How your data fits together
Your organization holds events and contacts. Events hold orders, orders hold tickets and money, and every ticket's holder is a contact.
Everything in Ovante belongs to your organization. Your events hold orders, each order holds tickets and the money paid for them, and every person holding a ticket is a contact on your list. Three threads run through that structure: who bought and who's coming, where the money went, and what state each thing is in.
What belongs to what
| Thing | Belongs to | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Team | Your organization | The owner and up to 5 more people, each with a role. |
| Calendar page | Your organization | Your public page, listing your published events. |
| Contact | Your organization | One person, matched by email. |
| Member account | Your organization | How a member signs in, with a code. Linked to their contact. |
| Membership program | Your organization | One program, with tiers. A person holds one live membership at a time. |
| Event | Your organization | One gathering, with its page and guest list. |
| Ticket types, bundles, sponsorship levels, promo codes, questions | An event | What the event sells, and what checkout asks. |
| Hosts, or honorees and committee on a Gala event | An event | People bringing guests, each with their own link. |
| Order | An event | One per checkout, or per order you add by hand. |
| Ticket | An order | One per seat, each with a holder: the buyer, a guest, or nobody yet. |
| Payment | An order | A card charge, an offline payment you recorded, or none yet. |
| Gift | An order | Money beyond tickets: a donation, a gift above a ticket's value, a covered card fee, a sponsorship, a journal ad or a paid pledge. |
| Gala records | An event with Gala | Sponsors, journal ads, tables and seats, and the appeal with its pledges. |
A gift on its own, like a donation from someone who can't attend, is an order with no tickets.
Buyer and holders
The buyer's contact gets the order and the money spent. Each holder's contact gets the event attended. An unnamed ticket is nobody's until you name it.
Dana Cohen buys three tickets to Gala Under the Stars: one for Dana, one for Avi Levin with Avi's name and email, and one left blank.
| Ticket | Holder | On your list |
|---|---|---|
| First | Dana, the buyer | Dana's contact: the order, the money spent, and the event |
| Second | Avi | Avi's contact: the event |
| Third | Unnamed | Nobody yet. It carries Dana's email so the confirmation has somewhere to go. |
When you name the third ticket for Rachel Gold, Rachel joins your contacts with the event. Avi never inherits Dana's phone; a guest's ticket only has a phone the guest typed.
- When
- A buyer checks out
- Then
- Ovante records one order and a ticket for each seat, a bundle's seats included. The first ticket is the buyer's own.
- When
- A guest ticket has no name and no email
- Then
- It stays on the buyer's order as an unnamed ticket, carrying the buyer's name, email and phone so the confirmation and the door have something. It makes no contact and sends nothing to integrations until you name it.
- When
- You give an unnamed ticket a name or an email
- Then
- It becomes that person's: a contact, a row on their timeline, and a new registration sent to your integrations.
- When
- Someone buys tickets for other people
- Then
- The money counts on the buyer's contact. Attendance counts on the contact of each person named on a ticket.
Money
A payment covers an order. Inside it, tickets carry their value and gifts carry the rest. Revenue counts the first, Donations the second.
Seats at Gala Under the Stars cost $250, and each includes an $80 dinner, its fair market value. Dana buys one seat, adds a $50 donation and covers the card fee.
| Part | Counted as |
|---|---|
| The seat's $80 value | Revenue, less fees |
| The $170 paid above that value | Donations |
| The $50 donation | Donations |
| The covered card fee | Donations, as its own gift |
Dana's card is charged once, and Dana's receipt still shows the seat at $250. A sponsorship level splits the same way: each seat counts at the admission's value, and the rest is a gift. Money you recorded yourself, like a check, carries no processing fee. A refunded gift leaves every total.
- When
- A buyer pays more than a ticket's fair market value
- Then
- Ovante books the difference as a gift: revenue counts the ticket's value and Donations count the rest. The buyer still sees the full price on their order.
- When
- A sponsorship level sells
- Then
- Each seat it includes is a ticket at the admission's value, and the rest of the price is a sponsorship gift. That's why most sponsorship money shows under Donations, not Revenue.
- When
- A buyer chooses to cover the card fee
- Then
- Ovante adds the percent you set to their card payment and records that amount as a gift of its own.
- When
- A gift is refunded
- Then
- It leaves Transactions, Recent transactions and every money total, and the donor's contact stops counting it.
- When
- You record a payment you collected yourself
- Then
- It carries no processor fee and no Ovante fee, on any plan.
Status
An order's status is the decision and the money. A ticket's status is whether its holder is coming. Check-in is its own fact.
| Order | Ticket | Check-in | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Answers | Was it approved, and is it paid? | Is this person coming? | Did they arrive? |
| Values | Pending approval, Awaiting payment, Paid, Partially refunded, Refunded, Free, Declined | Going, Pending approval, Not going | Checked in, or not |
Rachel requests two seats of a ticket type that needs approval. The order and both tickets read Pending approval, and neither holds a seat. You approve: Ovante charges the held card, the order reads Paid and both tickets read Going. If Rachel's guest can't come and you set that ticket to Not going without a refund, the seat frees up and the order still reads Paid, so the mismatch shows.
- When
- A cart holds a ticket that needs approval, alone or inside a bundle
- Then
- The whole order becomes a request: every ticket on it, the buyer's and the guests', waits for your decision together.
- When
- An order is a request
- Then
- It holds no seat, and no count or total includes it until you approve it.
- When
- A ticket is set to Not going
- Then
- Its seat frees up for someone else, and the status history records who made the change. Whether the person was checked in stays a separate fact.
- When
- A ticket's status changes
- Then
- Ovante records the old and new status, who made the change, and how: by you, an approval, a refund, the buyer, or the system.
How people reach your list
Every buyer and every named holder joins your contacts as soon as the ticket exists, matched by email. Members join through their member account, and you can add or import contacts by hand. See How contacts are made.
- When
- A ticket with a holder is booked
- Then
- The holder joins your contacts at once, matched by email, and the buyer joins from the order. A request joins only when you approve it, and an unnamed ticket not at all.