Disclaimer: This solution is an advanced setup. Only trained customers who understand the different functionalities in use should use this solution. 

This article will briefly explain how it is possible to set up a Slot Transfer Platform with different tools that are available in RACE RESULT 14.

Reason behind such a platform is offering the participants a possibility to transfer their slots to other participants.

Knowledge of all the functions mentioned is required. Of course, this is not a final and the only possible solution. Feel free to adapt different settings to your needs and see also the "Further Ideas" section at the end of the article.

General situation

• Contest / Event fully booked, but still interested Participants.
• Registered participants that cannot attend.

Idea

• Registered Participants can offer their slot for sale.
• Interested Participants can buy these starting slots on a “official page”.

Requirements

• Easy workflow for Buyer & Seller.
• (Automatic) Refund-System.
• No contact between Buyer & Seller.
  • minimize fraud
  • Data privacy

Attached to this article you will find an .ses file where everything is pre set. Note, that there is no further explanation and support offered for any CSS stylings that can be found in the eventfile.

In the Registaion Forms section you'll find two foldes named "Changeforms" and "Registrations". Depending on the type of form it is talked about, you'll find the form in the dedicated folder.

For a general overview see the flow-diagramm (picture) attached to this article. 

General Procedure (see flow-diagramm)

• Participant A ("Seller") registers to the event and receives the usual E-Mail-Confirmation
  • E-Mail contains two Changelinks
    • Usual Changeform to allow changes / buy merchandise etc.
    • Link to a "Selling-Form" which allows to put the Slot on the official Slot Transfer Platform
• Participant B ("Buyer") cannot register anymore to the usual registration as e.g. the event is fully booked, but there are slots available on the Slot Transfer Platform.
• "Buyer" selects a Slot and does a "normal" registration and receives an E-Mail-Confirmation only with the usual link to his changeform
  • In this example case the buyer is not allowed to sell his slot again.
• After the "Buyer's" registration the "Seller" is moved to different contest. This way contest-capacities are always leveled and contest do not get overbooked. The "Seller" receives an E-Mail with the confirmation that the slot has been bought and he now can ask for a refund of the Entry-Fee.
  • E-Mail contains a link to a changeform called "Refund-Form" to trigger the (automatic) refund.

Additional Fields

Within the eventfile a bunch of Additional Fields is used, which are some key-elements in the whole process of selling and buying a slot on the platform. The fields are either used to save personal data automatically during different steps in registrations / change-forms, or for actions that participants need to make in registrations / change-forms.

Registration-Form ("Registration")

• In the eventfile is a dedicated registration-form which is used for the initial registrations to the event. 
• In the After Save Actions the E-Mail-Confirmation "Single Registration" is send out
• The E-Mail contains two changelinks:
  • Link to usual Changeform ("C-Changeform")
  • Link to a Changeform where the participant can put his slot on the Platform ("A_Selling-Form")

Selling-Form

• Use: Participant can actively offer starting slot for sale.
• General settings >> Filter: Only participants that haven't put their slot on the platform yet and did not buy a slot from the platform can open the form.
  
• In this form the participants needs to tick a Checkbox  (Additional-Field [SlotSold]) in order to confirm he wants to transfer the starting slot
  
• After Save Actions:
  • Save a unique String in the field [URLID].
    • Unique string is calculated by using md5() function with personal-data entries of the selling participants, including the unique ID.
  • Save the ToD when the form was done. 
  • Save the Changelink to the Refund-Form ("B_Refund-Form") in an additional field
  • Send E-Mail -Confirmation
    

Slot Transfer Platform

The Platform is in the end a list in RACE RESULT 14. The list can be found in the folder "A_Slot Transfer Platform" and is called "B_Slots for Sale". You can find also other lists in the folder. Familiarize yourself how they are set up.

The list "B_Slots for Sale" has a specific filter in order to only show participants that have ticked the Checkbox in the Selling-Form and who's [URLID] is only once avaiable in the event:

[SlotSold]=1 AND DCount("[URLID]="""  & [URLID] & """")=1

The list itself shows not much data:

• Bib of selling participant
• "> Buy" Link
• ToD when the Slot was offered 

Behind the "> Buy" link is a HTML-Expression which is

1. The URL of a Registration Form called "Buying-Form"
2. with an added URL-Parameter called "URLID" followed by a string which is the pre-calculated [URLID] of the selling participant, which was calculated in the "Selling-Form".
   As an example, such a link could look like the following (in bold a calculated [URLID] of the selling participant):
   https://events.raceresult.com/registrations/?event=378986&n=Registrations%7CBuying-Form&k=GG5bV1V3YZkX&lang=en&URLID=E9A9A99989657DC8B8F8FE690B60EC34
   • Make sure to change the URL, if you upload the file to your account. Remember, the event will receive a different Event-ID!

