With the holidays rapidly approaching, the number of potluck type of events organized with Anyvite will increase dramatically.  While it is possible to manage these type of events using the description field and comment board, it’s much much easier to have built in functionality to handle the “who’s bringing what” question.  In response to this, we’ve developed a “Potluck” feature on Anyvite for hosts to specify and manage the items which they would like guests to bring to an event.

Next time you’re creating an invitation where you need guests to bring different items, simply enable the Potluck feature on the “Edit Details Page” by clicking the checkbox next to “Have Guests Bring Items to your Event (Potluck)”.  Then, fill in the items that you would like guests to bring and how many of each you need.  Finally, decide if you’d like your guests to be able to see who is bringing each item, or if you’d just like to restrict that view only to the host of the event.

Once you save and send that invitation, anyone who RSVPs will have the option to select an item to bring to the event.  The summary table will display all of the items available to bring, how many are needed, how many are still remaining, and who is bringing each item.  If you would like to print this information out, simply export the guest list and the potluck information will be included with the guest’s name and RSVP type.  Hosts are able to change or remove the item that guests are bringing by using the “Change RSVP” link under the name of the guest (or if profile pictures are disabled, clicking the guest’s name).

For now, we’re restricting who can select an item to only guests who RSVP “Yes” to an event, for the obvious reason that you don’t want a guest who RSVPs “Maybe” to be responsible for a crucial item and then not show up.  If you feel differently about this, please contact us and let us know what your ideal solution would be.

Keep an eye out for many more exciting additions and updates to Anyvite!  Also, please remember to switch over your Groups to Contact Lists before the end of the month!

We’ve released another significant update to the site which should fix a lot of the quirks and bugs that you may have been experiencing recently.  In addition, we’ve made some strides in updating the dashboard to be a bit cleaner and less cluttered, as well as added in the ability to enter in a “hosted by” name, rather than just using the name of your Anyvite account.  Check it out and let us know your thoughts!

We hope everyone had a great Memorial Day Weekend and are looking forward to a summer filled with BBQs, picnics, parties and fun!

Anyvite received a few more updates over the past two days. Here are a few of the changes:

Export your Invitation Guest List
You can now export your invitation’s guest list to both Excel and CSV formats. The Excel format we’re using is a bit older and may not work in some newer programs (except any version of Excel within the last decade) which is why we also added CSV exports for the other applications (like Numbers).

The new export options are at the very bottom of the guest list so if you can’t find them, scroll down!

Allow Guests to “Invite people” and “Bring people” are now separate
This one is a bit more confusing. There are two options to account for extra guests in an Anyvite invitation. The first is to add them to the guest list so they can view the invitation in Anyvite while the second option is to just use the +Number dropdown when RSVPing. Previously, both of these options were controlled by the same configuration option. NO MORE we said (actually, you said it…) and we split them apart. So for parties where you want your guests to be able to bring a date, but not actually invite outsiders, you can now do it with Anyvite!

Limit the number of people a guest can bring
Another problem with the previous scenario was that you couldn’t limit the number of people your guest could include when RSVPing. So if you wanted your guests to only bring a date but not their entire extended family, you had a problem. So last, and possibly least of today’s feature upgrades, is the ability limit the number of people a guest can include while RSVPing.

We threw in some other goodies along the way. For example, your guests are now sorted by having a profile picture set first and then their name so guests with a picture set will appear before guests without it. The goal is to make the invitations look more exciting which actual faces accomplish better than grey question marks. Let us know what you like and what you don’t like! And remember to get started on your holiday invitations soon!