Posted: May 27, 2013 at 1:26 pm
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Hello, EE looks like it might be exactly what we are looking for but I need to confirm a few things first so here it goes (please assume we are talking about the business version for all questions): Background on our business to put it in perspective – We have an annual broad spectrum hobby based gaming convention (www.gottacon.com) where we sell multiple pass options for the span of a weekend. Examples include Full weekend, single day, family pass, category specific pass (video games). We take the sales database and import the data (after some massaging) into our custom made check in system. 1) Can you set up multiple purchase options for an event? Example is Full Weekend Pass with X price point, Friday only Pass with Y price point, Saturday only Pass with Z price point. 2) can one individual purchase multiple passes for different individuals? Example I want to buy a full weekend pass for myself and my friend. Can I purchase two full weekend passes and associate our individual names to each pass purchased? 3) Assuming one pass is purchased, will an automated email be sent to the purchaser and will that email contain a QR code (and/or randomized identifier) that is unique to that pass? 4) Assuming two or more passes are purchased (for two or more unique people) in the same transaction, will an automated email be sent to the purchaser only and will that email contain a unique QR code (and/or randomized identifier) for each pass purchased? Sometimes we have a purchaser buy up to 5 or more passes at a time. 5) Does/can the transaction database contain the following information for each pass purchased: – Sequential numerical identifier of each item purchase (001, 002, 003, etc) – First and last name of individual the pass is for – pass type purchased – date of purchase – subtotal of item – taxes of item – total of item – email of purchaser – first and last name of the person who made the purchase? – unique identifier of purchaser (QR code numerical translation) – Paypal transaction identifier |
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Hi Evan, How are you today? 1) You can do that as separate types of tickets/prices for one event. Or you can setup each ticket type as a separate event. You can use the Multiple Event Registrationaddon (https://eventespresso.com/product/espresso-multiple/) so people can check out with several events. 2) Sure, use the Group/Multiple attendee feature: https://eventespresso.com/features/multiple-attendee-registration/ 3) yes, with the ticketing addon they will receive a unique QR code. 4) Each attendee receives a confirmation themselves, unless the primary attendee (person doing the registration) fills out all the infor as their contact information for all the tickets. You can also choose not to require additional information for additional attendees and the primary attendee can check out with x number of tickets in their name. 5) I’ll have someone else comment on the db structure. |
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Regarding #5: I hope I that helps to answer your question. |
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I am great, thanks for asking. how are you? Also thanks for the quick response time, gives me confidence in your product. Regarding (2), can you add custom questions for each attendee based on the item selected? If they want two separate items, say a full weekend and a single day, would the purchaser be able to add the full weekend item to the shopping cart then add a the single day pass for the other person to the shopping cart and pay in one transaction? Regarding (3) does the DB contain a unique code that represents the QR code sent? I read somewhere that you guys have the QR codes independent of the database. If the codes are independent and not listed in our sales database, can an export be requested from you of our database with the QR codes contained in it (or their numerical equivalent)? Also does the seller (aka me) get an email confirming each sale and the details on the sale including all items sold in the sale as well as QR codes issued (or numerical representation of the QR code)? In another pre-purchase question I saw you mention a t-shirt add-on option, can you provide a little more background on this as it is very relevant to us. Does this allow people to purchase a pass and select to purchase an additional “add-on” item to the sale? You mentioned that that the cost is added to the sale, How is this identified in the database? Finally, can custom questions be set to required based on the item you create? So if say they were signing up for an event that had two start times possible, can you force them to select one or the other before allowing them to proceed to shopping cart/checkout? |
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Regarding the answers to (5), if no unique identifier is provided, can one be added via options? this is fundamental to us and our onsite check-in system, which is quite complex. This identifier is what we use to check in the person to our event which brings up their profile etc. I understand you send them a QR code but that doesn’t help us if we are not using your ticketing system OR if there is a drop in internet connection. We also have 3+ points of checkin and our system is built eliminate possible redundant check-in. Wireless options are not an option at our event due to the shear volume of wireless traffic which causes complete and utter cancellation of a reliable wireless network (similar to PAX prime and PAX East, GenCon, etc) so to safe guard we designed and had built our own offline check in system which eliminated internet failure, lack of wireless connection by uploading a database of ticket sales after we shut down sales. This feature/ability, to assign a unique code to each item at the time of sale, is fundamental to our needs. Any options you have will be considered for sure. Also please see my previous question around requesting the QR codes (and their numerical equivalent) from you guys above. |
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Sorry, just a few more clarity questions based on the answers to (5) How is the “item” purchased recorded in the database? Is it assigned a numerical value? Example item “A” is identified as “1”, item “B” is “2”? or are they only identified as the value of the purchase? Maybe if I ask it this way: Also for: I meant to say |
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Hello, hoping answers are forth coming on these last few clarity questions. Thanks. |
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Hi Evan, Sorry, but I don’t think that Event Espresso will work for your needs without a considerable amount development. Thanks! |
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I disagree, everything points to that it will except I just need to know about the questions above. The unique identifier is very important to us be we have already come up with possible work arounds if this is not possible via your product. I would really appreciate answers to the above so we can make our final decision and start implementing with work arounds. |
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Okay. I will try to answer your questions as best I can. I just didn’t want to see you purchase our plugin if it is not going to work as you expect it to. |
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Thanks and I appreciate your concern. If I do, it will be as informed as I can get and you have warned me so to speak. To be truthful it is a better option then what we have now so in the end I think we will be in a better position. I have pretty much read the last 5 pages of pre-sale posts to gain as much knowledge as possible. |
No, at this time, you cannot add custom questions for each attendee based on the item selected. The full weekend and single day passes would need to be two separate events.
