Print at Home Tickets (E-tickets / etickets) are a ticket delivery method which lets you deliver tickets by email. The customer can then print the tickets at home or show them on their mobile device.
Using Print at Home tickets you can keep selling tickets online up to the start time of an Event, and reduce the amount of ticket stock required for your Box Office.
You can also consider Ticket Scanning at your organisation if you are interested in venue access control.
REMINDER: Print at Home should be enabled on your system by default. If you've followed the steps in this article and Print at Home is not appearing as a delivery method, please contact Spektrix Support.
In this article we'll cover:
- How to set up Print at Home tickets
- Making Print at Home delivery available
- Making Print at Home tickets available for an Instance
- Using Print at Home delivery in the Sales Interface
- Regenerating and resending Print at Home tickets
- Renaming Print at Home tickets to e-tickets online
- Further reading
How to set up Print at Home tickets
Here's how to set up a Print at Home ticket on your system. First, you will need to set up the PDF document. Then, you can edit the email that will be sent to customers.
TIP: Our PDF Print at Home tickets are not readable by assistive technology. We recommend that you include all of the appropriate information in confirmation emails as well, which are accessible for users relying upon assistive technology.
Setting up your PDF
If the Print at Home delivery method is chosen your customer will receive an A4- or letter-size page per ticket via email. This will consist of an image of your normal ticket design beginning at set coordinates on the page.
You can place advertising and other messaging on the remaining blank sections of the page. To make a template, you'll need a program that can create PDF documents. Microsoft Office 2007 onward is able to save a document in PDF format, but other free PDF conversion tools are available online.
- Design your A4 document but leave a blank space the size of your ticket design
- Measure the distance in millimetres (mm) from the left edge of the page to the left edge of the area in which you want your ticket design to print – this is the X offset
- Measure the distance in mm from the top edge of the page to the top edge of the area you want your ticket design to print – this is the Y offset
- In Spektrix, go to Admin > Document designs > Print at Home
- In the PDF Templates section, give your template a name and description
- Click Browse and upload the saved PDF template
- Enter the X and Y offsets in the fields provided
- Click the Add button to save the details and template to the system
TIP: You can create a new ticket design to use as part of your Print at Home ticket design, or use an existing one – however, any ticket design used as part of a Print at Home design can only use standard web fonts.
For help calculating the X and Y offset, take a look at the video below:
TIP: It isn't possible to delete Print at Home PDF Templates. If you have several PDF Templates in your system, you can rename an existing unused Print at Home Template and upload a new PDF in its place.
Setting up the Print at Home email
The default Print at Home email is very simple, but you can choose to edit the email’s subject and add more to the body text. You can also use HTML in the body of the email to add basic formatting.
There are two options for how tickets are attached. The PDF can be attached to the email or a link to view them in their Account.
WARNING: If you select Email tickets as a Link, you will need to add the full URL to the MyAccount page on your site in the body of the email. This URL will not be automatically generated. Patrons will be required to log in to view and download their tickets.
To change this email address that Order Confirmation/Print at Home and Gift Voucher emails are sent from, contact Support. You can learn more about system emails here.
Making Print at Home delivery available
You can set up Print at Home delivery to be available at a Ticket Type level in the Admin Interface > Pricing > Ticket Types.
You might use this, for example, if you require proof of eligibility for certain Ticket Types then you can require customers to pick the ticket up from the Box Office.
To make Print at Home delivery available:
- Go to Admin > Pricing > Ticket Types
- In the Web Types section edit the ticket types for which Print at Home should be possible and tick the Print checkbox
TIP: If you want to encourage Print at Home and suppress COBO/Will Call and Postal delivery types online, follow the instructions laid out in the How to Suppress COBO/Will Call as a Delivery Method article. All delivery types will still be available in the Sales Interface.
Making Print at Home tickets available for an Instance
The option to allow Print at Home delivery is set at the Instance level, so it can be enabled for as many (or as few) of your Events as needed. When it's enabled for an Instance, any Ticket Types that have Print at Home delivery enabled can be delivered in this way.
- Create a new Event or edit an existing one
- Set the Print at Home Ticket Design to the ticket design that you wish to have printed on your PDF template and set the Print at Home PDF Template to the template you wish to use for this Event
- Save the Instance and Print at Home will now be available for eligible Ticket Types
Using Print at Home delivery in the Sales Interface
To sell tickets from the Sales Interface using Print at Home delivery, select your tickets and check out as usual. When choosing the delivery method:
- Print at Home will be available as long as all the selected Instances have a valid ticket/template attached and all Ticket Types are eligible
- Ensure that a customer is selected in the basket
- Under Ticket Delivery, select Print at Home and a pop-up will appear to confirm the email address the tickets should be delivered to. This will default to the email held against the customer’s record, but if you wish to update the email address that the tickets are sent to, you can do so here:
WARNING: Entering a new/different email address here will update the email address on the customer record making the transaction.
