Running a campaign

This page covers the work you do on a campaign from creation to archive. Only owners and admins can create or change a campaign. A volunteer can read a campaign’s Details, Products and Pickup and delivery tabs and nothing else. See Volunteers and roles. For the first-time walkthrough in order, see Your first campaign. For how campaigns, products, variants and options relate, see Campaigns, products, variants & options.

1. Select Campaigns in the Console side navigation, then New Campaign.
2. Enter a Campaign Name. The URL Slug fills in from it and becomes the end of the campaign’s web address, /c/ and the slug. You cannot change the slug after you create the campaign.
3. Keep or change the Order Code Prefix. It starts every order number, such as WHW-K3M9PQZ, so start it with a letter. Use up to 10 capital letters or numbers. Every campaign needs its own prefix, and a prefix used by a deleted campaign stays taken.
4. Select Create Campaign.

The campaign opens on its Details tab as a Draft, which buyers cannot see. It starts with Cash / Check (Manual) on and Credit Card (Online) off. See Connecting Stripe to take cards.

The Free plan runs one campaign at a time, and a draft, scheduled or active campaign holds that spot. On Free, New Campaign shows a lock once the spot is taken and offers an upgrade instead of the form. Close or archive the current campaign to start another, or move to a plan with several campaigns.

A campaign has these tabs, in this order:

• Details: the name, headline, description, order code prefix, fundraising goal, what the store page shows, what buyers call your sellers, and Opens At and Closes At. Select Save Changes after you edit. A changed order code prefix applies to new orders only. The Show group standings switch is covered in Your roster.
• Results: what the campaign has raised, broken down by member, product, and pickup or delivery option, plus sales over time, with a link to see who has not started selling. Select Print for a sheet with every table, or Export CSV to download By member as a spreadsheet; the arrow beside it picks another table.
• Status: the Before you open it checks, the status change, and Preview draft. The rest of this page is mostly about it.
• Payment: cash and check, card, or both. See Connecting Stripe and Payment methods.
• Branding: the campaign’s logo, hero photo and colors. Anything you leave alone follows the organization’s branding.
• Products: what the campaign sells, and the General Donations switch. See Campaigns, products, variants & options.
• Pickup and delivery: how buyers get their order. See Fulfillment day and Fulfillment.
• External Wishlists: links to retailer wishlists shown on the campaign’s page. Save them with Save Wishlists.
• Prizes: the amounts sellers raise to earn a prize. See Prizes for sellers.

On a Draft or Scheduled campaign, the top of the Status tab shows a Before you open it card. It lists what the campaign still lacks, with a Go to link to the tab that fixes each item. Items that need work come first. A check you have already met shows as done.

These three stop a campaign from opening. The card marks each one Needed to open.

Check	What fixes it
Nothing to sell yet.	Add a product on Products, or turn on General Donations on Products. A campaign that only takes donations can open.
No way to pay is turned on.	Turn on Cash / Check (Manual), Credit Card (Online), or both on Payment.
Card payments are on, but Stripe is not connected. or Card payments are on, but Stripe needs attention.	Finish Stripe under Settings, Payments, or turn card payments off on Payment. Stripe must be able to take card payments. See Connecting Stripe.

Scheduling also needs an Opens At. The card marks that one as a note, not as Needed to open. A draft shows No Opens At yet. and a scheduled campaign without one shows Scheduled, but Opens At is not set. Set it on Details. Making the campaign Active does not need one.

The rest do not stop the status change. They are advice.

• Buyers who pay later are not told how. Cash and check is on but Instructions for buyers paying later on Payment is empty.
• Closes At is in the past. The campaign would close as soon as it opens.
• Warnings from Pickup and delivery, such as an option that is full or no option taking orders when the campaign opens.

If a check could not be read, the card says so, and the status change checks again on the server.

