Posted: February 9, 2014 at 11:36 pm
Event Espresso 4 Beta is now available! Please see the Official Event Espresso 4 Announcement and, please, spread the word. How is EE4 different than EE3?EE4 is very different from EE3 in more ways than we can probably list/describe/remember—so you’re going to want to check it out. In general there are several important changes to the EE4: features, user interface, data structure, coding method and price. FeaturesEE3 and EE4 have different feature sets; some features are available in EE4 that have never been available in EE3:
…and 30+ more! User InterfaceThe user interface has been rebuilt to follow the new WordPress 3.8+ standard. We’ve rebuilt all the pages, added new icons, added mobile browser compatibility, optimized notifications and much more. We believe that EE4 is more elegant, easier to use and more powerful all at the same time. Data StructureThe data structure has changed so that some event data is now custom post types (CPTs). CPTs make event-related data more available to standard WordPress functions and themes. This will make Event Espresso more accessible for both back-end (core) developers and front-end (theme) designers. Coding MethodThe coding method has changed from procedural coding to more heavily object-oriented programming. That means there are more files, but less code to do more advanced things. Experienced developers should appreciate all the work that went into this change. We believe it makes our event registration more powerful and robust, helping make your event registration experience better. We really think you’ll like what you see—especially as you get used to EE4 and realize all the new types of events it can power. We will continue making improvements in all of these areas and look forward for what is to come. Screen ShotsPriceWhile “in Beta”, Event Espresso 4 will be discounted significantly (approx. 50%). As the EE4 matures to a “stable” development status, the price will rise. Those who purchase at this discounted rate are still entitled to 12 months of support and upgrades. Can I Use EE4 instead of EE3?Depending on your situation you might (or might not) want to replace EE3 with EE4. In general, our recommendation hinges on: what features you require, and whether you want to use your EE3 data in EE4. Some features are not available in EE4 that are available in EE3:
None of the EE3 add-ons are compatible with EE4 at this time (but they are on our short-list). You will need to make the determination about which features your project requires and which Event Espresso version will meet your needs. We will be releasing an updated Features page which will allow you to sort and compare the features by version. Look for that early next week.
We have created a form, for our users, to tell us what features are most important to their business. We encourage everyone to please fill out this form, so we can get an idea of where we need to focus our resources in the coming weeks and months. Using EE3 Data in EE4Event Espresso 4 is ready to accept unaltered data that has been prepared by Event Espresso 3.1.36 (or greater). If you’ve not modified your EE3 database structure then you can migrate your data from EE3 to EE4. If you have modified your database structure, the migration scripts may not function properly (see below). As a good practice, please backup your website database before migrating.
When to migrate EE3 data to EE4:If you are using Event Espresso version 3.1.36 (or greater) without customization that changes the data structure (e.g. additional database tables, columns, etc.) you can migrate your database from EE3 to EE4. As a good practice, please backup your website database before migrating.
When NOT to migrate EE3 data to EE4:We recommend NOT migrating your EE3 data to EE4 if you: have customized Event Espresso database tables or columns that weren’t included with EE3 OR are using EE3 on a multi-site installation of WordPress. What is the development status of Event Espresso 4?After years of development and months of testing, we have finished adding features (to this version) and all major bugs have been resolved. We do expect you to be able to use EE4 as if it were a stable product, with the exception that additional bugs may be identified through more extensive testing with your specific use-case. Please report any suspected bugs to the support forums. For a short period, we will be focused on fixing bugs that are found by users and that can be verified by our support staff, then release patches ASAP. After EE4 is released as a “non-Beta” product we will commence work on our development road map. What’s the plan for Event Espresso 3?EE4 beta begins the official process of phasing out EE3. Going forward, we will focus new feature development resources on EE4 and only maintenance resources to EE3. As the EE4 feature set (including add-ons) exceeds those that are currently available with EE3 we will not longer sell or support EE3. Those who purchase a EE3 support license also have access to the core EE4 files and we recommend that they upgrade as soon as possible. We have provided tools to use EE3 data in EE4 which can help you start using EE4 sooner. The future of event registration and ticketing is with Event Espresso 4 and we hope you’ll join us today for that amazing journey. You can even launch your own demo site for EE4 in just a few minutes. Click here to get started with your EE4 test drive site!
Reporting BugsWe have spent, literally, thousands of hours developing, testing and debugging EE4, but undoubtedly some of you may encounter issues with EE4 while testing it in your given use-case, the plugins and themes you use, etc. Please report any unexpected behavior, error messages, or bugs to the pre-release forum so we can keep all the requests organized and fixed as soon as possible. Please create a new thread for each issue so that it can be addressed specifically. Otherwise it might confused with other issues or missed among a lengthy discussion. As a good practice, please backup your website database before using EE4 on the same website where you are using EE3 and before migrating.
