Client Side GUI for Self Registration / RSVP

[Chris H.]

Good day, my name is Chris from San Diego and I am the person responsible for all web development activities for a client of mine who operates a website which supports kids and teens who have Autism.

I am reaching out to your company today because I have been asked to implement/integrate a solution into their website which will better allow the company to deal with a few key issues they have been facing when it comes to properly organizing various camp the organization runs.

Basically they are facing 4 distinct problems which are as follows:

1st) Their organization operates in a manner by which parents essentially need to initially signup with their organization once in order for their child to participate in any of the group activities they make available. Currently this process is done manually through paperwork they need to fill out/sign (medical info / waivers and so on)… none of this is currently done online which I am hoping we would be able to achieve through your system by developing a custom initial client registration form after which I would like to be able to provide them with a username/password in order for them to access something like a “client portal”. What I am hoping to achieve through your system is the ability for a new client to fill out a custom “new client registration form” which would then trigger an email sent to them with their credentials after which they would be able to manually signup/register/rsvp for various individual events as well as recurring events alike.

2nd) The organization currently faces a problem when it comes to understanding the number of individuals who will end up participating in certain events. This sometimes results in some scheduled events ending up with a very low participating rate which, if known in advance, would result in that specific event being canceled. Currently what they need to do is call each and every parent validating that their child will actually be at the event which is very time consuming. For this reason my hope is that your system can be setup to resolve this problem by automatically emailing (hopefully evening texting) parents with a reminder to the recurring events they have signed up for requesting they simply click on a secured link which would simply open up a page where they would be able to validate if their client will or will wont be at the event.

What I am hoping for along with this RSVP action is the ability to set a default number of hours before the event is set to take place at which point we would close their ability for either registering for an event or in the case of a previous registration being able to cancel a previously submitted registration. In other words we are looking to solve the clients issue through automation.

In the event the user attempts to either register or un-register their child after the online registration system has closed for that event we are looking to present him with a message indicating that online registrations are now closed as the event starts in “XX hours” but they can contact the “event organizer” directly.

3rd) Because XciteSteps runs a variety of group events for kids in teens at various school throughout San Diego each event type is often handled by different individual “event organizer” each of which has an “event supervisor” who is in charged of specific areas/event locations and in turn supervises the activities of all “event organizers”.

The reason I bring this up is because what I am hoping your application can achieve for us is the ability for the organization to provide both the “event organizers” as well as the “event supervisors” with a portal they can log into where we would be able to simply present to them a list of all of the events assigned to them along with the ability to access the details for each individual event where they can simply see a list of all the participants who subscribed to recurring event and showing all of the participants who have RSVP’ed and/or canceled along with their dates + participants who have not taken an action yet so the event organizer would be able to contact them directly.

One final capability which is desired is for the event supervisor to be able to manually RSVP or cancel an RSVP at any time including after online registration has closed.

In terms of the event supervisors, they should have the exact same capabilities as the event manager except their view would of course present them with a list of “all” of the events they were assigned to a the supervisor.

4th) The fourth and final capability which we are hoping your system is able to somehow achieve and solve for us relates to the problems currently being faced involving payments. Currently all payments are dealt with manually which can at times become difficult to manage as the organization only charges the customer when the child participates in the event. While there are some changes be enforced from a policy point of view they somehow would like to continue to operate in this fashion… The most logical approach I felt was to simply utilize the client side “RSVP” approach for every individual event. Using this approach my thought was that if your application was able to maintain some type of “current balance” field for every client then upon a client trying to RSVP for an event this balance could get queried and compared to the cost to RSVP for the event in question and if its less the customer simply gets presented with a payment page where they can choose from lets say 3 different amounts to fund their account with. Naturally after their account balance allows for it they can RSVP otherwise they cant. The alternative approach here of course involves charging the user every single time they RSVP which might be easier however the problem with this approach is that we wanted to provide a incentive (reduced cost) if they purchase a package… not sure what options may be available here.

