In this release, we're attacking four known pain points for the auction bidding process: 

1. Bidder dropoff between Cart and Bid Checkout because Bidders don't know that they must complete Checkout to confirm their bids (they need to submit their Bids after just adding them to the Cart)
2. Bidders don't understand why we ask for their payment information upfront when they make their first bid
3. Bidders don't understand that their cards aren't charged if they don't win any items at the end of the auction
4. Bidders don't know what a "Maximum Bid" is and how Proxy Bidding works

Here are the changes we're making to address all of the pain points above: 

New "Place Bid" modal

A new modal makes it easier for bidders to enter their bid amount with explanations of how bidding works, what happens when they're outbid, and what the minimum bid and bid increments are for the item they're viewing. 

New "Bidding Guidance" modal

After a bidder adds their first bid to their Cart, a new modal explains the next steps of bid checkout better and eliminates dropoff between Cart and bid submission.

Cart changes

Cart Toast element and new Cart icon in the header

After adding a bid to the Cart, a new toast message appears in the upper right. Cart toast messages are a familiar UX pattern from other eCommerce sites and help users learn the pattern of where the Cart is and where they need to go to initiate Checkout.

New "Charged Later" cart section

The Cart now puts Bids and Pledges into a separate "Charged Later" section which explains when donors can expect the system to charge them for items in that section. See screenshot.

Conditional cart buttons

The buttons at the bottom of the Cart now dynamically change depending on what's in the Cart. If only Bids are in the Cart, they'll switch to "Submit bid now." If other items are in the Cart, they'll say, "Check out now." 

The new button text improves the bidder experience with more specific CTAs and addresses the confusion Bidders had when they didn't understand why they had to "check out" their bids. 

Better workflow for users who are outbid while in Cart

Bidders outbid by other bidders before they even get to Checkout will now see a new guided experience explaining what happened and giving them easy controls to take action. 

Checkout changes

New "Bids" section

The Bids section of Checkout is redesigned with two main improvements: 

• An easier way to edit your bid while in the middle of Checkout: see screenshot
• Clearer communication of Outbid status for when the user is outbid by someone else while they're still checking out or when they return to Checkout after being outbid: see screenshot

Review & Pay section changes

The Payment Method section now clearly explains why we ask for payment information upfront from bidders and that they won't be charged if they don't win anything. 

In this release, we are allowing bidders to edit their Bid Settings. By “Bid Settings”, we mean their tip amount, whether they want to pay processing fees (if the Auction is not on Free Pricing), and Outbid SMS Notification settings. Previously, Bidders were not able to edit these settings at all after their first Bid. With this update, Bidders can update these settings individually and at any time before the auction ending.  

There are two places Bidders can access their Bid Settings:  

1. Checkout: useful for editing Bid Settings while the Bidder is also making a new bid (such as when they were outbid and are increasing their bid. Bidders can access this on the "Review & Submit" section of Checkout.
2. My Account: useful for editing Bid Settings when you’re not also making a new Bid. Bidders can access this from the "My Bids" tab on their My Account page.

Just like before, Bid Settings apply to all Bids on a single Auction which allows Bidders to choose different Bid Settings for each Auction they bid on.  

In this release, we are adding a new setting in Experience Setup that allows Organizers to choose if a donor can win one or many prizes on a Sweepstakes or Raffle. Currently, a donor can win more than one Prize on a Raffle. However, this is not possible on Sweepstakes and is a limitation that has frustrated Organizers.   

Additionally, some Organizers never want their donors to win more than one Prize on a Raffle, and when it does occur, they are agitated since both the Organizer and their donors see it as unfair.   

For example, on one Experience, a user had 25 prizes on their Sweepstakes, but they only had 16 donors with tickets. While this case is rare, nine items were left undrawn, causing the organization to be left with those items or make another Experience. In this case, the Organizer would have benefitted from allowing their donors to win more than one Prize so that all 25 Prizes could have had winners. 

There are valid customer use cases allowing donors to win only one or many prizes. The problem with our current system is that customers can’t control how they want this to work for their Experience, so this new setting gives customers that control. 

This setting is being added to the “Raffle” and “Sweepstakes” sections of Experience Setup. When this setting is toggled on, one donor can win more than one Prize. When it’s toggled off, donors can only win one Prize – meaning that if they are selected for one Prize, they are removed from the drawing pool and are not eligible to win any other Prizes in the drawing process. 

