want to batch tickets for.
- C. Select an event populates the list of that day's events to choose from. Select the correct event from the dropdown.
- D. This displays how many tickets there are to go into the Event Batch.
- E. Include Entire Orders allows you to pull in all tickets within an order into the batch, even if they are for different events in addition to the event selected for order batching. This function is used when customers are picking up a whole order's worth of tickets at once from the Box Office, along with their ticket for the current event.
- F. Include Print at Home allows you to pull in all unprinted orders to the batch where the fulfilment method selected was Print at Home / E-ticket etc. If this is not selected then tickets from orders with a Print at Home/E-ticket fulfilment option will not be included even if they are not yet fulfilled.
- G. Preview allows you to see which orders will be included in the batch, and remove any orders from the batch you don't want printed.
- H. Batch will group the selected orders into a batch for printing. Note, this is irreversible.
4. The order batch will now appear at the top of the print batches list ready to be printed. From here you can click the 3 dots icon to print the batch, download the batch as a PDF, preview the batch, or custom print.
After printing, all orders printed in the batch will now be marked as fulfilled.
Ticketsolve Tip
Quick Sales: Any tickets that are created and use the Quick Sale (lightning bolt) option at Box Office are not assigned to either the Event Batch or Order Batch. The ticket is printed at the point of sale and can be re-printed as normal from the order.
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