Overview
Guest Source
Every guest on your list now carries a record of who added them, how, and when. Guest Source fills itself in automatically and can't be edited — here's what each value means.
What Guest Source tells you
Section titled “What Guest Source tells you”Guest Source is a column on every guest list that answers one question: how did this person get here?
Gatsby records the answer at the moment the guest is added, so it’s still there weeks later. The column is read-only and on by default — you don’t fill it in.
How to read a cell
Section titled “How to read a cell”Most cells follow one pattern — who, then how, then when:
By Adam Z. via CSV upload on Apr 15
- Who — the person or system responsible. A teammate’s name, the word
guest, the name of the guest who brought a plus-one, or an integration. - How — the specific method.
CSV upload,Public RSVP,Walk-in (kiosk), and so on. The legend below defines all of them. - When — the date the guest was added. Today shows a time (
1:14 PM), this year shows a short date (Apr 15), earlier years show the full date (11/09/22).
Hover a name to see it in full. Hover on longer cells to view the whole value.
When the cell names the exact origin
Section titled “When the cell names the exact origin”On many rows the how goes one step further and names the thing the guest came from, as Label: name:
By Dana K. via List: Portfolio Founders on Nov 9
| You see | It means |
|---|---|
List: {name} | The contact list they were added from. |
Tag: {name} | The tag they were added from. |
Event: {name} | The other event whose guest list they were pulled from. |
CSV: {filename} | The spreadsheet they were imported from, named. |
Guest list: {event} | They were added from another event’s guest list using Add to Event. |
Contacts | Added from your Contacts page. |
Import history | Added from the Contact Imports history page. |
Long names are shortened to fit the column — Portfolio Fo… for a list, Q3-prospe…l-v2.csv for a file, which keeps the file extension readable. Hover to see the untruncated value, and exports always carry the full one.
The date is the most recent add. If you remove a guest and later add them back, Guest Source updates to reflect that second add — not the original one.
The legend
Section titled “The legend”Every value you can see, grouped by who or what added the guest.
Added by your team
Section titled “Added by your team”Someone on your team performed the add. The cell names them and shows a small avatar with their initials — By Adam Z. via Manual add on Apr 15.
| Method | What it means |
|---|---|
Manual add | Added one at a time from the guest list — the Contacts tab of Add Guests, or typing directly into a row. |
Bulk add | Several contacts selected at once and added to the event. |
Filter add | Added in one action from a page of contacts. Newer rows name where from instead — Contacts, Import history, Guest list: {event}, or CSV: {filename}. |
List add | Added from a contact list — the Lists tab of Add Guests. Newer rows name it: List: Portfolio Founders. |
Tag add | Added from a tag — the Tags tab of Add Guests. Newer rows name it: Tag: Portfolio. |
Event add | Pulled in from another event’s guest list — the Events or Parent Events tab. Newer rows name it: Event: Annual Meeting. |
Google | Added from Google Contacts — the Google tab of Add Guests. |
CSV upload | Imported from a spreadsheet. Newer rows name the file: CSV: Q3-prospe…l-v2.csv. |
Multi-event add | Added to several events at once using the multi-event picker. |
Contact card | Added using Add to event from the contact’s own profile. |
Walk-in (kiosk) | Added at the door during check-in — they weren’t on the list beforehand. |
Group add | Added from a contact group. Groups have been replaced by lists, so this appears on older guests only. |
Added by the guest
Section titled “Added by the guest”The guest acted on their own, so the cell reads By guest and shows a person icon instead of an avatar — By guest via Public RSVP on May 18.
| Method | What it means |
|---|---|
Public RSVP | They registered themselves through your event landing page. |
Child-event RSVP | While RSVPing, they selected this session or sub-event. |
Gatsby calendar link | They RSVP’d from a Gatsby calendar page you shared with them. The word link is clickable — it opens that calendar’s settings. |
Plus-one | Another guest brought them. This is the one row that names someone: By Jane Doe via Plus-one on May 18 shows the guest who brought them, not a teammate. |
Synced from an integration
Section titled “Synced from an integration”A connected system added the guest, so there’s no person to name. The cell reads Synced from and shows a ⚡️ — the same mark used elsewhere in Gatsby for integrations.
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
Synced from Salesforce on Nov 9 | Arrived through your Salesforce integration. |
Synced from Affinity on Nov 9 | Arrived through your Affinity integration. |
Synced from Zoom on May 17 | Registered through Zoom and synced across. |
New to these? Integrations covers what each one syncs and how to connect it.
No person to name
Section titled “No person to name”These cells are grey with no icon. Nobody is named because nobody can be — either the add wasn’t performed by a person, or the record predates Guest Source.
