HTML email templates can now group tickets in logic blocks, similar to ticket grouping seen in the Box Office basket. This means that a block of seats with the same characteristics, such as band/variant, can be displays as a single line item with the number of tickets/seat range, rather than each ticket being listed individually.

A new tag, GROUP_BY_ID is available to support this. This can be used with both tickets and products.

With the introduction of the new Order Details display, which reflects the current state of all tickets and products across one or more transactions, broader order level information could not be surfaced in email templates.

We have introduced Order level merge tags, enabling you to include full order details in emails.

The following are supported:

Additionally, the following Order lists are supported:

Items inside ORDER.TICKETS have exactly the same fields as items inside TRANSACTION.TICKETS. Any existing loop works on both.

For any guidance on Merge Tag usage, please contact Client Support.

Reporting has been extended to support Parent external references. This complements the already existing transaction external references. The following fields are now available in both Performances and Transactions:

Five new optional merge tags are available for use in Templates for Reach clients using external integrations. These are global, transaction information tags.

The new tags cover two areas: additional external references for the transaction itself, and the parent transaction where one exists, for example, when a refund voucher is issued as a child transaction.

External transaction

A client-managed friendly identifier for the integration.

The external system the order originated from

The reference for the transaction in the external system. This was previously available.

Parent transaction

The following tags are available when you need to reference the parent transaction external references:

A client-managed friendly identifier for the parent integration.

The external system the parent transaction originated from.

The reference for the parent transaction in the external system.

Please click here for the full list of supported merge tags.

When tickets are sent by email from a transaction, the ticket PDF will now include all tickets across the order, not just those in the selected transaction. This means customers receive everything in one place, without needing to open multiple emails to collect all of their tickets.

Tickets are per transaction, and ordered by performance date and time, then by seating position within the venue, so the ticket PDF presents them in a logical sequence.

Voided items and returns are excluded automatically.

Where a print rule is configured, only tickets whose delivery method matches that rule are included.

If any tickets in the requested transaction are still awaiting barcodes, the email will wait until those are ready. Any other tickets in the order that are not yet ready are excluded from that send, rather than holding up the entire email.

We will be supporting two new types of block in the venue plan, GA for hybrid venues, and Sell Together, when blocks of seats must be sold together.

This new setting is at the block level. If you want to leverage these features, the blocks can be added to existing venue plans and the normal hierarchy leveraged to add the seats/space to the block. The shape (polygon or circle), must still be added in order for the block to be visible in the purchase flows. Please refer to knowledge centre for information on configuring and using blocks.

For a GA block in hybrid venue plan, adding seats into the block will create the GA inventory you need. If this is a large capacity, the seats can be placed outside of the main venue plan area, as the online booking flow will follow the standard GA selection process.

The price band can be applied to both the Sell Together and GA blocks following the standard reserved seating process.

Similarly, an availability/hold status can be added to any space in a Sell Together or GA block following the standard reserved seating process.

The Sell Together area will show outlined by the surrounding shape. Hovering over the shape will tell the customer that the seats must be purchased together.

Once clicked/tapped, the customer will be show all the tickets that will be added to basket. Where applicable, the variant selection is show.

Once added to basket, the selected Sell Together tickets are shown along with the total for all of those tickets. Tickets cannot be removed individually.

Hovering over a GA block in a hybrid plan will show the number of tickets that are available. Clicking or tapping into the GA block will take the customer through the standard GA ticket selection process.

A box office user must select the seats/tickets individual from the venue plan following the standard process. There is currently no Sell Together enforcement in Box Office, if partial seats from a Sell Together block are sold, the remaining seats will still be considered as having to be sold together in the online purchase flow.

Note: Sell Together is not currently enforced for agent sales. A later release will include basket validation which will enforce this at the channel level.

We are changing the exchange/refund flow in Box Office, making this an active selection process, replacing the current delete process.

The exchange and refund actions can be initiated both from the individual Transaction Details, as well as the Order Details.

Please note: When an Order contains transactions that use an external integration, the exchange/refund action is disabled. The exchange/refund can only be initiated from the individual transaction.

Once Exchange or Refund is selected, the item selection screen is displayed. Only items that are valid for that action will be shown.

Check box selection is available at all levels of the item list. If a single ticket is to be action, each line can be expanded in order to select the item required.

Clicking 'continue' will take the Box Office users into the standard exchange or refund flow.

This works in the same way. When the Order contains multiple transactions, only items across all transactions will be available for selection, and any combination of valid items can be selected for exchange or refund processing.

This is advanced notice that we are enhancing barcode scanning with new sounds and haptic feedback when scanning a bar code, additionally, returning and displaying the full transaction details on the scanning device.

New sounds and haptic feedback

We have implemented four new scanning sounds for the following scanning responses:

Updated onscreen response

The scan results will include detailed information about the transaction including:

These have also been updated:

​Scan next - If the transaction has a single ticket, only this button with show. NOTE Scanning support continuous scanning, so you DO NOT need to hit this button in order to scan the next ticket,

Scan remaining (n) - If the transaction is for more than one ticket, the 'Scan remaining (n)' button will display, 'n' will be replaced with the number of remaining tickets in the transaction to be scanned. You can continue scanning, or tapping the button will allow you to determine how many additional tickets should be registered as scanned.

An 'Invalid' response will happen on two occasions:

Ticket is valid but not for that performance

When ticket information is displayed below the red banner, the barcode belongs to a real booking, but the ticket cannot be admitted at this door or for this performance. This typically means the ticket is for a different performance date/time and the ticket scanning validation rules have failed.

Ticket is invalid

When the area below the red banner reads "Ticket cannot be admitted", no booking detail is shown. This means the ticket itself is not valid:

Any where you would select to open a Transaction, whether that is from the main Transactions list, the Transactions History in a customer profile, or from Email Audit, selecting any transaction opens it in a drawer. You can manage it directly from there using the Manage Transaction button and the shortcut buttons, without losing the underlying view.

From the Transactions list, or Transaction History, hovering over any transaction row reveals an Order button on the right-hand side. Selecting it opens the Order Details relating to that Transaction in the main display.

We have brought every part of an order together on a single screen. The new Order Details consolidates all of the transactions that make up an order and presents their current state in one place, across three tabs: Summary, Transactions, and Correspondence.

The Summary tab shows only live items. Voided and refunded items are netted out, so you can see at a glance exactly what the customer holds right now.

The Transactions tab lists all of the transactions that make up the order. The individual transactions can be accessed and managed from here.

The Correspondence tab consolidates the full email audit from all transactions included in the Order. We will be making the Correspondence tab available in the Transaction Details view in a future release.

Nothing changes about how your transactions behave; this update changes how they are presented and accessed, making it quicker to see the full picture of an order.

Note: order-level management actions, the Timeline tab in Order Details, and Correspondence tab in Transaction details will be available in a future release.

Additional Information

Please see the following articles in Knowledge Centre for more detailed information:

We have enhanced the dynamic search results. and the search results page to include details about the performance and products that make up a transaction. This aligns with the recent updates to the Transactions list, and Transactions History.

Clients have reported issue with barcodes being unavailable to send within a delivery method email sequence, impacting Reach clients, where the ticket barcode is being received from a 3rd party integration, or when external barcode uploads are required.

A new setting will be made in an event print rules, Event > Settings > Delivery Methods, that instructs that the email is to be held until the barcode is available.

When set, any email confirmation that has tickets attached, will be held until the barcode is received. Email can still be sent manually, this will not impact the schedule and this hold.