Published
2010-05-10 04:43
Hi all,
Working on CiviEvent to add two nice features that are going to be included on 3.2:
1) Now you can send a link with the checksum token to the registration page, so the form is pre-filled even for contacts that don't have a login/password
2) And you can register someone else, even when you are logged in, eg. the admin users can register new people from the online registration like if they where anonymous.
One more thing or two I think could be tweaked to make civievent even easier to use:
1) Admin Interface
Right now, you have two "modes":
IMO, it'd be more logical to merge these two views, and add a summary tab:
The summary contains the introduction and more verbose explanation, while the tabs allow to directly access to what you want for the more experts users.
Not sure if the lists of participants and non participants needs to have a button styling and not a "normal" new line on the list, like the other links, but I'd put two new tabs to access them directly anyway.
2) Adding "admin" links on the end user event page:
I have quite a few time ended up as an admin in this page (eg from the list of events in the admin interface), and it doesn't have any way for the admin to come back to the admin interface, or see the list of participants. I'd suggest to add these links for the users having the access rights to do so (if not complicated to implement)
3) Making it easier to send invitation
We probably all want to be able to mail our existing contacts about a new event. Unfortunately, can't really do that now easily using templates, cause they aren't any token for events on the sending email page (nor on civimail)
http://drupal.demo.civicrm.org/civicrm/activity/add?atype=3&action=add&reset=1
It would be great to be able to add a variable eventid=xxx, and if set, add {event.id}, {event.title}, {event.url} {event.description} or {event.registrationurl} for instance.
I don't think it needs to store this eventid in the mail, but just automatically replace it by the text when saving (or choosing a template that contains these), as opposed to the "normal" token that are replaced during the sending process.
Would it be complicated to add these tokens and process them when saving (and that eventid is set in the $_GET), obviously ?
What do you think about these suggestions ?
X+
The summary contains the introduction and more verbose explanation, while the tabs allow to directly access to what you want for the more experts users.
Not sure if the lists of participants and non participants needs to have a button styling and not a "normal" new line on the list, like the other links, but I'd put two new tabs to access them directly anyway.
2) Adding "admin" links on the end user event page:
I have quite a few time ended up as an admin in this page (eg from the list of events in the admin interface), and it doesn't have any way for the admin to come back to the admin interface, or see the list of participants. I'd suggest to add these links for the users having the access rights to do so (if not complicated to implement)
3) Making it easier to send invitation
We probably all want to be able to mail our existing contacts about a new event. Unfortunately, can't really do that now easily using templates, cause they aren't any token for events on the sending email page (nor on civimail)
http://drupal.demo.civicrm.org/civicrm/activity/add?atype=3&action=add&reset=1
It would be great to be able to add a variable eventid=xxx, and if set, add {event.id}, {event.title}, {event.url} {event.description} or {event.registrationurl} for instance.
I don't think it needs to store this eventid in the mail, but just automatically replace it by the text when saving (or choosing a template that contains these), as opposed to the "normal" token that are replaced during the sending process.
Would it be complicated to add these tokens and process them when saving (and that eventid is set in the $_GET), obviously ?
What do you think about these suggestions ?
X+
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Xavier, these changes sound great!
Having just deployed CiviCRM to handle event registrations for our AGM, another feature I'd love to see is the ability to modify Price Sets.
In our organization each item of the Price Set had a different GL code, so changes would need to be captured. Particularly if refunds are required for some/all items.
and then work on a patch to make it happen. Not entirely clear where / when / how you want to be able to edit price sets. Clearly you can edit them in the administrative Price Sets interface - so I guess you are talking about some other workflow. ???
More details for CiviEvent Name Badges here
lobo
These are some good improvements. One other thing I would like to see is giving the registrant the ability to choose which breakout sessions they would like to attend. This can be done now via price sets or custom profiles, but is messy is there is more than two breakouts.
