[Jack]

That first feature request is by me ;).

[Jack]

Hi Cliff,

We just had our second event this weekend. 345 qr-codes were checked, only 230 of them registered as scanned in WP, while using a fast 4G network, VPS, etc. That is very bad 🙁 and using this function in Tickets PLus appears to be useless and I would almost suggest to remove it from the feature list of the plugin. With so many errors it should not be used when scanning is really important and scan errors will cost money for the company organising an event. And because of these errors it has also cost some money and reputation of my client, and therefor also me as a website builder, being responsible for the backend.

I really hope your team will look at this and consider it a priority in fixing.

Thanks, and ofcourse a very happy new year to you and your family :).

Jack

[Jack]

Sounds good Cliff, and thanks considering these options. Your compromise sounds good. Perhaps you should also consider creating an app for Tickets Plus ;). I think Quikmark is currently not able to AND bulk scan AND opening the browser, but I will search again to see what is available. What would be the perfect solution is to download and import the attendee list into an app that is capable of using that list to make the checks, and later export it again to the site. Then no errors are possible other then a sleepy person with a smartphone in his hand.

[Jack]

I did a test at home and scanning went OK, by scanning the QR-code, then waiting just a moment so that the link is starting to open in the browser, but then clicking on the back/return button to get back to the app and scan the next code. This went well during my test with about 20 QR-codes. But waiting for the page in the browser to fully load and see the message of checked in (or already checked in) is not practical in real time, because this takes much too long, especially when a few hundred people are standing in front of you ;).

So my test worked with my smartphone, but 4 people were scanning on location and although they waited long enough, some scans did not make the connection with the website. Perhaps because of a failing connection, perhaps by clicking the back button too fast (although someone was there to keep an eye on that).

[Jack]

http://www.quickmark.com.tw/En/basic/downloadMain.asp

The 11 Best QR Code Reader Apps for Android, iPhone, Windows Phone & BlackBerry

Now, on to QuickMark’s specialty: bulk scanning. Say you want to scan multiple QR codes in order to save their URLs. Most QR code readers open up a dialog box after scanning which asks if you want to open the link or save/share it. With QuickMark, you can bypass this action. Scan your QR codes and have their content stored for later. The continuous scan feature is not for free though; it costs $1.99.

It says here that it costs $1.99 for bulk scanning, but my very recently downloaded version does it for free.
Currently is gives me this kind of history after bulk scanning:
“qr”,”http://www.zelfshopkerstpakket.nl?event_qr_code=1&ticket_id=3655&event_id=3462″,”2016-12-13 11:32:45″,””,””,””;
“qr”,”http://www.zelfshopkerstpakket.nl?event_qr_code=1&ticket_id=3654&event_id=3462″,”2016-12-13 11:32:43″,””,””,””;
“qr”,”http://www.zelfshopkerstpakket.nl?event_qr_code=1&ticket_id=3653&event_id=3462″,”2016-12-13 11:32:41″,””,””,””;
“qr”,”http://www.zelfshopkerstpakket.nl?event_qr_code=1&ticket_id=3652&event_id=3462″,”2016-12-13 11:32:40″,””,””,””;
“qr”,”http://www.zelfshopkerstpakket.nl?event_qr_code=1&ticket_id=3651&event_id=3462″,”2016-12-13 11:32:38″,””,””,””;

This is not completely secure either though, because when bulk scanning you can only check afterwards if someone has entered twice, but at least there won’t be mistakes during scanning using an internet connection.

[Jack]

Thanks Cliff. I just added this request: https://tribe.uservoice.com/forums/195723-feature-ideas/suggestions/17484907-bulk-scanning-qr-codes-log-scans-at-a-later-time

This is really important. Ohterwise we can’t use the plugin the next time :(.

[Jack]

Yes, I got the same here.

[Jack]

Hi András,

It’s OK for now, because the time for registration has passed and with some extra information for the visitors, the current patch worked. Thanks for the help. Whenever we have our next event with the same settings I will come back to this topic.

