online event registration

[sunbeam]

I am working with several fundraising events which leads me to seek a good registration solution.

What I would like is something that will allow visitors to register to attend an event, pay an entry fee, and enter their name and the names of any other guests they are paying for.

Ideally, the solution would integrate with PayPal, provide some sort of email autoresponder sent to the visitor, as well as notification to certain members of the event volunteer staff.

I searched extensions and the forums, but couldn't find anything that I understood to be a good solution.

If any of you have experience with something similar to the above, I would love it if you could share it with me.

Thank you in advance for any input.

[crandaddy]

Have you tried AKReservations (http://forge.joomla.org/sf/go/proj1056)?

[sunbeam]

Thank you for your post!

Yes, I did look into AKReservations (http://forge.joomla.org/sf/go/proj1056), at one point, but it doesn't seem as though there is much current support/development for this extension.

Of course, I could very well be mistaken.

I am presently playing with Virtuemart (http://virtuemart.net/), and it is going pretty well so far.

If there is any interest, I could post a link when I get the kinks worked out.

[DesignGuy]

I think you're on the right path with VirtueMart. Please post, yes. Thank you.

[rayscar]

I suggest you use http://www.active.com to allow your users to sign up for events.  They can pay via credit card or via Paypal.  I am a runner so I first learned of this site by signing up for races about 8yrs ago.  I have been using it ever since to allow members of a non-profit professional organization to renew their memberships each year and sign up for seminars.  It has a great backend to run reports and then mail you checks every 2 weeks.  The slight transaction charge can be set up to be paid for by the user (what I do) or the organization.

As for event registration where there is no payment....this is how I was told to do it but I haven't set it up just yet.  It requires all three extensions - Community Builder - Events Calendar, and "Attend Events".  His site is at http://hvcp.hvw.net . Reservations is a bit tricky to administer the first time. You first set up one or more events in the Event Calendar, you then make "Venues" and "Sessions" to correspond to the events in the calendar. THEN you can open the Attend Events Module, and the Sessions will show up. If the viewer is logged in (and I recommend the access to that module be "registered only") his name and email address, etc. will be prefilled when he opens the event registration form (from CB).

[sunbeam]

Thanks for the reply, I checked out the link you provided, but for my Joomla sites, I prefer to keep everything within the Joomla environment.

I am currently running Virtuemart with PayPal and it is working fine, and without additional costs (save PayPal's cut).

The only downside is that Virtuemart requires linking through a confirmation email for visitors to proceed with the transaction, which can be confusing.

But really, I need to communicate better to the visitor the way the registration process works.

So this is really a prob of lack of time to tweak this on my end, and not a flaw with Virtuemart.

Anyway, thanks for the input and I wish you continued success with your efforts.

[JJ2090]

If you haven't already found this...

In Joomla's "Global Configuration" you can turn off the process that sends a confirmation email to the new user.

It is on the "Site" tab and it is the "Use New Account Activation:" option.

Simply change this to "No" and users won't have to check their emails for an account activation email, they will be activated automatically.

Hope this helps.

JJ

(I'm also quite interested to see how your registration process turns out and would be interested in a link to the completed project if possible, thanks.)

[DesignGuy]

So, what'd you end up doing?

[lobo]

Not an option right now, but i suspect will be implemented for CiviCRM v1.7, CiviEvent. Please do comment / put in your use cases on the spec pages

http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/disp ... quirements

lobo

[nhankla]

Hello Sunbeam,
I am also looking for away to do online event registration. I am familiar with virtuemart and was wondering if you had a link to look at to see how it came out. Also were there any major headaches along the road using virtuemart for events?

Thanks
n

[stephsmarti]

I wonder if anyone has found a great solution for online event registration? I have installed jevents and attend events and although they work well in that the events requiring registration are showing up in the monthly calendar, there is no link to click on the event in the calendar in order to register. If that were only possible, I think this would be an awesome solution. If I post the link to the registration manually, then my client will not be able to handle the set up of new events requiring registration.

I think I am on the right track but I wonder if there is a solution to getting the event requiring registration to show up in the actual event on the calendar..??
Stephanie

[Pink Hera]

I just wanted to keep this thread a live too. 

Im looking for an online registration for our webinars.

[DesignGuy]

Nothin' on this?

[lobo]

CiviCRM v1.7 is expected to go code freeze by end of Feb. It includes the first version of CiviEvent which has simple event management with payment support etc

more information at:

http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/disp ... viCRM+v1.7
http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/page ... ageId=9339

lobo

[ian_h]

Failing that, EventHQ (http://www.eventhq.co.uk) is available now. This is a stand alone system similar to the Thyme calendar project with a Joomla component that can allow users to display a list of events, tickets and prices with things like early-registration discounts/availability being kept up to date. EventHQ is specifically designed to handle conferences, workshops and seminars and can handle both free and paid-for events.

The component is still in development but let me know if there is interest and I can look at pushing the release out faster.

Cheers, Ianh

[cdbragg]

Hi folks,

Like Sunbeam, I use VirtueMart with lots of tweaks to allow for event registrations on http://www.whitehorsebusinessgroup.com.au - but it's not really designed for event registrations, especially those where extra tickets are purchased for guests.

I tweaked lots of the language files so that it doesn't sound like somebody is purchasing a product to be shipped.  It took a while finding all of the bits and pieces that generated messages to users, but I got there.

Overall, this works as the client needed a low cost option, but it's not ideal.  There isn't really an easy way to generate lists of those who have booked, and I am relying on people to enter guest names in the comment section.

I'm looking at JoomLearn's RegistrationPro component, but also looking at EventWax. 

With RegistrationPro, I'd like to see a trial/demo version before I commit $120 - but it is looking promising.