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
Added via child event on May 12 | The guest was added to a sub-event, and Gatsby propagated them up to this parent event automatically. The originating event isn’t named, because a guest can propagate up through several levels at once. |
Added via Walk-in (kiosk) on 11/09/22 | We know how the guest was added but not who did it — an older guest whose method we could recover, or a teammate whose account has since been removed. Any method can appear in this form. The method shown is accurate; only the name is missing. |
Added on 11/09/22 | Nothing about how this guest arrived was recorded at the time. Only the date is known. See below — this is common on guests added before Guest Source existed. |
No cell is ever blank. Every guest has an add date, so at minimum you always get when.
Guests added before Guest Source existed
Section titled “Guests added before Guest Source existed”Guest Source is a new field. Nothing that was previously visible has been removed — you’re gaining information going forward, plus whatever we could recover from existing records.
On guests added before this launched, you may see how and when, but never who. By {name} appears only on guests added from the launch onward. Who performed a historical add simply wasn’t recorded anywhere, and we’d rather leave it out than guess at it.
What you’ll see on older guests:
- The method and the date, where the original record still shows how the guest arrived —
By Jane D. via Plus-one on 11/09/22,By guest via Public RSVP on 11/09/22,Added via Walk-in (kiosk) on 11/09/22. - The date alone —
Added on 11/09/22— where nothing on the record indicates how the guest was added. This is most older guests.
We only name a method where the original record actually supports it. A wrong source is indistinguishable from a right one once it’s written down, so where we can’t tell, we say so.
Filtering and sorting
Section titled “Filtering and sorting”Filter by Guest Source to isolate a cohort — every walk-in, everyone who came through a Salesforce sync, everyone a specific method brought in. Each option in the filter carries a colored tag showing its category: Team, Guest, Integration, or Other.
Sort by Guest Source to order the list by when each guest was added, newest or oldest first. It’s the fastest way to see what changed on a list since you last looked at it.
Export carries the column through. If Guest Source is visible in your view, the exported file includes it — with the untruncated value, so a filename like Q3-prospects-final-v2.csv comes through whole and can be searched for in a spreadsheet.
On mobile, open a guest’s profile to find their Guest Source, and check the Events tab to see how they were added to each of their other events.
Common Questions
Section titled “Common Questions” I don't see the Guest Source column on my guest list
It’s on by default, so you shouldn’t need to add it. Guest Source replaces the old Source column and sits in the same place — any view that already showed Source now shows Guest Source instead.
If it’s missing, it was hidden in that particular view. Each view saves its own column setup, so switching it back on affects only the view you’re looking at:
- Open the view where you want the column.
- Click Columns in the top right.
- Find Guest Source in the list and switch it on.
It’s a standard column rather than an optional one, so it’s in the main Columns list — you don’t need Add Fields.
Why do some rows name a list or file and others just say “List add” or “CSV upload”?
Because Gatsby only started recording the specific origin recently. Guests added from that point on carry the name — List: Portfolio Founders, CSV: Q3-prospects.csv. Guests added before it keep the plain method — List add, CSV upload.
Both forms will sit in the same column from now on, and that’s deliberate. We’d rather show the plain method than imply we know an origin we never recorded.
You’ll also see the plain method on a newer guest if the thing they came from has since been deleted — if that list no longer exists, there’s no name left to show.
Why can't I type in this column?
Guest Source is a record of what happened, so it’s read-only by design. A field that can be both recorded and overwritten can’t be trusted for either purpose.
If you want to leave a note on a guest, pin a comment on them instead. Pinned comments also appear in check-in arrival notification emails, which typed-in notes never did reliably.
This column used to be called Source, and I kept notes in it. Where did they go?
Nothing was deleted. The old Source column let you type free-text notes on a guest, and those notes now live on the guest’s pinned comment — the same place they were already shared from.
The old column also had a quirk worth knowing about: it only displayed your note if the guest happened to have been added by CSV upload. On every other guest the note was invisible in the column even though it was stored, and still went out in check-in emails. Moving notes to pinned comments removes that inconsistency.
Why does a guest on my parent event say “Added via child event”?
When you use parent and child events, adding a guest to a child event automatically adds them to the parent as well. Nobody performed that second add, so there’s no name to show.
The originating child event isn’t named either. A guest can propagate up several levels in a single action — a grandchild event will add them to both the parent and the grandparent — so there isn’t one single child event to point to.
Two guests came in from the same spreadsheet but show different sources. Why?
They shouldn’t. Gatsby has two internal ways of importing a spreadsheet, and both display as CSV upload for exactly this reason. Filtering on CSV upload returns guests from both.
If you’re seeing a genuine mismatch, it’s likely the guests came in through different actions — for example, one from an upload and one from the Lists tab. Send us the event at
I removed a guest and added them back. Which add does it show?
The most recent one. Guest Source always reflects the current membership on the list, not the first time the guest ever appeared on it.
Does the source of a guest change if they RSVP or check in?
No. Guest Source records how the guest got onto the list and never changes afterward. What they did once they were on it — RSVP status, attendance, plus-ones — lives in its own columns.