Buying-Form

The Buying-Form is a Registration Form, you can find it in the corresponding folder. It's almost a copy of the usual registration in the front-end but has some hidden functionalities.

URLID

Cruicial - the URLID is the field and String which is used to map the two participants. 

• At the bottom of the first step you can find the Input Field [URLID] with additional Details:
  1. The Default Value of the field is from Type URL Parameter and the value itself is "URLID". In this way, it is possible to call the URLID-string which is in the URL of the opened form into the [URLID] Input field of the current "buying" registration.
  2. A certain CSS-Class "URLID" which is used to hide the field in the front-end of the registration via CSS. The CSS code can be found in the Advanced Settings of the "Buying-Form":
     .URLID{
        display: none;
     }
     
     
     If this CSS codelines are removed you would see the following in the frontend of the form:
     
     The Registration is calling automatically the string from the URL into the addtional field [URLID] of the "Buyer". "Seller" and "Buyer" will have the same URLID-string in the additional field [URLID] which allows to map those two participants.
     
     
• This way it is now possible to store values/data from the "Seller" in corresponding "Buyer's" additional fields with the functionalities in the Advanced Settings >> Store Additional Values like:
  • We are using here the DFirst() Function. The Bib, Firstname, Email etc. of the FIRST participant within the Eventfile, that has the same URLID-string in the field [URLID] as the "Buyer" has, will be stored in the selected field.
    
• Important is to store the Changelink for the Refund-Form for the selling customer and his firstname in an corresponding additional field.
• In the After Save Actions three Email templates are sent:
  • "Singel Registration" >> E-Mail-Confirmation for the Buyer
  • "B2_Webservicecall" >> Web Service Call in order to move the Seller in another Contest
    • POST Method calling an API-URL
    • API comes from the Simple API section in Access Rights/Simple API.
      
       
  • "C_Request for finalisation of sale" >> E-Mail-Confirmation for the Seller that the slot has been bought and he can now ask for a refund via the Refund-Form.
    • Important in this Email-Template:
      • Receiver Field: [MailSeller] --> calculated in Store Additional Values.
      • Salutation with [NameSeller] --> calculated in Store Additional Values.
      • Changelink for Refund-Form from additional Field [RefundLink_Buyer] --> calculated in Store Additional Value.

Security-Features within the Buying-Form

There is a Box at the top of the Form with three HTML elements:

These are "Error-Messages" that popup in different scenarios and block the current registration. This is done by the use of the Show If and Validation Rule in the Details of each HTML element:

1. "Slot already bought" >> is shown when there are already 2 participants in the Eventfile with that particicular URLID that also the new registration gets
2. "Link in use by someone else" >> Is shown when there are currently more than 3 participants with the same URLID. Here the funciton DCount(;true) is used. This function counts also participants that are not yet registered and are in the process of the registration. 
3. "Link invalid" >> is shown when the URLID of the ongoing registration is not at all existing in the Eventfile currently. So if someone modifies the link, it is not possible for him to register.

The popup in the Buying-Form could for example look like this:

Refund-Form ("B_Refund-Form")

• Use: Seller can request a refund.
• General Settings Filer >> Considers only participants:
  • that have not requested a Refund yet.
  • Participantas that sold their slot.
  • Where the URLID is only existing twice in the Eventfile 

• Online Payment: Activate Refunds and select a Payment Method according to your needs
  

• After the Slot has been bought on the Platform, the Seller will be moved to a contest without any Entry-Fees set, therefore he will have a positive balance which can be payed back as a refund:

• After Save Actions: E-Mail-Confirmation is send out.

After going trough the Refund-Form the whole Slot-Transfer is completed.

The "Slot Transfer Platform" on my.raceresult.com

The platform itself can be configured as a dedicated tab on the my.raceresult.com page of the event:

Ideas of Improvement and further development

Of course there is room for improvement in the presented process, ideas could be:

• Swap the Bib, so the buying participant is also receiving the Bib-Number of the selling participant

• Use the "selling option" directly in the usual changeform and not in a dedicated Selling-Form
  • Make sure that the "selling option" is not visible for participants that have bought their slot on the Platform
• Give the oppurtunity to particpants, that have bought their slot on the platform, to sell it again.