Just to complete this thread:

You have attendee meta fields for the thickets YES
The attendee meta fields are the same for each YES
It would be great to have only one set (I’m not sure this is possible) YES
All meta fields are open on start YES OR NO (ALL TICKETS COULD HAVE THE SAME META FIELDS, AS LONG AS THEY ONLY BECOME VISIBLE AFTER CHECKING ONE TIME PERIOD, SO THE OTHER TIME PERIODS STAY CLOSED)
Meta fields disappear after choosing a ticket (SEE PREVIOUS)
There’s no way of opening the meta fields without page reload (i’M NOT SURE WHAT YOU MEAN BY THIS)

Thanks András!

[Jack]

I did a quick check on the live site early this morning, hoping people were not awake yet and registering ;).

http://pix.toile-libre.org/upload/original/1481373456.png

All available tickets were folded open with the radiobuttons visible (see colored rectangle in the screenshot above). After clicking one of the radiobuttons in front of the ticket/time period, the ticket collapsed, hiding the 2 radiobuttons which tell us for which department they work. On one hand this is good, because it hides the extra name and email field, which was necessary before to be able to send the form, but now isn’t, and that’s good, because people now only have to fill in their name and email just once.

So that works. 🙂 It’s just that those radiobuttons that belong to each ticket are now not visible/usable after a visitor makes his choice. They would be usable if they were ‘outside’ the ticket field. What I mean by that is that currently this is the view in WP: http://pix.toile-libre.org/upload/original/1481373952.png
Each of those tickets has the same radio buttons. It would be better if those radiobuttons (for the department, see first screenshot with the colored rectangle) were underneath all the tickets, just above the name and email fields and the submit button, but I realize that would be too difficult to do now (but would be a great feature for an upcoming version 😉 ).

So, if the tickets are ‘closed’ during the loading of the page, and open when picking one radiobutton/time period, that would be perfect for now. And because the extra name and email field are not required anymore, I can hide them with CSS.

I hope I’m not confusing you and described it correctly.

Have a nice weekend!

Jack

[Jack]

I understand. I will install a test site and check it out that way. Thanks so far 🙂

[Jack]

Hi András and thank you for doing this.

One more question before I’m going to test this, because the actual tickets are online and people are registering, will extra fields not be visible when I add the new file?

Now I have this: http://pix.toile-libre.org/upload/original/1481186241.png

Will those fields still be visible? Otherwise moving those options to the bottom of the form in case of one ticket limitation would be an option, but I guess that would be too difficult to do right now?

[Jack]

Thanks András. Looking forward to trying it out on the site, and thanks for this extra work.

[Jack]

Hi András. I understand. Well, it works with the solution from Nico, although not error free. Some people just don’t understand the way it works 😉 so we have to explain it to them by email. Using a radio buttons would make it much simpler en without possible mistakes by users.

On the other hand, a plugin that gives you an option to ‘sell’ or give away free tickets most of the time means people can only order 1 ticket. This limitation is quite logical, because you don’t want someone to be able to order 200 tickets at once. When tickets cost 10 dollars, someone is not going to order 200 tickets because they have to be paid for, but with free tickets this limitation should be possible.

So, if you can’t do anything about it now, that’s ok. But we will be doing these kind of events a lot more in the future, so a solution for this would be great.

Thanks for your help so far 🙂

Jack

[Jack]

Hi András,

This looks very promising, thanks. Radio button works. The only thing is that now the name and email fields were to send the tickets have disappeared.

[Jack]

Hi Nico,

I’m glad I can now say that this works! 🙂 Thank you very much for fixing this for me.
We did receive the request by the university, for which we are doing this, that visitors would only have to click on one time period and that would be their choice, thus their ticket (one ticket), so that would indeed mean a radio button kind of choice, but this works fine too :).

Perhaps this situation, your solution and/or a radio button solution can be used to enhance the plugin in the future.

Have a nice evening! (at least, it is evening here where I live).

Jack

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