Our support staff has put together a list of the most common mistakes (and consequences) that we see from our customers' calls and emails to us during their fair. Some mistakes are easier to fix than others, and you don't want to be fixing something during your fair anyway. Prevention is always better than a cure--if you review these items before your fair and sale, you'll have a much better experience, with fewer "unexpected consequences"!
Always:
- Be sure to click the Save button after you have entered data or made changes in the program!
Before the fair begins:
- Be sure that your current year fair is the primary one (on the Organization screen). Whichever fair is designated as the primary fair is the one that will appear on your fair’s home page.
- Be sure that your registration dates have been updated to the current year in your Entry Settings. If you have registration dates that are different for some of your departments, you have to change them all. Print the Standard Report>>Hierarchy>>Applied Hierarchy Settings to locate all the places registration dates have been entered in the previous year. Using last year’s registration dates prevents anyone from making entry to your fair.
- Be sure to link Animal Types to Divisions before opening registration. If they are not linked, exhibitors will not be able to add animals to their entries, and will not be able to submit their entries.
- If using a barcode scanner, print one page of the report and test the barcode to be sure the print quality is high enough for the scanner to read the barcode. If it does not scan, be sure to set the print settings to Best quality or Photo quality.
- When printing entry tags, entry cards or other labels, be sure to select No Scaling (do not “Fit to Page” or adjust the margins or scaling) to ensure that the labels align correctly.
At the fair:
- Be sure to enter the check-in weight and click check-in before selecting the Sale Participation Status. Entering a weight after the Sale participation status has been entered will cause errors in the Sale Weight field during the Sale.
- When entering results, be sure to enter Class level results before Division level results.
- We never recommend deleting an approved entry, but if you do, be sure to remove the answers to all custom questions, results, and animals before deleting the entry. Deleting an entry after approval DOES NOT change the invoice amount and resulting financial reports.
- When creating a Show Program or Judging Sheet, do not apply the County filter, unless you have a multi-County event (i.e. State or District Show) and need to filter the Show Program or Judging Sheet for just one or a group of Counties. Non-4-H Online exhibitors typically do not have a county. Adding a County filter could result in missing entries on the Show Program and/or Judging Sheet.
Budgets, Premiums, Result Reports:
You can re-print the Show Program or Judging Sheet (including results fields) after results have been entered to obtain a simple results report. There is also a Standard Report “Entry Results for Media” that can be downloaded as Excel, then edited or formatted as necessary.
Budgets must be finalized before running Premium Reports or Custom Reports that contain premiums fields. REMEMBER: When you Finalize Budgets, these areas are locked (no changes allowed):
- Check-In – Change Class – Class Breaks – Will Show Status
- Points & Premiums Set Up (under Hierarchy tab)
If you need to make changes to these areas, you need to: Void the Checks (if generated), Delete the Check Sets (if created), and reset the budgets.