Hi,
My experience is that it's hairy because the need is hairy, and the "can register to workshop 2 if pay and extra 30 and member of group members and isn't registered already in the workshop 4 that overlaps, same goes for workshop1 and 3, but that's 50 usd for 1, and 60 usd for 3, unless member of the advisor group". insert almost random criteria based on the age of the captain and the moon phase, and I don't think the issue is anymore about the price sets or profiles ;)
But if you have suggestions or how to make it simpl(ier) to handle the non trivial cases, please start a discussion with a new blog post, my own experience hasn't allowed me to see how it might be simplified
X+
Xavier,
I'm not sure how to create a new blog post, so I am replying here.
Perhaps the best way to approach this is to start simple and assume non-overlapping breakout sessions and no-additional fees (which could be handled through pricesets). You have session A, B, and C with subs of A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3, etc. At least this would give a basic functionality to Civi. Competing programs such as Neon are currently able to handle this scenario, so it can be done.
Another suggestion for CiviEvent: we (and many other orgs) often hold events where there are different prices for being a member. Right now, you can create a priceset with the different prices and then trust the participant to pick the correct price -- or it has to be manually checked. It would be really nice if CiviEvent could only allow members to get the member pricing at signup.
One of my clients just asked for this feature. The organization offers seminars with individual sessions, and they want to track which sessions people are attending. There is no extra charge for the sessions, so not too complicated.
The icing on the cake would be to include session attendee information in the event summary page or an event report.
-James
Big applause to Xavier and Tech to the People for stepping up and implementing / sponsoring these awesome improvements to CiviEvent. Both the checksum invite and the 'register for someone else' features have been requested / discussed by folks for a while, so these are both excellent contributions!
With regard to the suggested changes to Manage Events interface - would be great to hear other folks thoughts. If we go this way, is 'Summary' the write title for the tab with the explanations? Seems like more of a 'help' tab. Also, where is user taking when they click 'Configure' link for an existing event from Manage Events listing? To the Summary tab, or to the Info and Settings Tab (as currently done)? Another approach to integrating "help" would be to add help icon rollovers next to each tab title.
On a second analysis, they probably need to be permanently added to the list of token, as you might want to add one in a template, even if you don't have an eventid.
Might make sense to add them, but display a warning/error when saving/sending if the url doesn't contain an eventid ?
What do you think ?
X+
The core team came up with a plan to eliminate the configuration "summary" page (which is basically a list of links with 'help'), and provide 1 click access to important event-related pages including participant listings, the live event info and event registration pages, etc.
You can review the specifications here.
.. and view a screenshot (mockup) of the new "configure event action ribbon" here.
wandering if Public Participant Listing shouldn't be in the other button with the public pages.
How about making it easy for members (who are logged in) to see discounted pricing options during event registration? Anonymous users and non-members who are logged in see standard (higher) prices.
Let me know if this feature already exists. If so, I haven't seen it. All of my membership-based clients would love it.
Member Pricing is a HUGE one for me too... I would expand on that and say I'd love to not only see discounted pricing for members, but also limit that. For example, at a certain donation level, let's call it President's Circle, you get certain benefits, such as 10 discounted tickets to an event, regardless if the individual is a member. To expand on that a bit more, it would give a company the ability to buy a membership and then have their employees receive the benefit by having a matching email address domain, up to the benefit limits... Or something like that :-).
But I'd be VERY happy with just being able to offer and individual member a discount. Something that other systems don't do well, such as RE, which I am suggesting clients to migrate off of!
Especially being able to register someone else... I am currently fighting an issue where someone was logged in and registering other people (sign-up booth)... now their own contact record is messed up and their old CID is registered on 15+ events... so trying to sort it back out to who registered for what...
Without trying to squeeze another feature request in... has anyone every suggested to have multiple CiviCRM contact records "linked" to a single login (Joomla/Drupal)... So a family could have a single login and easily register one of their family by dropdown selection versus complete record re-input (AND allow more than 1 pre-filled out registration)...
Combination of the above with your idea would be the first registration for an event would have a drop-down listing the "linked" contacts and another item such as "different user" where they could enter all of the contact info for a non-linked user. (Obviously a better name then different user would be preferred).