The latest update to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys introduces a powerful new waitlists management capability, enabling businesses to streamline event registration processes and maximize attendance rates. Let’s explore how this functionality works and the benefits it can bring to your organization.

What is the Waitlist Feature?

The waitlist functionality in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys allows event organizers to automatically manage registrations when events reach capacity. Rather than turning away interested participants, the system now offers them a place on a waitlist, ready to be promoted if spaces become available.

Key Benefits

• Maximize Event Attendance: Waitlists help ensure events run at full capacity despite inevitable cancellations.
• Improve Customer Experience: Potential attendees aren’t simply rejected when an event is full, but instead offered an alternative that keeps them engaged.
• Gain Better Insights: Understanding the demand for your events through waitlist numbers provides valuable data for future planning.
• Reduce Administrative Burden: The automated waitlist management process handles promotions from waitlist to registered status without manual intervention.

How the Waitlist Functionality Works

When setting up an event in Customer Insights – Journeys, organizers can now:

1. Enable the waitlist feature for any event
2. Set a maximum capacity for registrations
3. Define waitlist settings, including maximum waitlist size
   • Maximum event capacity (for event-level registration only): Enter the maximum number of people who can attend your event. The waitlist only takes effect after the indicated number of contacts have registered. If you’re using session-level registrations, you can also set up a waitlist for each session. For more information, see Enable a waitlist for a session.
   • Waitlist this event: Set to Yes to enable the waitlist feature for an event.
   • Auto-register waitlisted contacts: Set this to Yes to automatically register the next contact when space becomes available. When this is set to No, you have to manually invite waitlisted contacts to confirm their interest. Once they confirm their interest, you can change the status reason of their registration from Waitlisted to Registered.

When the event is not full, you will get the registration form you have set up for the event.

However, once capacity is reached, you will get a message on top saying the event is full and the submit button will switch to a waitlist button.

All registrations and waitlisted registrations are located in the registration of the event in Dynamics with status.

Once enabled, the system can use the data to create journeys for:

• Notifying waitlisted individuals of their status
• Promoting waitlisted individuals when registered attendees cancel
• Sending confirmation notifications when promotion occurs

Waitlist functionality can also be more advanced and linked to session waitlists. To read more on this, I suggest the following from Microsoft Learn: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/customer-insights/journeys/set-up-and-manage-waitlist

Drawbacks

From my initial testing, I found some small drawbacks, but I think they are worth mentioning. I cannot seem to find anywhere to set the info messages on top and button label. As you can see from my images above, I get Norwegian labels since I’m running a Norwegian base solution (or it might be because of a Norwegian browser?).

Implementation Best Practices

For optimal results with the new waitlist functionality:

• Set Clear Expectations: Communicate clearly with waitlisted individuals about their status and the likelihood of promotion.
• Configure Appropriate Notifications: Design thoughtful notification templates for different waitlist statuses to keep potential attendees informed.
• Monitor Waitlist Data: Use waitlist analytics to better understand demand and adjust future event planning accordingly.
• Consider Tiered Waitlists: For high-demand events, consider implementing priority tiers based on customer segments or other criteria.

Integrate Waitlists with the Customer Journey

The waitlist functionality integrates seamlessly with Customer Insights – Journeys’ broader capabilities:

• Journey Orchestration: Create specific customer journeys for waitlisted attendees to maintain engagement.
• Personalization: Tailor communications based on waitlist status.
• Insights: Track conversion rates from waitlisted to registered attendees.
• Segmentation: Create segments based on waitlist behavior for future marketing initiatives.

Getting Started: How to Activate

To implement waitlist functionality for your events:

1. Update to the latest version of Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys
2. Navigate to the event management module
3. Enable waitlist features in your event settings

To make the most out of this you can also combine it with the use of custom fields to peronalize you communcation even more, take a look at my article on this here: https://sjoholt.com/custom-fields-for-real-time-journeys/