The General section with the Auction Settings area of your control panel is your first stop when creating an awesome auction! This article will tell you what you need to know about the available settings.

Event Information

The first section to complete is Event Information.

First, name your auction. You’ll see both the Name and Internal Auction Name fields.

The Name field is the public-facing name for your auction. When your auction is live this will act as the name of the event displayed on your auction form and in the Givi app. The Internal Auction Name is a name that is not displayed publicly. This field provides the option to name the event in a way only your organization will see in the control panel and in reports.

Next, you’ll see a place to add Form Tags to your event’s form. For more on configuring and using form tags, check out this article.

Next, you'll want to set your auction's Status.

Your choices are:

Active: When your auction is active,
Closed When your auction is closed, your event is over and no more bids can be submitted.
Disabled When your auction is disabled, visitors will see whatever message you enter in the Auction Disabled Message field. For example, you could include a message for them to check back on the date registration opens.

Up next is your fundraising Goal. Type the amount you're hoping to raise in the text field.

Givi Display Options

The next section is the Givi Display Options section, which is where you'll configure the Event Description and Event Image auction guests will see in the Givi app.

Givi Display Options.png

First, enter a description for your auction in the Event Description field. The description field isn’t where you’ll want to input information about the event time, date, and location, as specific fields in Auction Settings will allow you to enter that information.

To the right of the Event Description is where you can upload a Givi Event Image. This image is important because it allows you to add your branding to your auction event. To upload an image, click below the white box where the text reads Upload an Image. An image upload menu will appear. Navigate to your desired image file, select the file, then click Open. Your image will then be uploaded to the Auction image section of auction settings.

Givi Event Image area.png

To remove an auction image once you've uploaded one, select the red text that reads Remove Event Image.

An image is not required but provides an opportunity to make your auction’s branding visible to the public. To ensure the image you want to use will upload correctly, make sure it meets the criteria displayed below the auction image box.

Event Location

Next, you'll see the Event Location section. This is where you’ll enter the name of the Venue as well as the Address, City, State, Zip, and Time Zone.

The default time zone is set to Eastern, so if you’re not in the Eastern Time Zone, you’ll want to be sure to change it so that your event date and time are displayed appropriately on your auction form.

To change the time zone, click on the drop-down menu and choose the time zone your event will take place in.

Event Settings

Once the location information has been entered, scroll down to the Event Settings section.

Auction Event Settings area.png

Event Settings contains several toggle buttons to enable or disable specific functions to help you manage your auction. This is also where you can enter check-in and checkout instructions for your bidders.

The first toggle button allows you to Enable One-Time Event Donations.

When this feature is enabled, your supporters can donate during the auction registration process.

Use the next toggle to Enable GiftAssist. GiftAssist helps your organization by giving your donors the option to offset some of the processing fees of their donations. It only applies to event donations made through the donation form, not to event registrations or one-time donations during registration.

Enabling this feature allows you to set a Percentage of Transaction Amount or Flat Fee that is added to the donor’s transaction. This added fee will be applied to the transaction fee associated with their gift. You can enter a percentage up to 6.00% or a Flat Fee with a maximum fee amount of $10.00.

Enabling GiftAssist also will create a checkbox on the front end that donors will have to select to use the GiftAssist feature. You can create a custom message to display with the checkbox so donors are aware of what they’re opting into. The Checkbox Label has a default message that will tell the donor what the additional fee amount added to their transaction would be. You can customize this message, but it’s best practice to leave the Fee tag (%Fee%) in the message so donors can see the specific monetary amount being added to their transaction.

The next toggle button allows you to establish an Event Donation Cutoff Date. You can toggle this option on to set a date and time when donations to your event from the registration page will no longer be accepted. You can set this date after your event ends so people who may not have been able to attend can still donate after the event is over!

Next, enabling Recurring Donations allows supporters to make a recurring donation in accordance with the frequency options you configure in your form's Donation Settings.

Enable Recurring Donations toggle in Auction Settings.png

Next, you can choose whether to enable Event Has Start/End Dates. If your auction is taking place over a specific time period, enabling this setting displays when your event is taking place and displays a countdown to the event on the auction event page. This setting does not determine when items are biddable. To display a start and end date and time, toggle on the option, and then select the dates from the calendar and times from the drop-down menus.

Event Has Start and End Dates field.png

If you need an accurate head count ahead of your auction event, you may want to enable the Event Has Registration Cutoff Date toggle button to set a date and time to stop accepting new registrations for your auction. Otherwise, leaving this field disabled allows for day-of registrants. Note that you cannot have a Registration Cutoff Date and time set that ends after the Event End Date and time you've set.

If you’d like the bidder numbers for the auction to begin at a number other than 1, toggle on Event has a Starting Bidder Number.

