This article is relevant to Audience Finder and Audience Finder 2.0: Beta (AF2: Beta) ticketed organisations, who use Spektrix as a ticketing and CRM system. 


As an alternative to applying production categorisation within AF2: Beta, your existing and future productions can be categorised with artforms directly within your Spektrix system and extracted automatically. This gives you full access to the artform features within Audience Finder and AF2: Beta, without the need to categorise your productions within the platform manually. Full guidance on production categorisation for users on other ticketing and CRM systems can be found here.


How it works

To extract meaningful and consistent artform data for use in Audience Finder Original and Audience Finder Answers, Spektrix and The Audience Agency (TAA) have collaborated and put together this guide to set up standardised artforms in Spektrix.


Audience Finder artforms are required to be set up as event attributes and recorded against your Spektrix events. You may already have attributes doing a similar function, but creating these event attributes specific to The Audience Agency makes categorising your productions simpler.


You may wish to review how you are currently categorising events within Spektrix. If you need help getting a list of events and associated attributes from Spektrix, get in touch with the Spektrix Support Team. An up to date list of the Audience Finder artforms and definitions to apply to your events can be found on here. 


Setting up the Attributes

To set up Audience Finder artforms in Spektrix you will need to create two new Event Attributes called “TAA Artform” and “TAA Sub Genre”. Please note these must be Event Attributes for The Audience Agency to be able to extract them, and not Event Instance Attributes, or anything else. If you are unfamiliar with Attributes and would like to read more about them, please see this article in the Spektrix Support Centre.


There are two different interface layouts in the Spektrix Settings. The following steps are outlined for each layout. The best way to check what version you are seeing is to look for the Spektrix control panel. If the control panel is still in the bottom left, then you are in the Original Interface. If you don’t see it on the bottom left but see it in the top left instead, you are in the New Interface.


Original Interface

    • Navigate to Settings > Attribute Templates.
    • Click on Events, and you will be presented with your current list of Event Attributes.
    • Scroll to the bottom and click “+ Add Attribute.”
    • Name the attribute “TAA Artform.” (1)
    • Change the attribute type to “dropdown list.” (2)
    • You can add a description to the description field, so that the purpose of the attribute is clear to everyone.
    • Ensure the 'Is Public' checkbox is ticked to make the attribute visible in the API. 
    • In the “add a new item” field you must fill in all the options that appear in the artform definition spreadsheet under the column titled TAA Artform. (3)
    • Click “Add” as you add each option (4). It will start to look something like this: 


  • Save the Attribute once you have created a value for each field in the spreadsheet.
  • Repeat the steps above for the second column in the spreadsheet. This time the Attribute will be called “TAA Sub Genre.”
  • This list is much longer than the first one. Ensure that the attributes' names are correct and all of the drop-down items appear precisely as they do in the artforms definition spreadsheet. If any artform names are misspelt, then they will not be picked up correctly in Audience Finder.
  • Once you have created both attributes your attribute screen should look like this:




New Interface

  • The first page in the Setting Interface you see will be the Attribute Templates page. On the left-hand side, click ‘Event’ to bring up the list of Event Attributes:



  • Click "New Attribute Template" on the top or bottom right of the screen.
  • Name the attribute "TAA Artform."
  • Change the attribute type to "dropdown list."
  • You can add a description to the description field, so that the Attribute's purpose is clear to everyone.
  • Tick the box that says "This Attribute is visible in your API integrations."
  • Add all of the required dropdown fields in the "dropdown values" box, with a new line separating each one.
  • Once you have added all the dropdown values, press "Create Attribute Template."
  • Repeat the steps above for the second column in the spreadsheet. This time the Attribute will be called "TAA Sub Genre."

 


Setting the attributes against your events

Now that you have these Audience Finder Artform attributes, you can go about setting them against your events. It can be done historically for past events as well as for future events. If you wish you can make the Attribute “required”, however, this may be problematic for people setting up the events if they do not know which artform to choose. We leave this option to your discretion.


If you now navigate to the Admin screen and choose an event, you will see that you have these artform options to select. Click edit, and you can set the appropriate artform for your events. It should look something like this:



Including the attributes in Audience Finder

Once you have set up the event attributes and begun to set them against your events, you just need to let The Audience Agency Support Team know on 020 7260 2505 or drop them an email at [email protected].


After completing the set up of event attributes as outlined above, you won’t need to undertake production categorisation in AF2: Beta. The artform data will be extracted automatically, giving you full access to the artform features within Audience Finder and AF2: Beta.


Additional Support

If you are unsure about any of the steps above, or you want to check that you are doing things correctly before you start, please don’t hesitate to give Spektrix Support a call on 020 7183 3586 or drop them an email [email protected].