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Whats the deal with discount coupons not being supported? |
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Hi Tristan, Promotional and Discount codes will be available for Event Espresso 4 as soon as that feature is complete. Same goes for support for add-ons. |
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@Tristan What type of discounting do you need? Because with EE4 you can configure discounted tickets based on dates and times by creating tickets with lower prices that expire at a certain date and then higher-priced tickets that start selling when the lower priced tickets end. You can also do tiered volume discounting by setting the Min/Max Quantity. The min/max quantity determines how many they HAVE to buy at that price or the MOST they can buy at that price. You can set up several tiers. Does that make sense? |
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They sound like good features; occasionally we run a promotion and give away a discount code which can be entered at checkout. Also, one of our hacks for ee3 was to enable a $5 surcharge if the tickets purchased are less than a certain quantity – would this be supported out of the box in ee4? |
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@Tristan Re the $5 surcharge, yes that’s doable. I’d configure a ticket that has a maximum quantity at your surcharge quantity limit and apply a $5 surcharge to that ticket. Configure additional tickets with the minimum quantity above your surcharge quantity and do not add the $5 surcharge. Does that make sense? Take a look at the Ticket Options section: https://eventespresso.com/features/multiple-ticket-pricing-options/ |
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Yes, you could use the graduated pricing that Garth mentioned. You would have to create 2 tickets. One would have the $5 surcharge plus a min quantity of 1 and a max quantity of whatever your limit is. Then your second ticket would NOT have the surcharge but it’s min quantity would START at the limit you used for the other ticket’s max quantity but NO max quantity (for unlimited) |
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Looks like a good step forward. I will upgrade once the MailChimp integration addon works with EE4. |
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You mention not to upgrade if you are using a it on a MS? Why is that? Thanks |
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Hi Matt, We emphasized that in our announcement because although we have built EE4 to be multi-site compatible, we haven’t been able to complete all our internal testing for Multi-Site installations and migrations from EE3 multi-site installations. So we are recommending NOT upgrading from EE3 being used on WordPress Multisite. With that said, for users with a development/staging environment you are free to test a migration on your multi-site install and let us know how it goes. We’d definitely appreciate the feedback but be aware we’re not supporting multi-site upgrades at this point. |
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Looks exciting! I want to test it out on the new site I’m working on. Do I need to uninstall all the Version 3 plugins before I nstall the New Version 4? I’m ok not having all the extra add-ons for now. I made a back up of my new site so I don’t lose all my work in case something blows up. |
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Hi mblair, That’s a good question. You can deactivate the version 3 plugins before you install Event Espresso 4 and that will work too. If after a bit of testing you decide to go with Event Espresso 4 then you can uninstall the EE3 plugins/add-ons. |
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I saw the payment possibilities. No iDeal for Holland. Will this come soon, as it was a part of EE3? Otherwise EE4 is useless for all your customers from Holland. iDeal is the farmost payment method in our country. Will there be extra costs for something that was free till now? I am working on a new project with EE3 and are afraid that I will never be able to make the step to EE4 because of this issue. |
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@Wim very sorry to hear that. Refactoring gateways is on our list of short(er)-term projects. |
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@Seth I hope you won’t forget us, because we really are a great fan of EE!! |
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We won’t forget. We are aware that iDeal is a popular gateway, it’s just going to take us some time to refactor all of the gateways. |
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EE4 looks good on paper. I have been learning EE3 for my own business and I have client I will introduce to EE. But 2 questions. EE4 looks like it will handle UK tax properly and show it as a separate line item. So I am stuck on EE3 that doesn’t work for me because EE4 will not work for me. Once I understand I can work around either answer :). I just need to understand the timeframe for having EE4 work with Infusionsoft add-on please. |
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moneris? WHen will that be added. |
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@David – Correct the Infusionsoft add on will not be functional with EE4. There are currently no functional plugins for EE4.
