Will admin be able to add classmates to the event registration as before? Will attendee reports be forth coming?

Can we have more than one event active at a time? Especially important for multi-years. I would love to replace our current Reunion Calendar, although it's a good summary of all alumni events. Linking from there to a CC event page for each class's own program would be ideal. And can we use it without activating all the registration and payment features, just announcement & details? Each of our class reps runs their reunions differently.

Yes you can have more than one event active at a time.

If you're not allowing payments nor registration (which would also mean Products and Donations can't be used as they're part of the checkout process) couldn't you just make a new page with information? Please let me know why you would want to use the Event Planner at all if you're not using any of the features.

Continuity with all-years events where we would use some of those features? Consistency? Not duplicating the title "Events" on other pages? Just seemed logical for some reason. Already using custom pages, thought pre-set events format would be a nice change. MAPS? It looked cool? Handling multiple venues for one reunion in an organized, standard way? We have a dozen reunions being promoted at any one time and each year they rotate to the next classes. We're trying to unify them on our site. Current Reunion Calendar (Sorry, no sample "Details" links in this one yet.)

All right, I see. Currently I'd stick with custom pages. If you add an "Event" in the Event Planner it is assumed people will be registering. You can't use just the interactive map and the calendar and block the registration portion at this time.

Why wasn't that feature included What isn't broke, don't fix it!!! We could before...that's a feature I want added. We use that feature all the time when we announce our events. It's nice to have the reunion planner ready to accept registration before we are ready open up the registration process. What do other admins think about not having this feature??? Brad Switzer wrote:

Brad,..did you have some admins who had active reunions going test this New Event Planner system before launching??? I hope so..if you didn't maybe you should
I haven't had a chance to look at the new planner yet. Been sick with the flu. I have an active reunion registration going on with the old Reunion planner and would like to use new one before we can't transfer over the few we have registered already. Most of them are reunion committee members and site admins.
My 10 cents!

Just in case this isn't known: You can do Interactive Google maps WITHOUT the reunion planner. We never used the CC maps, just our own. Indeed we had three different interactive maps for three different locations. Easy to do.

P.S. All on custom pages linked from a common start. IOW, we did not use the CC type of links, but coded our own. That makes it a lot prettier

Mary Smith - SPHSAA President & Alumni Records wrote:

The new Event Planner will grow and evolve now that it is out.

You are asking for:

* Ability to create a reunion using the Event Planner and NOT start accepting registrations until you are ready (or in some cases not at all which was also asked). So in addition to turning on the reunion, you also want the ability to independently turn on and off registration capabilities.

I will submit this to Programming, thanks.

Brad, yes, that would make it work beautifully for us.

Jack, I've already been doing 90% of the web page design & coding, grateful for the CC website template features with their built-in functionality that they make so easy for us. I was looking forward to the Reunion Planner taking away some of that custom work I have to keep repeating.

I'm already planning & running all our board meetings, producing all printed publications, tracking, updating & processing dues for 2,100 current association memberships, handling/delegating all mail, recording donations, and maintaining a separate master database of 29,000 with mailing list of 16,000 alumni we have addresses for. There's an equal amount of work that others do to keep this non-profit running and we couldn't do as much without CC and their great web design & hosting, but they don't cover everything we need. They sure make it a lot easier, though, and have really helped pull our disparate alumni community together!

Sure, CC's database makes life a lot simpler. I tried to get our Alumni to use it, but for some reason they couldn't grasp it and instead went to a click and drag type of site with NO database. It's very pretty, but not very useful to track the alumni

I was just pointing out that the Map thing is easy to do yourself. The one thing missing on CC (in terms of design basics) is having a mechanism that links page to page WITHOUT having to create related menu nested menu links (hard to navigate).

Btw, have you ever considered changing the link "hover" color so it is different from your main color? Makes it easier to know where one is.

(P.S. You can probably do what you want without any changes though. We "sell" books as a "Reunion" and that has nothing to do with registering. It's all about how one defines "reunion". The MULTIPLE reunion thing is a great new option.)

I created a test event for our 50th Reunion and added two events. I followed along with the video and had no problems. I have not setup anything in Product Manager or Donation Manager. Here are a few observations:

Event Planner:

Is the only difference between a primary event and other events that a map can be displayed? I chose to display a map for the non-primary event and it displays. I see no other significance to marking one event as primary.

When adding new or editing existing events, the "Save & Close Event Detail" button wording seems odd if I do not change anything or decide not to add another event. In those cases, I would not “Save” but would “Cancel”.

Using a Published Event:

My event is set to "Restrict to Classmates only". I have created a link to the event from a custom page - not a link from the top or side menus. If someone does not log in but picks the link, a full page worth of error messages is displayed ("Variable MEMBER_ID is undefined"). I would expect a log in page instead.

I assume that the "Ticket/Event Name" list order corresponds to the order of the right column boxes containing the date and location. For clarity, the "Ticket/Event Name" should be added to the date/location boxes.

