Posted by Seth Shoultes on Tuesday, September 6th, 2016
Hey Event Espresso users in Utah! WordCamp Salt Lake City is happening this weekend.
If you want to learn more about WordPress, meet new people, and have a great time while doing so, then WordCamp Salt Lake City is the place to be. You might even get to meet some of the biggest names in the WordPress community, such as Chris Reynolds, Carrie Dils, and Garth Mortensen.
This year’s schedule looks jam-packed with great speakers, and lot’s of great sessions!
Follow all the happenings of WordCamp Salt Lake City on Twitter via the #wcslc hash tag. We’ll see you there…and follow us on Twitter to watch for discounts to WordCamp SLC attendees.
Find Me (Seth) at WordCamp
Since we’re sponsoring WordCamp Salt Lake City this year, I’ll be there all day networking and handing out swag. If you’re going to be there, come say HI 🙂
What is WordCamp?
WordCamp is a conference that focuses on everything WordPress. WordCamp’s are informal, community-organized events that are put together by WordPress users like you. Everyone from casual users to core developers participate, share ideas, and get to know each other.
Posted by Seth Shoultes on Monday, August 29th, 2016
We’re excited to share with you new details on a powerful new add-on that has emerged as one of this year’s coolest features – Event App Customization – Only $69.95, for a limited time!
This is great news for event managers wanting to show their own logo in the Event Espresso event app. With our new Event App Customization add-on, you can now customize the Event Espresso 4 event app for Android and Apple using your own logo image.
Did you say customize the event app?
Yes! Customizing the EE4 event app is easy and allows you to upload and display your own logo in the app screens. This is a great add-on for companies that want their employees to have a custom branded event app. However, it should be noted that the login screen will not be updated until after logging in the first time.
Bonus! We even made it easy to change the powered by text in the login screen footer. Enjoy these example screenshots from a re-branded event app 🙂
Posted by Seth Shoultes on Thursday, August 25th, 2016
The EE4 QuickBooks Payment Gateway is an on-site payment method for Event Espresso for accepting credit and debit cards and is available to event organizers in the United States.
Features
Accept Major Credit Cards / Debit Cards – Visa®, MasterCard®, American Express®, Discover®, Diner’s, JCB
Customers never leave your site during checkout
Track and manage your registration
transactions in QuickBooks
Using the Intuit QuickBooks Payment Gateway add-on keeps the customer on your site for the entire process, providing a slick checkout process for the user.
Easy and secure credit card processing for event ticketing
The Intuit QuickBooks Payment Gateway add-on provides an advanced payment integration for Event Espresso while providing the security and reliability that comes with using Intuit for payment processing.
If you need help with QuickBooks, then feel free to reach out in our support forums so we can share feedback and help you move forward with your project. EE4 Everything License holders have had their accounts updated to include this gateway.
Posted by Seth Shoultes on Tuesday, August 23rd, 2016
Flexible Payment Methods is an off-line payment option for Event Espresso for accepting payments. You can provide your registrants/attendee with specific information on how to pay for their registrations (e.g. call a phone number to pay, pay at the event, etc).
With this payment method, you can provide instructions to your registrants/attendees on how to pay for their registrations. Here are some examples:
Thanks for starting registration. Call us at 800-555-1234 to complete your payment. We accept all major credit cards.
You can pay the day of the event. Be sure to arrive early. We accept VISA, MasterCard, Discover, American Express.
Please send us a payment through Square Cash to the following email address: hello@example.com
Be sure to check out the Payment Methods Pro add-on if you would like to offer certain payment options for some events. For example, you could offer one payment option for one event and a different payment option for all other events. BE sure to check it out!
If you need help with the Flexible payment method, then feel free to reach out in our support forums so we can share feedback and help you move forward with your project. EE4 Everything License holders have had their accounts updated to include this gateway.
Posted by Seth Shoultes on Tuesday, August 9th, 2016
If you’ve ever had a registrant sign up for the wrong event, then you know how important it can be to be able to move them to a different event; moving registrations between events can be a very time consuming process. With the Attendee Mover add-on for EE4, you can now move attendees to different events with ease.
The Attendee Mover add-on is compatible with Event Espresso 4.9.7+ and available to download from the pre-release channel while in beta testing.
Shave at least 5 minutes off the attendee reassignment process!
With the Attendee Mover add-on, it only takes four simple steps to move an attendee to a new event, from the Registrations Overview page, click the “repeat” icon in the attendee row.
Attendee Mover Icon in Registration Overview
Next, you can choose the event that you would like to move the selected attendee to.
Moving an Attendee – Registration Step 1
Then select a ticket and click the “Next Step” button…
Moving an Attendee – Registration Step 2
…and voila! The attendee is reassigned to the correct event.
Moving an Attendee – Registration Step 3
Attendee Mover Beta Testing
Want to beta test this new add-on for us? Please follow the short guide below to get started.
Download
The add-on is available for beta testing from the pre-release channel (PRC) within your Event Espresso account page. Once you’ve signed up for the PRC, your download will be available in the EE4 tab of the PRC.
Install
The add-on installs like any other WordPress plugin, just upload and activate it via the WordPress plugin admin screen.
Please report issues in the Attendee Mover support forums.
We look forward to your feedback from testing the Attendee Mover add-on beta. Please feel free to start a new topic in the Pre-release channel forum if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions.
We’re happy to announce that we’ve recently released some updates to our Android and Apple event app. The latest round of event app updates include many new features, security fixes, and optimizations.
