Setting Up An In-Person Auction
There are four major steps to setting up an In-Person Auction in Auctria.
1. Adding Your Items
You can add items from the main Auction Dashboard under Items -> Add New Item.
For an in-person event, these items should have their type set to Silent. See Item Types for more information on the different items types in Auctria. This is the Item Type that will provide for the ability to use "paper" Bid Sheets to close out and record final bids from.
INFORMATION
You can continue with the rest of the setup process before you finish adding all, or any, of your items. Items can be added at any time.
WARNING
WARNING Please also ensure you have enabled the Participate in online bidding property for each of the Silent type items you want to allow "pre-bidding" on before the in-person event.
An example using the default Online Bidding Times. Note: the default for this is No.
Add Admission Tickets For The Event
Many In-Person events will have tickets to help organizers track a number of things such as expected attendance, tables and seating arrangements, meal choices, etc. Using the Auctria Tickets functions will help with this.
2. Create A Website
To Create A Website click on Website from the main Auction Dashboard sidebar, or the "Event Website" block.
Scroll down to view the available website templates in the Create Website section and click on the Select this template button to create your website.
There are numerous templates available to choose from the above is only a small sampling.
Define the Website Address
After the website has been created you will still need to set its "address". Click the "pencil" icon to edit the Event Website ID address field.
IMPORTANT
Website Addresses should only use letters, numbers, and hyphens (-). The use of any other type of "special character" or "punctuation" could potentially make your auction website unreachable.
The Event Website ID is the portion of the URL after www.charityauction.bid/. In this case, the default Preferred Domain is being used. There are more auction domains you can choose from, see Set The Website Address for more information on these options.
Generally, your guests should be able to easily recognize the address being connected to your organization or to the current fundraiser event.
Make certain to click the "checkmark" icon to save the Event Website ID you entered.
See How To Create A New Auction Website for more details and information.
3. Set Up The Bidding Rules
This is where you will set the Online Bidding Times, if you are having Online Pre-bidding for your items as well as enabling your Bidder Registration options.
Online Bidding Times
To enable Online Bidding, start by clicking on Website -> Online Bidding.
Enter both Online bidding start and Online bidding end times. These will be used as the default start and end times for "online" items.
IMPORTANT
Online bidding will not be enabled until either both default Online bidding start and Online bidding end times are set; or, set relevant item's specific Override Online Bidding times have been set. NOTE: The "default" Online Bidding Times should always be set.
INFORMATION
The Online Bidding End times will only stop bids from being accepted online for Silent Type items, the end time will not trigger any closing actions like using the Online Type for your items will.
4. Print Bid Sheets
Once online bidding reaches its end time, especially for in-person events, you will want to have printed (read: paper) Bid Sheets available for your bidders to finish placing their bids.
Once your "in-person" bidding end time has passed you can collect these printed Bid Sheets to record the Final Bids for your items.
INFORMATION
The "in-person" end time is managed outside of Auctria although it can be included in the printed Bid Sheet if set in the Other section of the Item Details.
One of the keys to a Silent Auction Event is the final bids for items are made on paper Bid Sheets and then recorded in Auctria to complete and close out bidding on the items.
Further Options
You can now continue to add items to your event and make further customizations as needed.
- See the Credit Cards Concepts section to learn about how to accept credit card payments through our integrated credit card processing services.
- See the Website Editor section to learn how to customize your event website with more details.
- Have a look at the walkthrough How To Add A Donation Page to help increase the fundraiser income by offering your guests more opportunities to give.
- Add details about your Donors to help promote them online.
More About Silent Item Auctions
The following User Guide sections and pages about Silent Item Auctions may also be of assistance.
Reviewed: January 2023