We are introducing a new way for races to do a lottery where participants enter their credit card up front and it is charged later. This is in addition to the many ways we already support like Waiting Lists and Loyalty Programs used by races like Boilermaker and Space Coast Marathon. The new system is on our test server, and will be released shortly. This system is also used for a new Charity option where the fundraising is done on a separate service, but registration happens for all fundraisers on RunSignup directly. The steps are:
- Runner does a full registration, including entering their credit card.
- RunSignup checks the credit card with an AUTH request to the credit card network (no charge appears on the customer’s card) and then securely stores the card in a separate PCI Level 1 service.
- The Race Director selects which runners are accepted.
- Successful runners are automatically charged.
- If the charge is successful, then we send them a final confirmation email.
- If the charge is not successful, then we send them an email that asks them to enter a new card number.
- Race Directors can manage their selected (successful and unsuccessful) and not selected with reports. Additional participants may be selected.
There is a new page for setup under Participants:

This option sets all events to this lottery mode. So if you select this, both your Marathon and Half Marathon will have this setup. Once you have selected your participants, you can then turn off registration for say the Half and open regular registration for the Full.
Note that it follows the full registration path – so you can ask participant questions, include add-ons, collect information. If Add-Ons are included in a participant’s checkout, they are not charged for those until selected. Items purchased by non-selected participants are not charged for. If you want to sell items to non-participants, they can be placed in the Store and sold stand alone separate from a registration transaction.
The things that can NOT be done are donations and fundraising, club registration and USATriathlon membership purchases.
Note in the setup screen above, you can select what term you want to use for “Lottery”, as well as set a message for what appears to the participant on the checkout page:

Selection
You can select participants at any time (although there is a 6 month maximum from the opening since we delete all credit cards after that period of time). You select them by uploading a CSV with the Registration ID’s in a column. This gives races the ability to use whatever mechanism they want to select participants. Registration ID’s are available easily in a spreadsheet download format from the Participants report along with other fields you may use for selection such as zipcode, registration date, estimated time, age, gender, etc.
After selecting the file to upload, you will see good codes and bad codes:

Note that all participants in a single transaction must be selected, otherwise, they will appear in the Bad Registration IDs list. This makes sure that a person who signs themselves and their spouse up for your race will both get in. (of course you can limit the number of registrations to 1 per transaction if you do not want to enable this). This also holds true for all team members – everyone on a team must be selected.
Participant Notification
When a person is selected, RunSignup automatically attempts to charge the credit card we have saved. If selected, then the participant is notified via email with a full confirmation email. There is the ability to customize the emails with a header, logo and your own custom text. This is an example of the top part of the confirmation of selection email being editable:

This is an example of the credit card failed email. It gives the selected participant a link to go to directly to fill in enter a new credit card number:

Reports
The participant Report has fields that show you the status of each person:

Financial Reports also show the status of money pending and collected:

Finally, you can use the free Email Marketing system in RunSignUp to send notifications to update lottery participants every step of the way. You can send status emails, as well as “Not Selected” emails with your own special message.