Group Event Operations – admin guide

1. What is this feature for?

Group Event Operations helps administrators prepare each occurrence of a group service and communicate operational details to confirmed attendees. An administrator can:

• define reusable event-detail defaults on a service;
• have those defaults copied automatically to new occurrences;
• store a different venue, link, or instructions on a specific occurrence;
• update existing future occurrences through a controlled propagation flow;
• preview both the event details and a recipient summary before sending;
• queue a separate details email for every confirmed attendee;
• review earlier sends and retry only failed recipients.

Current scope: the current admin send flow delivers the saved event details to confirmed bookings. Free-form attendee messages, other status-based audiences, and manually selected recipients are not currently available in this screen.

2. Prerequisites and access

All of the following must be true:

1. The service type is Group.
2. The account has an active Basic, Pro, or Enterprise plan. Group Event Operations is not included in Free or Starter.
3. The signed-in user is an account administrator or key user (a global administrator can also have access).
4. The occurrence belongs to a service owned by the current account.
5. Group Event Operations is globally enabled and its emergency kill switch is off.

The UI and server enforce the same authorization rules. Supplying an occurrence ID from another account does not expose data; a foreign occurrence is returned as not found.

3. Key concepts

The most important inheritance rule

A service default is not a live link. When a new group occurrence is created, the defaults are copied into it. Editing the service later therefore does not silently overwrite existing occurrences. Sending always renders the snapshot saved on the selected occurrence.

4. Event-detail fields

These fields are available as defaults under Services → Edit and as occurrence-specific values under Events → Edit.

Blank text is normalized to an empty value. Links may not contain credentials, control characters, localhost names, or private/reserved IP addresses. The server does not fetch submitted URLs.

5. Configure service-level defaults

1. Open Admin → Services.
2. Create a group service, or choose Edit on an existing group service.
3. Complete the reusable fields in Event detail defaults.
4. Save the service.

The defaults section is shown only for group services. Every new occurrence subsequently created for the service receives a copy of the current defaults and their source version.

Recommended practice

• Put only genuinely recurring information in the defaults.
• Store a one-time meeting link or a changing room number on the occurrence instead.
• After changing defaults, review the differences for future occurrences. Saving the service alone neither sends an email nor automatically updates older occurrences.

6. Apply defaults to existing occurrences

The service edit page lists scheduled, future occurrences and shows each occurrence value alongside the service default when they differ.

1. Edit the group service.
2. Open the apply-defaults action.
3. Select the future occurrences to update.
4. Select a propagation mode.
5. Review the differences and apply the change.

Propagation modes

Only selected, future, scheduled occurrences of the current service can be changed. Past, deleted, non-scheduled, or unrelated occurrences are skipped. The result reports updated, unchanged, and skipped counts. Propagation is written to the audit log but does not trigger an automatic resend.

7. Edit a specific occurrence

1. Open Admin → Events.
2. Select an occurrence and choose Edit.
3. In Event details, inspect the Draft/Ready badge and any missing items.
4. Change fields that are specific to this date.
5. Save the occurrence.

The form indicates which values differ from the service defaults. Reapply defaults displays the current and default value field by field; only selected fields are replaced.

Concurrent editing

Occurrence details use revision protection. If another administrator saves the same occurrence after you opened the form, the system does not silently overwrite the newer data. Reload the page, review the latest version, and reapply your change.

8. Draft and Ready states

An occurrence is Ready only when all three conditions are satisfied:

1. at least one access method exists: address or online event URL;
2. the contact name is present;
3. at least one contact channel exists: email or phone.

Otherwise it is Draft, and the form identifies the missing categories. Draft details can be reviewed while editing, but the attendee send page is available only after a Ready occurrence has been saved.

9. Preview and send

9.1 Content preview

The Event details card on the manage page shows all populated fields. Preview opens the saved briefing in a separate tab. Always verify:

• the date and time displayed in the account timezone;
• the physical address or online join link;
• arrival and preparation instructions;
• contact details;
• cancellation and payment information;
• that no sensitive or marketing content was added accidentally.

