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Track event RSVPs and registrations

Registrations append to an Attendees table, so the headcount totals itself and dietary needs are countable before the day.

When this happens

New submission on your event registration form

Do this

Add a row to an Attendees table in Microsoft Excel with name, ticket type, dietary needs and party size

One-directional. A submission triggers the action — nothing is written back into your form.

Guest lists move right up to the afternoon of the event, and the caterer wants one number. This flow appends every registration to an Attendees table in a shared SharePoint workbook, with ticket type, party size and dietary notes each in their own column.

Events coordinators run it so the headcount is never a manual tally. The registrant plus their additional guests give a party size the table can sum, and the dietary column can be counted without reading each response, while accessibility requests stay visible in a column of their own.

Setting it up

  1. 1

    Publish the registration form with Ticket Type as a dropdown matching the tickets you actually offer, so the column can be pivoted rather than tidied by hand.

  2. 2

    Create the workbook in the SharePoint library the events team already shares, then format an Attendees worksheet as a table. A file sitting on someone's desktop cannot be written to.

  3. 3

    Give the table columns for Registered, Name, Email, Ticket, Additional Guests, Party Size, Dietary, Access and Checked In.

  4. 4

    Write =[@[Additional Guests]]+1 in the Party Size column so each row counts the registrant as well as their guests. The total at the foot of that column is your headcount.

  5. 5

    In Zapier, choose formformform's New Submission trigger, connect the account, select the registration form and pull a test RSVP.

  6. 6

    Add Microsoft Excel's Add Row to Table action, connect a Microsoft account with access to that SharePoint site, then select the workbook, worksheet and Attendees table.

  7. 7

    Map Full Name, Email Address, Ticket Type, Number of Additional Guests, Dietary Restrictions and Accessibility Requirements to their columns, and leave Checked In empty for the door team.

  8. 8

    Submit a test RSVP, confirm Party Size calculated, then turn the Zap on and share the workbook read-only with anyone who only needs to look.

What maps where

Using the Event Registration Form as the starting point. These are its real fields — swap in your own and the mapping works the same way.

Form fieldMicrosoft Excel
Full NameName column in the Attendees table
Email AddressEmail column, used to match a later change of plan
Ticket TypeTicket column, filtered per session
Number of Additional GuestsAdditional Guests column, feeding the Party Size formula
Dietary RestrictionsDietary column, counted for the caterer
Accessibility RequirementsAccess column, reviewed by the venue

Variations worth knowing

Give the caterer a sheet with no contact details

Build a second worksheet that pulls only Name, Party Size and Dietary from the table, then export that sheet as its own file. The caterer gets the numbers they need and the guest email addresses stay in the workbook you keep.

Split ticket classes into separate tables

A Zapier Filter on Ticket Type sends each class to its own table. Coordinators running a paid session alongside a free one usually want the two lists apart, since only one of them needs chasing before the doors open.

If something isn't arriving

The headcount total comes out one short for every row.

Number of Additional Guests counts the guests, not the person registering. Keep the Party Size column as =[@[Additional Guests]]+1 and total that column rather than the raw field from the form.

Dietary Restrictions arrives as one comma-separated string.

Multi-select answers come through joined together. Count them with a wildcard, as in =COUNTIF(Dietary,"*vegan*"), or split the answer with Formatter before mapping if you need one column per option.

Frequently asked questions

What if someone needs to change their RSVP?

A second submission appends a second row rather than editing the first, because the flow only ever writes forwards. Keep the Registered timestamp column, sort on it, and treat the most recent row for that email address as the current answer.

Does the workbook need to be open for rows to appear?

No. Rows are written through Microsoft's cloud API, so they land whether or not anyone has the file open. It does have to live on OneDrive or SharePoint — a copy saved to a laptop is invisible to the Zap.

Can the caterer see attendee email addresses?

Only if you share the whole workbook. The usual approach is to export a sheet holding name, party size and dietary notes and send that instead, which keeps contact details in the file the events team controls.

Related automations

Build the form first

The automation needs somewhere to fire from. Publish a form, connect it once, and every submission from then on runs this flow.

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