EventWax has a really simple process, allows for guests, booking lists, and email confirmations/messages to attendees - but it is still early days.  The only payment method is PayPal at the moment, and there is nothing like multiple users being able to administer the event from the back end.

I'd love to hear any comments about RegistrationPro that users have.

Regards,

Cameron

[Conscious Blue]

Hey what a great thread everyone... Thanks for the good ideas...   

All of these are great solutions...

How about something that inputs or outputs RSS feeds?
I've generally found little RSS support, but it's a big trend now...
Especially in the music industry, keeping calendars sync'd is paramount.

I would love   :-* to see someone make a simple API extention module extending Joomla into Active.com. They have the most incredible reporting functions, but the Joomla login info needs to be passed through upon registering. Maybe a good Joomlancers project!

[DesignGuy]

Re-kindling this topic...so, what's the status on this?

[Tach55]

http://www.joomlashowroom.com has an extension called Events Registration Pro. I have been considering it but it is expensive and very new ( no reviews yet). You only get to use it on one site. I have several non-profits and for profits and I would love to find and opensource solution. Attend events looked interesting but the form building tools inside it were really basic in my opinion. I have Performs and Fabrik and may try to build something myself but I am inexperienced in the area of totaling up the items and then sending that total through to PayPal and then capture the info and the paid or not paid status.  Love to see this thread continue

T

[oMama]

We use Phil-a-Form to build forms to collect the data for our event registration (http://www.phil-taylor.com/).  I have done the payment as either a button which submits the form and sends you to paypal right away, or submits the form and then sends you to a payment options page in my website.  You can build email templates for each form to send alerts and confirmations out... it has been terrific for several years and many events.

The beauty of Phil-a-Form is that you build forms from scratch, and they have ALL of these fabulous admin tools to help you.  I don't write code... and it works great.

We tried Registration Pro, paid a lot for it and at this time cannot recommend it.  It was buggy at that time and we just couldn't make it work for our needs.  Support was responsive but not especially helpful.  I use VirtueMart for our store (works perfectly), but have not found it useful for events as we like to capture additional information from registrants.

My 2 cents

[DesignGuy]

Excellent Corrine. Thank you.  I'm going to give a shot at JoomlaShowroom's extension on our JoomlaChicago site, since the developer himself is a MEMBER!  Wahoo!  We also have another development company that focuses on the back-end PAYMENT-side.  So, I'm working on trying to marry those two up, and voila...we'll hit paydirt.

I'll keep ya posted. These gents are excellent to work with...

[Seajaee]

We tried Event Registratio Pro.  It works, but the look of it is not easily customized to look nice with our template.  We are not satisfied and want to go with CIVICcrm but are having trouble installing it.

[ViperFish]

I too am looking for an events management system to manage events, registrations and payments. In fact, we need a Volunteer Management System to also track hours spent at certain events.

From our research to date, CiviCRM seems to be the best option. It is a huge piece of software. The user manual is 875 pages (I'm not kidding - 875 pages!) and like most people here I've experienced trouble installing it and had to turn off some features so the site wouldn't crash and burn in error messages.

Our original plan was to take JCalPro, Virtuemart and Community Builder and get them working together as one super Event/Volunteer Management Component. Perhaps even use JACL+ so we can have different levels of members and access to different events based on your membership type.

The site is still in it's planning stage but from what we have seen so far. CiviCRM handles most of this without all the custom development. We just need to modify it to track Volunteers hours.

[glowweb]

Hi, just curious if anyone has found the ultimate Joomla Online event registration component. I am after a solution very similar to this https://secure.skypay.co.uk/scl/book_online.php which is for a soccer activity website. This form collects the childs information then allow to choose the venue then available dates and follows by accepting payment through paypal. The events could be for a single booking or for a whole week booking and counts down the place availabilty until fully booked.

I am starting to get to the desperate stage in finding a solution of for this one.

Any ideas, tips or suggestions to how you may have achieved this through Joomla would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks

Richard

[Tach55]

Has anyone tried DT Register? It looks like it was recently updated and it is less expensive than the one from joomlashowroom. Otherwise I guess you just make your own custom form using something like PerForms and link it to your Paypal for payment.

[quiggly]

We are using VirtueMart for our current event, but it doesn't do exactly what I want it to do.

Our Event is 3 Days with 5 Sessions per day with an event charge and an individual session charge. All based on the age of the participant.

So I have to get each entrant to add the Event to the shopping cart, then get them to add each session for each age group. Not sure if it is going to work for me, so I created a pdf fax or mail form for the ones who don't get it.

http://www.worldfaithconference.org/

VirtueMart is excellent for selling CD's & DVD's of the event

JOhn ><>

[glowweb]

Hi, Thanks for the replies. I have just had a real good look over DT Register and this really does seem to offer all the abilities and customisation in a round about way to meet our needs. The trick here I think if anyone can confirm is when we have multiple date bookings for example in the same week, is on the registration form a custom check field with a fee applied can be used so hopefully the parents can click through Monday to Friday which days their child will be attending in the week which should then be automatically updated in the total price of the booking.

Has anyone here had much experience with DT Register and something similar to this https://secure.skypay.co.uk/scl/book_online.php could be achieved with DT Register?

Thanks again.

Richard

[directtech]

Richard - DT Register can do just about anything with the use of the custom fields. The next release will include enhanced functions for gathering more info for multiple member registrations so it will work even better for your situation. The component is well support and continues to be updated with new features. Also, if you want to take direct credit card or echeck payments for your registrations, DT Register is the only component that will handle this for you as it supports Authorize.net.

[DesignGuy]

So, is that what you're going with? DT?

[directtech]

DT Register released a new version a couple days ago... lots of new enhancements. It continues to be developed and supported. Also supports Joomla 1.5 now. This is the way to go...