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ok I understand you don’t want to give out an exact date but is this going to happen in the next 3 months or can I add something on myself. I am building a new website and would prefer to use the new system |
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I am wondering, for Mailchimp and other payment gateways, while I know you might not have a specific timeline, do you think this will be weeks, 3 months or closer to 6+ months? I ask because, I bought EE3 just the day before you launched EE4 partly due to Mailchimp and Quickbooks/Inuit Payment integration (which we already use), but the features in EE4 are so much more fitting for our business. But those two components are key to us. I am wondering if we should just get by without those features if it won’t be too long until they are added to EE4, or if we shold install EE3 as planned. We can get by a few weeks to 3 months, but it’s not worth it if much longer. Thanks, I appreciate it and love the new features of EE4! |
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Hi Jennifer, If you need MailChimp and Quickbooks/Intuit, then I recommend starting with EE3 and upgrading to EE4 when the features you need are EE4 ready. |
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The new version looks very nice. Tax-function en invoice looks promising, but the iDeal gateway is essential for upgrading to EE4, like @wim also mentioned. |
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Hi everyone, We have opened up a form, for our users, to tell us what features are most important to their business. We encourage everyone to please fill out this form, so we can get an idea of where we need to focus our resources in the coming weeks and months. Thank you! |
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Are deposits a part of the pricing plans… |
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Hi Cori, Our policy, like that of many companies, is not to comment on future plans or work in progress. |
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Why venue location is restricted to US&Canada? How to add more country and town? |
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@Marcin Log into the admin and go to Event Espresso > General Settings, click on the Countries Tab, then select whichever country you want from the first dropdown on the page. This will populate the rest of the page with that country’s settings and options. Under Country Details on the left, Select Yes (1) for the “Country Appears in Dropdown Select Lists” option, then make sure to click “Save Country Details”. |
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Excited to see the infusionsoft add-on work. |
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Re: Discount Coupons… will you re-introduce them in EE4? The multiple tickets system is a great feature, but it doesn’t quite fit our needs: |
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Hi D, We’re planning on adding discount code features to Event Espresso 4. |
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Thanks! Will you also add Groupon codes again? |
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Hi, Unfortunately we simply can’t give timescales. We’ve tried that in the past and for one reason or another we miss those estimates and it makes people sad. So now we don’t advise timescales. Regarding the Groupon feature, no formal decision has been made. We will of course, announce features once they are ready for release. |
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Thanks for your fast and responsive replies! |
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Hi, Is it possible to use those two ticket types for all reoccuring events, but have a total limit of 10 people per event date? In the online demo, when purchasing a ticket, people can’t specify which event date/instance they want to buy it for. |
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Hi, No decisions have been made regarding add ons for EE4 at this moment in time. If we do add in a bulk offer like we have now I am sure we will take early adopters into consideration. Regarding the recurring events, EE3 has the Recurring Event Manager that will make creating events easier. Rather than using a ticket for early bird, we do have that as a built in option (core plugin not an addon), so you can create one ticket and give it a % or flat fee discount up until x date. |
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Will there be a feature where an event can be assigned to a user (promoter) so that they can track sales (preferably in the front end). |
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Hi there, Possibly. I’ve registered your suggestion and we will keep it in mind for future features and updates! |
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Thank you. Also, hopefully by assigning an event to a user they will be able to see only this event (and not all the events) when checking attendees in at the door. |
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Not a bad idea. |
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The big question moving forward concerns the calendar view and images on it. We depend upon this function HEAVILY. The question then becomes how soon the calendar addon might be available and whether pics will be included on it. |
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If a recent update affected the registration for my event, is it possible to download a previous version of ee4? |
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@Talves – I can’t give a timescale, but I can advise it is high on our agenda. Unless something changes, it is likely that the EE4 calendar will be virtually identical to the EE3 one. @Riffard – please continue the discussion here https://eventespresso.com/topic/my-registration-tickets-disappeared-from-my-events-page/ |
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@Dean , Okay, i will. |
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@talves I can confirm that the ee4 calendar displays featured images. |
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Our registration relies heavily on the use of coupon codes. Is the decision final that they won’t be supported in EE4? If so, we may have to look for an alternative or additional software that would allow us to keep our codes. Many thanks and thank you for all the improvements and work! |
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@Breakwater School We never said that coupon codes won’t be supported. They just aren’t available at this point in time and probably won’t be available for several months. We are in fact scoping out the coupon system, but it is going to take several months of planning, development, and testing to get them into EE4. Does that help at all? |
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Hi Seth. Thank you so much for your clarification. We’ll look forward to upgrading to EE4 when the coupon system is in place. Have a great weekend! |
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This looks great! I’d like to know if the Calendar add-on and the Multiple Event add-on are coming soon for EE4…I need these, or I’ll have to use EE3, which I’d prefer not to do. Thanks! |
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Hi Stephen, We can’t give exact time scales, but we are hard at work on the Calendar add on and are hoping for a release relatively quickly. The cart system will likely be further down the line. |
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Thanks Dean- I guess we’ll have to go with EE3 for now then. I appreciate the info. |
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Hi, I’m new to Event Espresso & want to start using EE4 but I see that the calendar isn’t supported – please can you tell me when this will be included in EE4? Thanks |
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Hi Abigail, We can’t give definite timescales unfortunately. What I can say is that we are hoping to have the calendar out as the first EE4 add on, and we are working hard on the calendar as we speak. |
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Hey EE Team! I’m excited about EE4 and was hoping to install it on a locally hosted version of WordPress in order to play around with it and see what it can do. Will activating EE4 cause any sort of conflict with my current EE3 installation on my live site? Thanks folks! |
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@ David EE3 and EE4 are NOT designed to run simultaneously; it should be one or the other and preferably not switching in between both versions. |
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You should install Event Espresso 4 on a testing/development server before running on a live site. |
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Thanks fellas. My live production site would continue to run EE3 while I play around with EE4 in an offline, locally hosted development site. Will this cause any problems with the live production site. Thanks again! |
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Running EE4 localhost on a different server than live should not affect one another. |
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With the recent release of two event list view add-ons, the following add-ons are available now for Event Espresso 4: |
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