For $65 this should allow you to import without ID

[Michael]

How is there no GUI to import events? What happens when a client has limited technical expertise? Explaining this process to them can be a huge pain. You’re telling me that for $65, a yearly cost, all they get is you popping in an iFrame??

Absurd.

[Barry]

Hi Michael,

I’m sorry to hear the plugin hasn’t lived up to your expectations but we do appreciate you reaching out to us with your concerns: we’re always open and receptive to customer feedback and I’d love to build a better picture of what you were expecting here.

How is there no GUI to import events? What happens when a client has limited technical expertise? Explaining this process to them can be a huge pain.

We do have a user interface for this and it can be accessed via the Events → Import: Eventbrite link within the admin menu.

I have to say I personally view it as a pretty straightforward interface, consisting as it does of a concise set of instructions followed by a single input field and a button. Is the problem that it is too simple? What could we add to make it easier for your client?

Is perhaps the problem less the user interface and more the need to obtain the Eventbrite EID and, if so, do you have thoughts on alternatives?

You’re telling me that for $65, a yearly cost, all they get is you popping in an iFrame??

That’s somewhat unfair as it does a great deal more than just display an iframe.

Besides importing from Eventbrite and linking to any tickets it also allows users to take an existing event created through The Events Calendar, generate tickets and “push” or export a copy to eventbrite.com itself – all without leaving the familiar WordPress environment. It even facilitates automatic updates of eventbrite.com when and if the local WordPress event changes.

Were there additional capabilities you expected beyond these – what were they if so and what led you to believe our plugin offered them? I ask because if we’re failing to communicate what the product does to potential customers then that is a serious problem which we would definitely wish to rectify.

Last but not least I want to highlight that we always aim to be as clear and transparent about how the product works, what its capabilities are and even what its limitations are as we can be.

The product page and new user primer (both accessible prior to making a purchase) collectively go into considerable detail about what the product does and how it works – we even allow potential users to freely peruse our support forums. If you feel those resources misled you in any way please don’t hesitate to let me know.

All that to say, I’m sorry we failed to meet your expectations here and if you have further thoughts or feedback to share please do let us know.

[Michael]

You do make some valid points here. However, the GUI relies on customers to locate a UUID from a URL. For most customers, trying to explain that they need to create the event, then find an ID value located within a URL, then go back to WordPress and import the single event there is a bit convoluted.

An auto-import feature would greatly simplify this process. If that isn’t possible, then simple checkboxes would suffice over trying to have a client locate an ID value and import it in manually. How do they handle batch imports? One-by-one-by-one? I wouldn’t consider the import feature that’s there much of a GUI by any means.

Everything else is very well done, but this plugin looks like the developers got a bit lazy at the end (or ran out of time).

[Barry]

Hi Michael,

Listing the user’s upcoming eventbrite.com events and letting them pick which they want to import by selecting checkboxes sounds like a great way to handle this (and actually would bring it in line with the approach used in our Facebook Importer).

Based on a quick inspection of the new Eventbrite API, it certainly seems this could now be possible and I’m going to go ahead and log this for further consideration. I’d also like to take a moment to make you aware of our UserVoice channel which is a great way to submit feature requests at any time – it has the added benefit of allowing other users to show support for your idea and, similarly, you can in turn up-vote the ideas of others.

An auto-import feature would greatly simplify this process.

So let’s say the user merely copies and pastes the entire URL (as opposed to figuring out which portion of the URL was the EID) and – wherever possible – the plugin determines the EID from there … would that be sufficient in your eyes/are there any other thoughts you have on this one? I can certainly see this being a useful supplement to the checkbox approach discussed above.

If you have further thoughts on this one then, once again, I’d love to hear from you.

Everything else is very well done, but this plugin looks like the developers got a bit lazy at the end (or ran out of time).

All I can really say is that even after a fairly long period of service the issues we’ve discussed here – ie, what you see as the unfriendliness of the import process – have not really surfaced as a significant community issue. Had they done so then of course I’d like to think that we’d have acted on them appropriately.

As it is your points are well made and would certainly make for a better plugin so please rest assured we’ll be taking them on board for further consideration. Eventbrite also now sport a new and cleaner API which will potentially make it easier for us to drive changes forward.

Thanks again for your continued support and feedback, it is genuinely appreciated.

[Barry]

Hi! It’s been a while so I’m going to go ahead and close this thread. If we can help with anything else, though, please don’t hesitate to create new threads as needed. Thanks!

[Leah]

Hi there,

Thanks again for your post. We wanted to get in touch and let you know that although we weren’t able to address this issue in our upcoming 3.10 release, it is still very much a priority. We have a ticket in our system and will be investigating a solution to be released in a future version. Thank you for your patience and support while we work on this!

Cheers,
The Events Calendar Team

[Leah]

Hello,

Thank you again for bringing this issue to our attention. We’re happy to say that we have added a fix for this into our upcoming version 3.11 release. Keep an eye on your Updates page for the new version. If you have any trouble with the update (or are still seeing this problem after you update) please start a new thread and we’d be happy to help out.

Thank you for your patience while we got this release ready to go!

Best,
Leah
and the rest of The Events Calendar team

[Author]

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