Every 5 minutes in the hour before Opens At, UnitTally runs the three Needed to open checks on a Scheduled campaign. A campaign that fails one is held. It stays Scheduled, buyers can see its page but cannot order, and it does not open at Opens At.

When the hold starts, owners and admins get one Campaign didn’t open email that names what is missing, and the audit log records the hold once. Neither repeats while the hold lasts. The Before you open it card says the campaign will not open, or did not open, at its Opens At, and marks what to fix as Needed to open. Volunteers do not get the email. Each owner and admin can turn it off under Settings, Notifications, where it offers only Off and Real-time.

Fix what the card lists. The campaign then opens on its own within 5 minutes, and not before Opens At. If Opens At has already passed, it opens late, and its audit row records the Opens At it missed. To open it at once, choose Active. Any status change you make ends the hold.

While a campaign is Scheduled, Opens At cannot be cleared. Move it back to Draft first. Moving Opens At to now or earlier opens the campaign, so the same checks run first, and the change is refused while one fails.

On Status, choose a new status under Transition to. The choices depend on where the campaign is.

Status	What buyers can do	Can become
Draft	Nothing. The page is not on the storefront.	Scheduled, Active, Archived
Scheduled	See the page. They cannot order until Opens At.	Draft, Active, Archived
Active	Order.	Closed only
Closed	See the page. They cannot order.	Active, Archived
Archived	Nothing.	Nothing. The control reads No further status changes permitted.

• Open now. Choose Active. The campaign takes orders immediately.
• Schedule. Set Opens At on Details, save, then choose Scheduled. The campaign turns Active at Opens At, unless a Needed to open check fails by then. See If a scheduled campaign cannot open. Setting Opens At on a draft does not open it.
• Close on a date. A Scheduled or Active campaign turns Closed at Closes At. Leave Closes At blank to close by hand. Times are in your organization’s time zone.
• Close by hand. Choose Closed on an Active campaign. It sets Closes At to now.
• Reopen. Choose Active on a Closed campaign. If Closes At is in the past or blank, a Reopen Campaign dialog asks for a New Closing Date & Time. Select Reopen Campaign to confirm. On the Free plan, reopening needs the one-campaign spot to be free.

The same checks apply to Scheduled and Active, including when you reopen, and the Opens At check applies to Scheduled only. While one fails, that choice reads (not available yet), and a line below the control says why, such as Scheduled is off. followed by the reason.

To see a draft as a buyer would, select Preview draft on Status. It opens the storefront page through a preview link that works for 30 minutes.

A closed campaign takes no new buyer orders. An owner or admin can still record an order by hand for 72 hours after it closes.

The catalog stays editable after a campaign opens. On a Scheduled, Active or Closed campaign you can still add, remove, reorder and reprice variants and option values. Only an existing product’s base price locks, because buyers may already hold orders priced from it. The field reads The base price is locked once a campaign leaves draft. A new product can have any price, and a Scheduled campaign can move back to Draft to change a base price. See what changes mean for a buyer’s cart.

The Nothing to sell yet. card suggests adding sizes and other versions before the campaign opens. You do not have to, because they stay editable after it opens, apart from an existing product’s base price.

Details, Payment, Branding, Pickup and delivery and External Wishlists also stay editable on a live campaign. Changing the Order Code Prefix affects new orders only.

Close a campaign when ordering should stop, then archive it once the money is in.

1. On Status, choose Closed under Transition to.
2. When you are finished with it, choose Archived.

Archiving is permanent. An archived campaign:

• Cannot be reopened or moved to another status.
• Has a read-only catalog. Its products, options and variants cannot be changed, and the General Donations switch on Products is disabled. The Products tab says This campaign is archived, so its products can’t be changed.
• Cannot have its details, payment settings, branding or external wishlists changed. Each of those tabs says so at the top and its fields are disabled. Its pickup and delivery options can still be changed.
• Is not served on the storefront and has no View or Copy link button.
• No longer appears on the Campaigns list.