9.2 Recipient preview

For a Ready occurrence, choose Send details. The send preview reports:

• the number of eligible confirmed recipients;
• bookings excluded because of their status;
• entries excluded because the email is missing or invalid;
• entries removed as duplicates by email address.

Previewing does not create a message or send an email. If there is no valid confirmed recipient, the send button is disabled.

9.3 Sending

1. Recheck the content and summary counts.
2. Choose Confirm and queue.
3. At confirmation, the system resolves the audience again, stores content and recipient snapshots, and creates an individual outbox item for each recipient.
4. A background worker processes the queued emails.

Recipients never see one another’s email addresses: each receives an individual message with no shared CC/BCC list. An idempotency key prevents a double click or repeated identical request from creating a duplicate send.

10. Recipient selection and language

The current details send uses only bookings for this occurrence whose status is confirmed.

• Cancelled, customer-cancelled, completed, no-show, pending, and waitlisted records receive no details email.
• Leading/trailing whitespace is removed and addresses are compared case-insensitively.
• The same normalized email address is included only once.
• An invalid email is excluded and counted in the summary.
• Email language comes from the booking (hu, en, or de). For an unsupported value, the account locale is used, then Hungarian as the final fallback.
• If public self-service is enabled, the email can include a time-limited booking-management/cancellation link.

11. Send history and retry

Below the send preview, Previous sends lists for this occurrence:

• message ID;
• local queue time;
• aggregate message status;
• recipient counts grouped by technical status.

Common technical statuses include:

If a previous send contains failed recipients, Retry failed only requeues only those outbox items. Successful recipients do not receive another copy. Correct persistent causes, such as mail configuration, before retrying. Editing occurrence details later does not alter the content snapshot of an earlier message.

12. Security, privacy, and content policy

• Use this channel for operational communication required to deliver the event.
• Do not include newsletters, upsells, partner promotions, or other marketing without the appropriate legal basis and a separate marketing process.
• Do not put unnecessary sensitive or special-category personal information into free-text fields.
• The system renders plain-text admin input through a fixed, escaped email template; administrator-supplied raw HTML is not executed.
• A send is scoped to the account, occurrence, and acting user; its snapshots and states remain auditable.
• Default retention is 730 days for message content and recipient snapshots, and 90 days for outbox/provider events. The effective account policy may be shorter.
• Account deletion includes related message and recipient data in the deletion/anonymization process.

13. Troubleshooting

The event-detail section is missing

• Confirm that the service type is Group.
• Save the service with the correct type and reopen the edit screen.

“Send details” cannot be opened

• The occurrence may be Draft. Add an address or online URL, a contact name, and an email or phone, then save.
• Confirm the account is on Basic, Pro, or Enterprise.
• If operations temporarily disabled the feature globally, wait for restoration or contact support.

The recipient count is zero

• Confirm there are confirmed bookings for this exact occurrence.
• Check the booking email addresses.
• Pending and waitlisted customers are intentionally excluded.

An attendee appears only once

This is expected. Identical normalized email addresses are deduplicated to prevent multiple copies being sent to one address.

A service change did not appear on the occurrence

This is expected snapshot behaviour. Use propagation, or reapply defaults from the occurrence edit form, then save.

An older email did not change after editing the occurrence

This is also expected. Earlier sends retain an auditable content snapshot. To communicate updated information, verify a fresh preview and start a new send.

14. Recommended admin checklist

When configuring the service

• The service type is Group.
• Only recurring information is stored as defaults.
• Every URL uses https:// and points to the intended destination.
• Contact details are current.

When finalizing an occurrence

• I verified date, time, and timezone.
• I verified the physical or online access method.
• I entered a contact name and at least one contact channel.
• The occurrence is Ready.
• I reviewed differences from the service defaults.

Before sending

• I reviewed the content preview.
• I checked confirmed-recipient and exclusion counts.
• The content is operational only and contains no unnecessary personal data.
• I confirmed and queued the send.
• I later checked the sent and failed counts in history.