You’ll then see a field to enter the Starting Bidder Number. When bidder numbers are assigned, they’ll begin at the number you set here. To determine when bidder numbers are assigned, scroll down to Bidding Settings.

Event has a Starting Bidder Number toggle.png

Please note: If you set a starting bidder number for a package, that number will override the number you set here. To read about setting up package-level bidder numbers, check out this article.

The next toggle in Event Settings allows nonprofits to Include Registration Costs in Fundraising Goals. The default setting is to exclude registrations from goals, but toggling the switch to on will apply registration funds to the fundraising goals of the event.

If you’d like to allow companies to register for the auction, toggle on Allow Company Registrations. When enabled, a Company Registration option will appear on the registration form. This option is particularly useful for sponsorships and table packages. A Company Name field will also appear on the Attendee Details page in the Virtual Terminal.

If you’re not using web or Givi app-based bidding, you have the option to Hide Download Givi prompts and Hide Set Up Bidding prompts using the last two toggles. When an attendee registers for the auction, the confirmation page and ticket email will not direct them to download the app or set up an online bidding account if you have both of these options toggled on.

Finally in Event Settings, you can fill in the Check-In Instructions and Checkout Instructions that will be displayed when your guests check in to your auction and when they’re checking out at the end of your event. There are no pre-generated messages for the check-in and checkout text boxes.

Please note: There's a character limit of 512 (including spaces) for the check-in and checkout instructions.

Check-In and Checkout Instructions.png

Enhanced Event Settings

In this section, you’ll see a toggle to Enable Scannable QR Tickets. If you’re using a device with a camera, this setting enables you to check in guests on the Virtual Terminal Attendees tab by scanning the QR code that will be emailed to them after registration.

Enhanced Event Settings section.png

Guests can also view their QR codes from the registration confirmation page by clicking View Ticket.

This setting is enabled by default, but you can turn it off if you don't want guests to receive a QR code with their auction tickets.

Event Registration Limits

This setting makes it possible to set a maximum number of tickets for the event. The default setting allows for an unlimited number of participants. If you set a limit here, when that limit is reached, registration will be sold out.

Bidding Settings

Next, you’ll see the Bidding Settings area, where you’ll decide how you want bidding to behave for auction items and determine when bidder numbers should be assigned.  

Your choices for how bidding should behave are Max Bids or Traditional Bids.

Bidding Settings.png

If you select Max Bids, the system will auto-bid incrementally to a maximum amount determined by the bidder.

For example, an item has a bid increment of $5, and the current bid is $10. John sets a max bid of $50. The system will show John as the winning bidder at $15 ($5 more than the previous winning bid). If someone else bids on the item, the system will continue to auto-bid for John until the max bid of $50 is reached.

If you select Traditional Bids, the system won’t perform any auto-bidding and will instead immediately bid the full amount entered by the bidder.

Let’s imagine the same example: An item has a bid increment of $5, and the current bid is $10. John enters a bid of $50. John is now the winning bidder at $50, and another bidder will have to bid at least $55 to outbid John.

Bidding Settings cannot be changed once bidding has started. To read more about bidding styles, check out this article.

Next, determine whether you would like bidder numbers to be assigned At Registration or At Check-In.

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If you select At Registration, attendees will be assigned bidder numbers as soon as they register.

If you select At Check-In, attendees will be assigned bidder numbers once they check in for the auction. To read more about assigning bidder numbers in the Virtual Terminal during check-in, check out this article.

Admin Notifications

The Admin Notifications section is where the organization can quickly input the email address of the user who should receive notifications about the auction. To further manage the notifications each user receives, visit the Notifications section of your org-level control panel.

Admin

Event Contact Information

Next, review the Event Contact Information. The information here will be used as the auction contact information in emails sent out to your users. Make sure the person you designate as the contact is okay with receiving inbound messages about the auction from users you send messages to regarding your auction.

Advanced Settings

The last section you'll see is Advanced Settings. In this menu, you can change an Event Alias for your event URL to make it easily shareable and simple for your supporters to remember. To create an alias for your auction event, click the URL in the Event Alias text box.

Once you’ve changed the alias, you can share your URL and direct supporters to your auction form so they can get details about your event and register. You can copy the entire URL by clicking the Copy Event URL button above the URL text box.

Make sure to keep track of web pages and social media accounts where you share your event URL. If you need to change your alias, you’ll have to update the URL everywhere you’ve shared the link. Once you’ve changed your alias the old URL will not work. The links to your auction pages will be broken.

The URL is a required field and multiple auction events cannot have the same event alias.

When you’re satisfied with your settings, save your settings by selecting the Save Event button at the bottom of the page.