But whats important no matter what payment approach is utilized above is that somehow the system would be capable of properly dealing with payments/credits if parents RSVP or cancel an RSVP while also ensuring that when the event manager or event supervisor manually preform the same action they have the ability to check a box to optionally issue a full or partial credit to the client if the online registration period has ended (if the online registration system is still open any charges would automatically be credited after canceling or the alternative approach would be to simply “pre-authorize” every RSVP for the applicable amount and automatically “capture” the actual funds after the online registration system closes.

Please kindly let me know to what extent your system can accommodate any or all of the needs outlined above. If directly or by the use of plugins any of these features would be capable of meeting these needs in whole or in part I would greatly appreciate some clarity so I can ensure I don’t dismiss your system from being able to accomplish our goal in whole or in part. BTW – I am assuming of course that your applications source code can be modified in case we wanted to customize any changes in the future withought being locked in correct?

Respectfully submitted,

Chris H
(858) 205-2405

[George]

Hey Chris,

There are some things here that ARE possible with WordPress and/or our plugins, and some things that are NOT possible – by default, anyways.

I will address various things specifically as follows 🙂

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I would like to be able to provide them with a username/password in order for them to access something like a “client portal”. What I am hoping to achieve through your system is the ability for a new client to fill out a custom “new client registration form” which would then trigger an email sent to them with their credentials after which they would be able to manually signup/register/rsvp for various individual events as well as recurring events alike.

Okay, so the basic aspects of user/login stuff you mention are already provided by WordPress itself – to learn about these features, I would recommend an article like this one: http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-allow-user-registration-on-your-wordpress-site/

As for custom client forms like you mention here, our plugins unfortunately do not provide this functionality.

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my hope is that your system can be setup to resolve this problem by automatically emailing (hopefully evening texting) parents with a reminder to the recurring events they have signed up for requesting they simply click on a secured link which would simply open up a page where they would be able to validate if their client will or will wont be at the event.

While our ticketing plugins DO have a simple “check-in” feature, they do not have any of the notification features you mention, and there is unfortunately no “pre-check-in” functionality either. So, in other words, we have no notification functionality like you describe at this time. And then when it comes to check-ins; we DO have a feature for checking folks in at the event itself – but there is not an extra layer where folks can “check in” that they will be attending.

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what I am hoping your application can achieve for us is the ability for the organization to provide both the “event organizers” as well as the “event supervisors” with a portal they can log into where we would be able to simply present to them a list of all of the events assigned to them along with the ability to access the details for each individual event where they can simply see a list of all the participants who subscribed to recurring event and showing all of the participants who have RSVP’ed and/or canceled along with their dates + participants who have not taken an action yet so the event organizer would be able to contact them directly.

One final capability which is desired is for the event supervisor to be able to manually RSVP or cancel an RSVP at any time including after online registration has closed.

You can create admin users on your site who can do the things you describe here as “event organizers”. However, there a number of specific admin-facing features you list here that are not included, like this one:

would be able to simply present to them a list of all of the events assigned to them along with the ability to access the details for each individual event where they can simply see a list of all the participants who subscribed to recurring event and showing all of the participants who have RSVP’ed and/or canceled along with their dates + participants who have not taken an action yet so the event organizer would be able to contact them directly.

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The most logical approach I felt was to simply utilize the client side “RSVP” approach for every individual event. Using this approach my thought was that if your application was able to maintain some type of “current balance” field for every client then upon a client trying to RSVP for an event this balance could get queried and compared to the cost to RSVP for the event in question and if its less the customer simply gets presented with a payment page where they can choose from lets say 3 different amounts to fund their account with.

These features are not possible with our plugins, I am sorry 🙁

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So, to summarize, it does not sound like our plugins would meet the needs of this project without a very, very extensive amount of plugin customization.

You can indeed customize the code of our plugins; however, to make them do all of the specific things you list would require a very large amount of code customization. 🙁

I’m sorry to disappoint! I hope my answers are helpful here.

Cheers,
George

[Support Droid]

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