Latest Event App Updates
New features
Added a new UI to show registrations in group when scanning
Added a new UI for sorting registrations by name and registration date
Added a new UI for event sorting by name and date of event
Added a filter for paid/unpaid and approved/unapproved registrations
Added the name of datetime to the individual event screen
Added tabs tabs for today’s, upcoming, past, and all events
Added three new scanning modes (lookup attendee, continuous scanning, continuous check-in only)
Added a refresh button to the event details screen
Added currency formatting that is set on Event Espresso powered website
Added ability to auto-discover API URL (if you’ve changed your default API URL, the app should auto-discover the available API URL)
Added a link a link to our documentation page on the login page of the app
Added an alert if the payment has not been made when scanning
Fixes/Updates
Fixed issues with logging in to app if no events were published
Show a “no records found” message when there are no results in search, or otherwise
Exclude incomplete and trashed registrations
Don’t show events if unable to authenticate
Disallow check-in for other datetimes
Coming Soon
Use timezone offset from WP > Settings Timezone (we’re still working on updates to the REST API to support this feature)
Depending on your device settings, updates may, or may not be downloaded and installed automatically onto your device. If the app is not updated automatically, please visit the Android and Apple store on your device to initiate the update manually.
iPay88 is a leading payment provider in Malaysia. iPay88 offers many payment options to their clients including credit/debit cards, direct debit for countries like Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, China, and alternative payment options like AliPay, Paysbuy and more.
iPay88 also is able to process payments in multiple currencies depending on your account, some of those include Malaysian Ringgit(MYR), US Dollar (USD), Yuan Renminbi (CNY), Euro (EUR), Pound Sterling (GBP) and more.
The MasterCard internet Gateway Service (MiGS) payment method provides fast and secure electronic credit and debit card processing for your ticket sales and event registrations.
MiGS is a popular payment gateway throughout many parts of the world. It is usually bundled in by banks when they sell you a merchant account.
eCheck.Net (eCheck Payment Gateway) is Authorize.Net’s exclusive electronic check processing solution. eCheck.Net enables event managers already processing credit card transactions through the Authorize.Net Payment Gateway to offer their customers an additional payment option.
The Authorize.Net eCheck Payment Gateway allows online event managers to accept and process electronic check payments from consumer and corporate bank accounts – directly from your event website. eCheck.Net makes it easy for online businesses to add an electronic check payment option to their Web site.
Back in April, we invited our community to participate in a WordPress website hosting survey. This WordPress hosting survey is intended as a public service to the Event Espresso and WordPress communities. Our only interest is to provide these communities more information so they can choose the best WordPress hosting given their needs.
We are pleased to share the (not-statistically-valid) results of our 2016 hosting survey. Of the 115 total results, we only included results for hosts with four or more complete responses, but you are free to look at the full results yourself.
Note: This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the hosting links and signup for their hosting services, we may receive monetary compensation.
We’d like to take the liberty to share a a few points of interest about these hosts:
Again this year, SiteGround and WP Engine are leading the pack for best WordPress hosting all around. While GoDaddy seems to have improved significantly since 2015.
Collectively, Uptime (4.64/5) and Features (4.49/5) received the highest average scores, while Support (4.24/5) and Overall Value (4.32/5) received the lowest average scores.
On average, respondents are spending about $55/mo on hosting. That seems to be up $5 from last year’s survey results.
Our Perspective
Over the past 7 year’s, we’ve struggled with our own hosting issues. We’ve also seen our customers struggle with low cost/cheap hosting the most; while customers that have spent a little more on WordPress hosting from the start have had much better success with ticket sales and up-time.
With the right hosting environment your ticket sales can really soar. For example, our hosted ticketing service, Event Smart, is able to process over 1,000 registrations per hour on Amazon Web Services hosting. Of course there’s no way we could do that with a shared hosting provider, or even some dedicated servers.
Notable Respondent Comments
Unedited responses from our 2016 WordPress Hosting Survey:
When it comes to hosting YOU really do get what you pay for. We use and highly recommend WP Engine. Why, because they listen to their customers.They are NOT the cheapest hosting provider and that’s OK cause were not interested in cheap We are interested in keeping our website up and an ensuring that the Security Side always taken care of by professionals. The range of tools they offer for User and Developers alike is cutting edge. No CPanel..what they have built is more intuitive and easier to understand and use. Above all their Customer support is experienced with WordPress and have the technical background to support their clients. IN the end run this means more money in my pocket as I don’t have to chase down security issues and if I have a question, I get someone with the knowledge to answer it.
I actually use all three of your top contenders: InMotion VPS, SiteGround, and WPEngine. InMotion was great several years ago, but service and overall value have dropped since they grew so fast. Their higher priced VPS accounts you would think would come with more support, but just the opposite is true. SiteGround is very attentive. They answer the phone and chat straight away, but we have experienced more than one serious screw-up due to the language differences and their haste to get tickets completed. WPE has its own set of issues, of course. No cpanel there. You have to play by their rules, but when you do everything just flows smoothly. It is also comforting to know whoever you contact there probably knows more about WordPress than you!
I have tried a some of the hosts in the list and they are AWFUL: Arvixe, HostGator, Small Orange. Arvixe and Small Orange used to be good when they were small, but once they got to be a certain size, the customer support, speed, and reliability all went downhill. I have found this to be the case with nearly ALL webhosts, and have found that the only thing that can really be done when you are in the $50-100/month hosting range is to move around every few years to a host that is big enough to be fast, and small enough to still provide great technical support.
