Pre-Online Silent Auction Checklist

Ready to launch your online silent auction? Use this checklist to double check the details:

1.  Do your sign-up and sellable items have the correct quantity (eg. > 1)?  

2.  Are all bidding opening and closing times correct? If you are transferring items to paper bidding at your Gala event, make sure you are closing the online bidding early enough to allow the printing of your bid sheets to display the final high online bids/sales.

3.  Is the online/mobile feature visible to the public?

4. Will you be emailing invitations to bid to your supporters?  Have you migrated and/or uploaded user records for your supporters and edited the invitation(s)?

5. If you are allowing visitors to your site to signup to bid, are your public pages (Sign-up and Welcome Page) edited and ready for public viewing?  Edit at Site Settings > Registration > Signup > Signup Settings > Signup Page Email Info Text and Site Settings > Events > Online Auction/Mobile Bidding > Invitations > Edit Welcome Message.

6.  Are the emails which bidders and winners receive edited?

7.  Is your guest/sales receipt set-up?

8.  Have you tested any link(s) you are using to promote your online auction?  

9.  Has your credit card processing been successfully used or tested with a live transaction?

10.  Are your notification settings configured to operate as you expect them to?

• Do you want email or text notifications sent when someone has been outbid?
• Do you want winners of items (not being transferred to Gala) to be notified automatically (separate email for each item won)?  
• Do you want to activate daily payment reminders now, or wait until after the online auction closes? Be aware that if activated, buyers of sellable and/or sign-up items will receive daily payment reminders until they pay. If you want to allow people to pay for all of their purchases together, activate the reminders after bidding closes.

11.  Do you know how to cancel individual bids?

12.  Do you want to auto-extend the closing times on items with active bidding in the final minute(s)?

13.  Do you know how to manually extend bidding if necessary?

14.  Do you want bidding on some/all items to transfer to the Gala? 

15.  Is your site set to automatically award items at closing, or will you manually trigger it when ready? If you think there is ANY chance you may want to extend the closing time(s) during your event - DISABLE automatic closeout at Site Settings > Events > Online Auction/Mobile Bidding > Bidding Settings, then enable it again when you're ready for items to be awarded.

16.  Is your entire team aware of how/when bidders will be asked to pay?  

17. Do you have a Will Call plan to distribute items to winners?