Exchange with an online community, group, or forum?

You've gotten so close to your friends in an online community, they almost feel like family! So you've decided to do a gift exchange together. Alright, we like that.

As you've probably seen, there are now two possible ways to invite people. For an online community we definitely recommend copying the sign up link and posting it to your group to invite people. Well, unless you enjoy pain or have a lot of time on your hands. In that case, be our guest and track down the names and emails of your 500 fellow Chihuahua lovers :)

Now your community may seem like family, but you don't necessarily want everyone to see your mailing address. Heck that could be true even with your actual family :) No worries! You can configure your group so that only the person buying can see a person's contact information. From your Exchange page, click the "Edit" link. Then, click "Group Settings" and check off the Restrict Contact information box. This setting will be saved for all exchanges you do with this group. Now if you do the Chihuahua exchange for the next 500 years, you can collect everyone's address.

Exchange in the workplace?

You can invite your entire department or even the whole company for that matter (McDonald's, please don't invite the whole company!) The easiest way to invite your co-workers to an exchange is to use our Bulk Upload feature. Just enter each email address on a separate line in the upload box. When are done click upload and all the people will be ready to get be sent invitations. You invite them by return to the exchange page and clicking the "send invitations" button. If you have a really large company and want to avoid putting in everyone's email address, you can use the sign up link and mail to a group email list instead. You will also want to make sure that you send a reminder as you get close to the sign up deadline to make sure people who don't sign up right away still have a chance to get in.

We like to think that everybody in the office is a mature adult right? Well, liking to think that unfortunately doesn't make it so. Some people may lack the good sense to use the Elfster "anonymous question" feature in a mature way. What would Jack Nicholson say... "You can't handle the feature!". Well, fortunately Elfster helps you stop problems before they ever start. You can restrict the Q and A feature so that only the person buying can ask a person a question. To do this, click Edit from the Exchange page. Then click "Group Settings". Finally, check the "Restrict Questions and Answers" box.

Exchange with your Facebook Friends or Group?

Everyone and their mother seem to be on Facebook these days. No kidding my 67 year old mother! So wouldn't it be nice to use Facebook to invite people to your exchange. Guess what! You can use Facebook to invite your friends and family to an Elfster gift exchange. From your exchange page, simply click "invite friends on facebook." This will take you to the Elfster Facebook Edition. Simply choose "invite friends" for your exchange and you will be able to send Facebook invitations to anyone you pick.

Want to invite your entire Facebook group? , just use the sign up link and post it to your group as describe in the section above for online communities.(maybe not "1,000,000 Strong For Stephen T. Colber" just yet. Nothing against Mr. Colbert, we just have test a million person exchange.)

Exchange with family?

You were tired of the hassles of holiday shopping for your ever expanding family, and decide to give the old tradition of "Secret Santa" a try with a new twist. We're glad you came here. That's the whole reason we started Elfster, we loved Secret Santa for the family, and wanted to make it easy easy easy and fun fun fun! Did we mention easy?

Here are some tips and tricks you might find useful.

Don't want to draw your spouse in the family Secret Santa? Neither did we. Elfster makes it a snap for the organizer to make sure that doesn't happen. Before names are drawn, simply click on the person's name and check off all the people that person should not be able to draw.

What about the kids? It can be great to have all the cousins involved, and it will help teach the kids how nice it can be to avoid excess. There are 2 approaches commonly taken, both of which are lots of fun.

The first option is to simply include the kids in the family Secret Santa, too! Why not make it one big extended family gift exchange? Since you can check off multiple "cannot draw" exclusions, you can make sure that each person does not receive anyone from their immediate family.

The other approach is to create a separate "cousins" exchange for all the kids. This is what we do in our family, but either approach will definitely add merriment and holiday cheer for the kids.

Participating in Multiple Exchanges?

Getting those wishlist items you added might be great, but getting them twice would not be twice as great! Don't worry, Elfster makes it easy to avoid this. Did you know you can create multiple wishlists and control which groups can see each one?

To control who sees your wishlist, simply click the "Settings" link on your Wishlist page and check off which group you want to be able to see that wishlist.

To create another wishlist, just click the "View all Wishlists" link on your wishlist page. Then, click the "Add New Wishlist" link.