Delete in the campaign header removes the campaign with its products, pickup and delivery options and pages. Its orders stay in Orders. Select Delete, then confirm.

Delete is refused while the campaign has paid or pending orders. Close or archive it instead. A campaign whose orders are all canceled or refunded can be deleted.

Use Duplicate in the campaign header to start next year’s sale from this one.

1. Select Duplicate.
2. Change the New Campaign Name, New URL Slug and Order Code Prefix. The slug and prefix cannot match another campaign’s.
3. Under Copy Options, check what to carry over: Products & Categories, Payment Settings and Branding Overrides. All three start checked. Payment Settings copies the payment methods, the instructions for buyers paying later exactly as written, and the success redirect, so check any date in the instructions.
4. Select Duplicate Campaign.

The copy opens on its Details tab as a Draft. It always keeps the description, headline, goal line, goal amount, seller word, the goal and group standings switches, prize tiers and the prize setting, the description and image shown when its link is shared, and whether it is hidden from search engines.

What does not carry over:

• Opens At and Closes At. Set them on Details.
• Stock. Every variant on the copy starts unlimited.
• The hero photo, pickup and delivery options, external wishlists and orders. Add new pickup and delivery options on the copy.
• Payment methods, when Payment Settings is unchecked. The copy then starts with none on, and you turn one on before you open it.
• General Donations, when Products & Categories is unchecked. The copy has no products, so the switch starts off.

The Free plan’s one-campaign limit applies to a copy too, so a copy of a draft, scheduled or active campaign needs a plan with several campaigns.

Use the Prizes tab to reward the sellers who raise the most. Add a row for each prize with the Raised at least amount and the Prize name, then save.

Sellers earn has two choices. The highest prize they reach gives each seller one prize, the best one their total covers. Every prize they reach gives a seller every prize their total covers, so a seller who clears three amounts earns three prizes.

Only paid sales count toward a seller’s total. A refund comes off the total, and an unpaid pay-later order counts once it is paid.

Sellers see their progress on their own campaign card in the console. It lists the prizes they have earned, how much more they need for the next one, and the prize amounts. Prizes are never shown to shoppers, on the storefront or on leaderboards.

To hand the prizes out, open Reports, choose Prize eligibility in the Campaigns group, and pick the campaign. Prizes to hand out counts each prize, and Sellers lists who earned what with a blank Handed out box for ticking on paper. Select Print for a pick list or Export CSV for a spreadsheet. If sellers earn every prize, a seller counts toward each prize they reached, so the counts add up to more than the number of sellers.

To find the members who still need a nudge, open Reports, choose Participation in the Campaigns group, and pick the campaign, or select See who has not started selling on the campaign’s Results tab. Each member group gets a row with its active members, how many have started, the rate, and what the group raised. Select a group’s name to list the members who have not started, each linking to their member page.

A member has started once they have any order in the campaign, paid or not, so an unpaid pay-later order counts. Only active members count. A member in two groups appears in both, so the rows do not add up to a total, and members in no group appear under Ungrouped. The rate rounds down, so 100% means everyone has started. Select Print for a sheet with every list open, or Export CSV for a spreadsheet.

A Scheduled, Active or Closed campaign has a public page at your storefront address followed by /c/ and the slug. The campaign header shows it, with View to open it and Copy link to copy it. A Draft shows only /c/ and the slug, and you reach it with Preview draft.

The campaign link is the same for everyone. To credit a member for the orders they bring in, give them their own link instead. See Attribution.

• Your first campaign: the walkthrough from invite to sharing links.
• Campaigns, products, variants & options: how the catalog fits together and what each change does to a cart.
• Connecting Stripe: card payments and the Payment tab.
• Fulfillment day: adding pickup and delivery options, and working the list.
• Fulfillment: the options, deadlines and statuses in full.
• Volunteers and roles: who sees which tabs.