- Complete the order and you’ll receive a message confirming that a customer has been emailed a confirmation
- When the tickets have been generated, the customer will receive an email directing them to their My Account page where they can download tickets, or with the tickets attached, depending on your setup
- You can also access the tickets by navigating to the Sales Interface > Orders > Print at Home tab of a customer’s record
One PDF is created for every ticket in a customer’s order.
If you return or edit tickets that are set to Print at Home, the customer will be informed that the PDF is processing and they will not be able to download the ticket until this is complete. If they have already downloaded the PDF, any returned tickets will now be invalid.
The new PDF will be available to download from their My Account page once it is ready.
Testing Your Print at Home Ticket Delivery
To test your Print at Home ticket delivery, create a customer profile with your email address. (Don’t worry, this can be deleted or changed later.) Place a ticket to the Event in question into your basket, then override the price to free, and confirm Print at Home delivery. You can then keep your eye on your inbox for the tickets or go to the Orders tab in your customer profile.
Once the tickets have been delivered, you can return the tickets for your real customers to select.
Regenerating and resending Print at Home tickets
Once Print at Home tickets have been generated, it is possible to regenerate and resend them. This is a useful solution if your customer doesn't receive their tickets, or has misplaced or deleted the email they're attached to. You can also use this feature if you've had to reschedule an Instance.
Regenerating and resending for a single customer
- In the Sales Interface, search for the customer and go to the Orders section of their customer record
- Click on Print at home items and you'll see the list of Print at Home tickets they have purchased:
From here you can do two things:
- Download tickets for a specific Instance by selecting the Download option, then attach them to an email which you manually send to the customer
- Click the Send Email button which will email the customer all of their Print at Home tickets to the email address on their account
Alternatively, customers can log into their online account on your website and download their Print at Home tickets themselves:
Regenerating and resending multiple Print at Home tickets
If you've had to rearrange an Instance to take place at a later date, or simply want to regenerate all Print at Home tickets, you can regenerate Print at Home emails for everyone who requested this delivery method. Regenerated emails will replace existing ones and reflect the new date of the Instance.
REMINDER: If a customer has multiple orders containing tickets for the same Instance, and they return tickets from just one of these orders, they'll receive a new email with all their current Print at Home tickets for that Instance. The new email will contain all the active tickets for this Instance across all orders. This ensures that the customer has the most up-to-date ticket information for that Instance.
- In the Admin Interface, select the Event in question, then head to Basic Details for the Instance you've edited
- At the bottom of the page, you'll see the option to Regenerate Print at Home Tickets:
REMINDER: This option will only be available if the Instance is Live, set to take place in the future, and isn't currently being edited by another member of your team.
- When you click this button, you'll see a pop-up to confirm you want to regenerate and resend these tickets
- Click Confirm. This will resend the newly regenerated Print at Home tickets to everyone who selected this delivery option
When you rearrange an Instance that was due to happen more than six months ago, all tickets will be automatically regenerated and resent. For example, if you rearrange an Instance that was due to happen before the 24th of April 2020 on the 24th of October 2020, these tickets will automatically regenerate and resend.
TIP: You might want to temporarily switch your Print at Home ticket PDF template to one that mentions the ticket is 'regenerated/rescheduled' before regenerating and resending tickets. This helps customers know which ticket they should bring, and help your front of house team spot any duplicates.
Renaming Print at Home tickets to e-tickets online
Many organisations accept Print at Home tickets displayed on mobile phones or other devices. To clarify to customers that they don’t need to print their tickets, you have the ability to change the option displayed online from Print at Home to E-tickets.
Not only will this encourage more customers to select this delivery option over COBO/Will Call, but it also opens this option up to customers without printers. Plus, this option is good for the environment.
TIP: You can also edit the Print at Home ticket email to make it clear that customers won’t need to print their tickets. Head to the Admin Interface > Document designs > Print at Home to make this change.
If you switch on the E-tickets option, customers will see this online when selecting their delivery method:
This will also be reflected in the My Account page online where they can access their purchased E-tickets:
To change the option displayed online from Print at Home to E-tickets, go to Settings > Configuration > System Setup > Website. Here you can select your preferred wording:
REMINDER: In both the Admin Interface and the Sales Interface, this delivery method will still be referred to as Print at Home.
If you want to change the wording used in your Order Confirmation email to reflect this change, please get in touch with the Spektrix Support, Training and Consultancy team.
Further reading
Hopefully, this article has given you everything you need in order to set up Print at Home tickets. We'd recommend you also check out these other articles:
- Ticket Design Tool: a guide to using the Spektrix Ticket Design Tool, to create tickets for both your standard and Print at Home tickets
For more information about Delivery Methods and Event Set Up, see the Set up Events, Offers and Merchandise section of the Support Centre.