In this release, we are updating our receipts to support the Auction bid scenario more clearly. Previously, the receipt, even for an Auction bid, featured the words “Payment” and “Donation” all over it, which caused bidders to believe they were purchasing an item instead of placing a bid. In short, the receipt for Auction bids did not fit the bidder’s expectations.  

To bridge the gap between the bid receipt and the bidder’s expectations, we have tailored the language on the receipt to more clearly reflect that the user made a bid, not a purchase or payment.  

This release is part 1 of 3 of an effort to improve the overall experience for Auction bidders. In releases coming soon, we will enhance the bidding process and add functionality to allow bidders to edit their bid preferences in My Account. In this release, we are focusing on bid receipts. Please note that these changes only apply to transactions that only contain Auction bids. 

Below is a list of the changes we’ve made in this release to the bidding process: 

• Renamed “Payment Summary” to “Bid Summary” on the Simple Confirmation Receipt. See screenshot.
• Informational text on Simple Confirmation Receipt to inform users they’ll only be charged if they win. See screenshot.
• Full Receipt headline now says “Bid confirmed” instead of “Payment confirmed.” See screenshot.
• Conditionally replace “donation” with “bid” in the receipt subtext. See screenshot.  
• Update the name of items section for bids. See screenshot.
• Rename “Payment Summary” to “Bid Summary” on the Full Receipt. See screenshot.  
• New explainer text in the “Charged later” section for bids. See screenshot.
• Conditionally rename the page title to “Bid Receipt” when the transaction only includes a bid. See screenshot.

In addition to these donor-facing changes, we’ve made one minor change to Experience Setup for the “Thank You” section on receipts, which is customizable by Organizers. Previously, organizers did not know that receipts are also sent to bidders. We’ve added clarifying copy to ensure organizers know that receipts are sent for all transaction types, including Auction bids.  

These subtle yet necessary changes will help minimize bidder confusion and will, in turn, help increase bidders’ confidence in the platform.  

Expected release date: October 18th, 2022

There are three main navigational items in the left menu now. The Start Guide button takes the user to the Start Guide, which focuses on getting users ready to raise funds. Next, we have the" Experiences" button, which takes the user to their list of Experiences. Then, we have the" Donation Pages" page button, which takes the user to a list of their Donation Pages.

Below the main navigational items, we have two secondary navigational items: 1) Help Center; and 2) Settings. The Help Center button takes the user to the Knowledge Base. The Settings button opens several sub-items: Branding, Profile, Payment Processing, Integrations, and User Management. Each of these options was included on the old left menu. They have been positioned here since they are less commonly used after initial setup and fit under their organization's 'Settings' category.

Lastly, at the bottom of the new left menu, we have the Administration navigational element that takes administrators to the admin section of the application. If the user has multiple Organizations, a ”Switch Organization” option will also appear below this.  

See email from us about next steps to activate the new Donation Pages on your Partner

In this release, we have completely rethought and redesigned the RallyUp Donation Page to serve Organizations' modern fundraising needs better. It has been several years since any updates were made to our old Donation Pages, and we needed to redesign them to keep them competitive.  

We have organized the Donation Page into manageable and understandable steps so donors can effortlessly make donations. On the setup side, Organizers can easily create beautiful and powerful fundraising Donation Pages with minimal effort. Donation Pages will be a staple in many Organizations' fundraising arsenal. 

New Features 

Our entire philosophy when redesigning the Donation Page was to provide donors with a clean and easy-to-use interface while not sacrificing any flexibility and functionality for Organizations. In addition to a clean and easy-to-follow user interface, we've added new features to help Organizations raise more funds. New features were added based on a mix of customer feedback on the old Donation Pages as well as competitive research. 

Rich Donation Presets 

Title, Image, and Description are individual options that can be enabled for Presets. If the organizer still wants a simple Preset button, they can still do that too by just disabling those features.  

Monthly Donation Upsell 

Ability to Turn Donation Pages On/Off at Will 

To further add more flexibility to Donation Page users, we allow them to turn their donation page off anytime. Then, when they're ready to begin accepting donations again, they can just as quickly turn it back on.   

