Entries
How do entries work?
Lucky Draw Plus is simply an engine to pick a random item from a list. The items in the list are called entries.
Usually, entries represent people, and you are planning to pick the winning person.
However your entries can also be
prizes or discounts (let your customers pick their own prize)
questions or topics (let your students pick their own question to answer)
anything you like!
See also What is Lucky Draw Plus? for more ideas on what you can use Lucky Draw Plus for.
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Overview
You will load your list of entries, and when you click Draw, Lucky Draw Plus will scroll through your list of entries and pick one entry as the winner.
Your entries can be numbers, names, email addresses, user handles - any text in any language that you choose.
You need to create a file with your entries in it, either a spreadsheet, CSV or text file.
This section will guide you in creating your entries file.
There are also various settings that control how entries behave in your draw which are detailed below.
Load entries
If you do not yet have entries loaded, Lucky Draw Plus will prompt you to load entries before you are able to draw.
Click the Entries button to open the Load entries dialogue.
You can now choose to load either
Random test entries
Your entries file
You can override the default entries settings for this draw session, setting them to on or off:
Remove winner from list after draw - on/off
Randomise entries - on/off
See also Entries settings
See also What is a draw session?
Click Load once you are done.
You will know that your entries are loaded by the Ready… message at the top of the screen.
You are now ready to Draw.
Random test entries
Use the Load random test entries button to quickly load random test entries if you are testing various draw settings such as sound effects or winner animations - this is quicker than loading your own file each time.
You will get a new list of entries each time you click the button.
Load entries from file
Click the Choose entries file button and browse for your entries file.
We do not store your entries in our database or upload them to our server, except for the winner of each draw for your Results list and Winner certificates.
See also Draw results
Entries files
Download entries templates
You can download entries templates at the bottom of the Settings | Entries page.
We have provided examples with one, two and three columns.
You can use these files to test with temporarily, or edit them to create your own file.
Create your own entries file
You will create a file to load the entries to your draw.
Your file can be an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV file.
You can use one, two or three columns (any extra columns will be ignored).
Your file should have column headings (any name).
Your entries can be any language or character set.
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The data in each row will be joined together from left to right to create the entries displayed in the draw.
For example, if you have First name, Last name then Ticket number columns, one entry might look like this: Marie Johnson 56025
See also Collecting entries for ideas on collecting entries if you do not yet have your entries file, and some examples of online form tools you can use to collect entries, including collecting payments.
Entries settings
There are a few settings that control how entries behave in your draw.
Find them on the Settings | Entries page.
Here is what the entries settings do:
Randomise entries
If this setting is on, the entries in your list will be loaded to the draw screen in a random order. By default, this setting is on.
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If you want your list to load in the same order as in your file, turn this setting off.
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Whether this setting is on or off, your winner is always picked randomly from your full list of entries.
Remove winner from list
If you put this setting on, your winner will be removed from the entries list after each draw, so that the same winner cannot win again if you do more than one draw.
You will see your number of entries decrease and the winner name disappear for the next draw.
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How long will this last for?
This will last for your current draw session. A draw session starts when you load an entries list. Any draws (both test and live) that you do with that same loaded list belong to that session.
See also What is a draw session?
Keep in mind!
To ensure that the same winner cannot win twice in one draw session, put this setting on, and also make sure you have no duplicates in your entries file.
Do not start a new draw session (do not load your entries again or leave the draw page).
You may have a weighted list, with more than one entry per person. For example, Camille may be in your entries file 10 times, giving her 10 chances to win. If Camille wins, only that winning entry will be removed, and she still has 9 entries in your list, so it is possible for her to win again.
If you load your entries list and do a test draw, the winner of the test draw will be removed from the list. To make sure that that entry has a chance to win in your live draw, re-load the full list again before doing your live draw.
Show entries count
Do you want people to see how many entries there are in your draw? If this setting is on, the count of entries will be shown on the screen during the draw, and on your winner certificates. If off, these will be hidden.
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Override default settings on load
The settings you save on the Settings | Entries page will be the default settings used each time you open the Load entries dialogue. Set them to the options you would like used most often.
However you can override some of these settings as you load an entries file.
Changing the settings at this time will not save new defaults for you, but will only take effect for your current draw session. Use this to test different behaviour temporarily.
What is a draw session?
A new draw session starts each time you load an entries list. This can happen when you:
Load a new entries file (or re-load the same file)
Leave the draw page, for example to go to the Settings menu
Log out and then in again
Refresh your browser
All of these will force you to load entries again, and a new draw session will start, with all your entries back in the list.
If you are doing multiple draws and you don’t want the same winner to win twice, you need to make sure you stay in the same draw session. In other words, don’t do any of the actions above.
How many entries can I have?
We don’t limit the number of entries you can load for each draw at all, so in theory this is unlimited.
However in practice, the device you are using may limit you, depending on the amount of memory that it has. To give you an idea, you can easily handle 300 000+ entries on a mid-range laptop a couple of years old, so you should be good for most draws.
You use one credit per live draw, no matter how many entries you have in your draw.
See also Credits
Working with very large numbers of entries
If you have a very large number of entries, and are experiencing performance issues, try the following:
Try a shorter scroll duration. The longer you set your draw to scroll before picking a winner, the more performance is demanded.
Try a slower draw speed. The faster you set to draw to scroll, the more performance is demanded.
Try a different draw style. The split flap draw style needs less performance than the classic scroll draw style, for example.
Think about splitting your draw into heats. Draw a winning name for each heat, and then enter those winners into a Grand Finale.
Make sure you test your final entries file using the device that you will use for your live draw to ensure you know how it will perform.
How many chances to win?
Each entry in your file has one chance to win.
The winner is picked randomly from the full list of entries. Say you have an entries list with 100 entries, the winner will be picked randomly from the full list, so each entry has a 1/100 chance of winning.
Make sure you have no duplicates in your list if you want each entrant to have only one chance to win.
If you are doing multiple draws at one event, say for first, second and third prize, then you can use the ‘Remove winner from list after draw’ feature if you do not want the same entry to win twice.
See also Remove winner from list
Weighting entries
If you want some entrants to have a higher chance of winning, repeat their entries in your list.
For example:
You are running a draw where for each social media interaction people get an entry into your draw.
You have 100 comments on your social media post.
10 of them came from User1.
Repeat User1 10 times in your entries list
Now User1 has a 10/100 or 1/10 chance of winning.
Note that if User1 wins, and you draw again using the Remove winner from list setting, only 1 of User1’s entries will be removed, leaving them 9 entries in the draw.
See also Remove winner from list