An error message should display if the "Continue Registration" button is picked and all "Quantity" fields are zero or the button is not pickable until a Quantity is selected for at least one event.

Step 2 of 4 has a "Remove Item" link. If it is selected, the display should return to Step 1 page after a warning ("Do you really want to do that?") and confirmation that the item is removed. Currently it removes the item and remains in Step 2.
If the removed item is re-selected in Step 1 and registration completed, the Order Details view (items field) stated "Removed".

I do not see a “Step 3 of 4” for a FREE event. I suspect that is the payment page. Will a member wonder what happened to Step 3 if registering for a free event only?

If members have registered for an event and then it is made inactive or deleted, what happens to the orders for this event? Is it then up to the admin or event coordinator to notify members the event is no longer planned?

General navigation between pages (back and forth) on published events could be improved.

To be continued . . .

Tom, for our reunions "primary" indicates the main event that everybody should try to attend, the others being extra and optional. Having a way to indicate that helps people who can't get to all the them decide which is the most important, where most of their classmates will be going.

Tom, that was extremely helpful. Thanks so much! I'll sit down with Programming and go over all items.

Regarding your last point, navigation between registration pages, are you just suggesting something like "Back to Step 3" links?

Thanks again for this. This is a great example of improvements that come from a fresh set of eyes. Very good stuff.

Mary: I understand that a primary event would indicate the main event everyone should attend. What I meant is that, unless I overlooked it, I did not see anything on the published event page that made the primary event stand out over the other events.

Brad: Yes, to the navigating.

I saw a post (which I cannot again find) on one of the three thread about the new EP (perhaps there should be just one thread to capture all feedback), with someone’s though about the “Ticket / Event Registration for Events” and right hand column. My thoughts on these:

The “Ticket / Event Registration for Events” container could be full width with the addition of the date next to the “Ticket/Event Name”. Scroll down to another full width box that is divided into two sections – the “Join Us On” container (left or right side) and “Event Detail” container for that event only. Add “Event Name” and “Time” field to the “Join Us On”. Scroll down to another full width contained with the next events content, etc.
I think that this ties things together better. Currently, the event detail is separated from the other information about the event. The "Ticket / Event Registration for Events” container shows all events. The following containers then provide more information and detail grouped together.

To be continued . . .

The only issue with this is there is no event information per event that we could include in the horizontal boxes you're suggesting.

We could potentially add two more event information slots tied to each event, but would we then remove the current event information area entirely? Or leave it?

Let's assume a 2-event reunion:

If we leave the current event information we now have 3 event information areas (master, and two per event). If we pull it I'm certain many won't like that. There needs to be a main area for event information and/or opening page content.

The main idea here, which I'm in favor of keeping, is in one informational area list all information for any or all events included in your reunion. When a classmate goes to register all events are listed separately with corresponding options.

I'd like to suggest something very simple Tom, and you tell me if you think it needs to be more complex than this:

When classmates click the main event link, only show the event information. No initial registration options at all. Make the calendar and interactive maps something people can toggle on or off. If you turn off everything, then ONLY the event information would appear on the page with a "Register Now" button automatically added both above and below the event content.

When classmates click register they then go to the ordering screens where they begin by selecting the tickets for events, quantities, etc.

Wouldn't that keep the current goals, make it simpler, and allow those who want any info appended at the right (calendar date, maps) to have it, and allow those who don't to simply turn those off and have full control of the formatting of the entire initial event info page?

This would be a very simple change. Let me know if you think it needs to be any more fancy than this. I like simple.

Brad:
When I suggested the different format for the way the reunion events display when published, I did not think about other ramifications.

Yes, what I suggested would remove the current event information area and replaced it with an event information area for each individual event. However, that would then mean changes to the “About the Event” portion of the Event Planner also. Probably more work than necessary.

I can live with the “Event Detail” area as is; I just need to format the information there to keep it clear.

I thought about an opening page content area at the top of the entire published page display but I accomplished that with a custom page and a link on it to the registration page. Your suggestion, if I understand it correctly, may eliminate the need for my custom page. When you say “click the main event link”, you do mean the link created by “ep_event.cfm?EventID=”?

I like the idea. It should be simple and present the data with clarity. If the calendar/maps container is toggle on, would it look the same as it does now or would the registration container only appear on the “Register Now" page. Does the page displayed after clicking the main event link contain only event information (toggle off) or event information and calendar/map (toggle on)?

I still would like to see an “Event Time” field add and “Event Name” displayed on calendar.

Yes I'm talking about clicking the reunion link generated by the Event Planner. It would simply lead off with your own content. Upon pressing the "Register Now" button user is then taken to registration. Very simple.

There are a few things people should be able to turn on, like calendar, interactive maps, and even price. Or, they could turn on none of those things and include this information in their own writeup.

Things like the interactive map, while possible to do this yourself, clearly are more easily accomplished through the system. So a toggle for those who want it (and those who don't) keeps this simple. These items would appear on your main event content page if toggled on.

Yes, can add Event Time and Event Name in calendar area.