All other features of the previous Donation Pages remain as-is. Here is a complete list of Donation Page features:  

• Full customization & branding 
• Rich Donation Presets  
• One-time and recurring donations 
• Recurring donations upsell   
• Funds
• Donation dedication   
• Collect donor information
• Custom fields
• Customize donation receipts 
• Donation Limits 
• Marketing opt-in checkbox 
• Text-to-give 
• Fee-passing options 
• Customize terminology 
• Fund code option 
• UK Gift Aid Support 
• Donation notification emails 
• Contact organizer email option 
• Credit Card Descriptor Statement Customization 
• Custom notice 
• FAQs 
• Turn donation page on / off at will 

Donation Page Setup  

We've also redesigned Donation Page Setup to follow a structured flow from beginning to end. There are three main sections of Donation Page setup:  

• Basics 
• Checkout 
• Options 

Basics Section

The basics section of Donation Page setup includes the following settings:  

• Banner setup 
• Create preset donation amounts 
• Funds 
• Personalize link 

Checkout Section 

The Checkout section applies to the payment experience for donors.  

• Currency selector 
• Payment methods 
• Check Mailing Address 
• Customize the thank you section on receipts 
• Donation Dedications 
• Donation Limits 
• Opt-in checkbox option 
• Text-to-give 
• Collect mailing address 
• Collect phone number 
• Custom fields 
• Fee passing options 
• Convenience fee option 

Options Section

The Options section includes all the other options that are completely optional and are used by less organizers on average.  

• Time zone selector 
• Donation Page terminology 
• Enable recurring donations 
• Recurring donations upsell 
• Fund code option 
• UK Gift Aid 
• Email notification options 
• Credit card descriptor statement option 
• Display a notice during checkout 
• FAQs 

Release date: September 12, 2022

In this release, we are adding a new 'Test Mode' to Experiences and Donation Pages. Test Mode allows customers to test the full donor experience on their Experiences. Currently, we have a "preview" function while an Experience is in Draft status, but Organizers can't submit any test transactions on it unless they publish and use a real credit card. Because of this limitation, Organizers also can't see or test everything that comes after submitting a transaction, including receipts, reports, and test other management functions.  

With Test Mode, Organizers can submit test transactions using automatically-filled test card numbers on any “Draft” status Experience or Donation Page. Additionally, all backend functions are open for testing including actions like exporting reports, importing Teams/Participants, adding physical raffle tickets, etc. If the Organizer has linked a Stripe account before using Test Mode, they can even see the test transactions in their Stripe account. Test Mode allows Organizers to fully test and evaluate the product to get a feel for what their donors will experience before they publish and go live.  

Test Mode is not something customers need to “enable” or “turn on” – it’s just automatically built-in for any “Draft” status Experience or Donation Page. Whenever an Organizer previews their Experience while in Draft Status, Test Mode is automatically enabled and Organizers can submit test transactions, see their receipts, see their test data in reports, and perform management functions related to those transactions. The Experience Page, Checkout, and Management backend have on-screen banners to inform the user that they’re in Test Mode. 

When a user publishes their Experience live, all test mode transaction data is conveniently deleted so that everything is clean before it goes live to their donors.   

Here's a quick video of the checkout process while in Experience Test Mode: 

https://www.loom.com/share/70f64110afa5456dac7da24060fefa64

We are adding functionality to the Partner API so partners can create webhooks through a new 'Webhooks' page in the Partner Administration dashboard and select the events they'd like to be notified of when they occur. This functionality allows partners to integrate with systems such as a CRM to send their users related emails when they go through specific workflows in the application. 

You can find the complete documentation for Webhooks here: https://partnerapi.rallyup.com/#webhooks.

In this release, we are adding the ability for organizers to define who receives the 'Contact Organizer' emails. In Options -> Experience Options, there's a new card that lists who gets the 'Contact Organizer' emails. By default, it lists the organizer's email and any emails of Experience Admins, which is the system's current functionality. However, from now on, users will be able to remove the email addresses they no longer wish to use to handle inquiries from the 'Contact Organizer' button and can also input any email address they'd like, including completely external addresses such as help@organization.com. This new functionality provides more flexibility for how organizations choose to serve their supporters.

In this User Story, we are expanding the functionality for custom fields within the application. Currently, we only allow responses in the form of one line of text in a text input field. In efforts to provide more enterprise-level flexibility, organizers will now be able to set up custom field types that accept the following responses:  

• Short text (current custom field functionality) 
• Paragraph text 
• Multiple choice  
• Checkboxes 
• Dropdown 
• Phone number 
• Date 
• Time 
• Numbers-only 

These new custom field types will be added everywhere in the application where custom fields are currently accepted, including Ticketing Registrations, Checkout, Donation Page, and Peer-to-Peer Team and Participant Registrations. Additionally, all custom fields will continue showing in reports and the View Transaction Details modal with added functionality to support the new types added in this user story. All custom fields will continue to be editable by the organizer in the 'Edit Donation' modal on the View Donations page.