QR Codes are not stored in the database. They are automatically generated when someone clicks a link to download the ticket. You will need to create a system that can do this for you. The QR codes are made up of a registration id and attendee id and are generated using the Google Charts API when the “Download Ticket” link is clicked.
Yes, the website admin (seller) gets an email when someone registers for an event. It will allow you to view/download each ticket (screenshot: http://www.screencast.com/t/n7FIRAUfj36).
The Espresso Price Modifier add-on allows you to assign dollar values to custom questions. It only tracks the selections in the database as answers to the custom questions, but does not show up as a line item purchase in the invoice or emails, however you can show the answer to the question in the emails and CSV/Excel exports.
Each start that time is added to the event appears in a dropdown selection on the registration form for an event.
There is a unique identifier per registration, but that can apply to a group registration. Our system generates a unique registration id for each registration (group or single) that is stored with the attendee record. For example, if two people sign up in the same registration, then they will have one unique identifier. However, each individual attendee is issued an auto-generated id. So I am guessing you should be able to use the attendee id, as that is unique to each registrant. Does that make sense?
An event id is stored in the database for each attendee record. |
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Hmm, ok. Is there a maximum number of “events” we can have on our site? Is the multievent feature included in the business version? I am guessing we would need about 15 “events”. If we make each pass type its own event and someone “registers” themselves in one event and then they register another person in another event in the same transaction, will they each get a separate “registration id” even though they were both purchased in the same transaction? Can you shortcode the registration id into the confirmation email so that they can see the number and we can call it “check-in ID Number” or something like that? Can custom question answers be displayed in the confirmation email sent to the purchaser for each individual registered? So if we asked the customer to “Please create a check-in secret code consisting of 6 to 8 alphanumerical characters” this could be displayed in their ticket purchase confirmation email per individual as well as show up in our database? Based on your answer above, if we had a custom add-on question of “would you like to purchase a T-shirt for an additional $10” with a yes or no answer option, the “yes” or “no” would show up as a column of data in the database and the following “What size shirt” question answer selected would as well? Then the value charged would just add that add-on value to the individuals “registration cost”? What does “an automated ID” look like? is it a random code or is it a sequential number? Assuming the auto-generated ID you mentioned above is not randomized, how much would it cost and how long would it take for us to pay you to build into the system to have an option to have a random and unique id code assigned to each “registered” individual which is sent in the purchaser confirmation email and is also output to the database as a column of data? It appears your system is pretty much already there with the unique “Registration ID” BUT the only thing it doesn’t do is assign a unique Registration ID to each individual registered in a multi-person transaction. Does that make sense? The quick fix for us here is to simply limit how many tickets can be purchased in a single transaction to one but that is not customer friendly. Also, thanks for taking the time to answer all these questions, I know they are time consuming but we are serious about your product so it is not in vain. |
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I’ll save you some typing, I know that Multi Event Registration (MER) is included in Business version. Don’t know if there is a limit of how many events, assuming no. |
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Hi Evan, I’ll try to follow up with your questions below:
15 events isn’t too many events. Some folks run thousands of events at a time, which can kinda slow the site down though. And yes, Multi Event Registration is included with the business license.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes, with one exception. The email gets sent to each individual if the purchaser enters an email address for each individual. If the purchase enters their own address in each registration form, then they’ll get all the emails.
All of the entries get answered in the registration forms get stored in the database. I should clarify one point about the Espresso Price Modifier add-on though. It does not work alongside the Multi Event Registration, so in order to use the price modifier feature the registrations would need to go through the standard single event registration process.
They look like this: 1-51a530b792dd0 The first digits before the – correspond to the event’s ID. The characters after the – are generated from the uniqid PHP function: http://php.net/manual/en/function.uniqid.php
I think you’re thinking of an attendee ID since a registration ID would cover a registration (possibly could include multiple attendees if it’s a group registration), and an attendee ID would cover an attendee.
Or you could create an add-on that adds a unique attendee ID to your specification for each attendee. |
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Thanks for all the answer once again, just two last points that I need clarity on: What is an a Registration ID? And based on your response of: I just need to be 100% clear on this, are you saying that if we have multiple event options that each have a modifier add-on in them that in order for it to work properly an individual can only purchase one ticket per transaction? Or are you saying that they can only purchase one event type for for multiple people if they want one or more add-ons. Example #1 Example #2 Example #3 Is the Price Modifier add-on included with the business version? Other than that, I am quite happy with the responses and I believe this is the product for us. |
This is an example of a registration ID: 1-51a530b792dd0
It’s an idea. Currently Event Espresso doesn’t generate unique random Attendee ID. Someone who knows how to develop WordPress plugins could build an add-on that generations attendee ID’s for each attendee.
One difference is what happens when there is a group registration. In that case the registration gets one ID for the group. There isn’t a unique attendee ID given to each attendee in the group.
In order for it to work at all it would be one event per transaction, the Multi Event Registration add-on could not be used if the price modifier was needed. Multiple tickets for the same event could be purchased within the same transaction.
What’s an event type?
The t-shirt add-on selection would not increase the price.
Evan would fill out the registration form for event X and add the t-shirt add-on. In this case it would be a group registration since there are two tickets for the same event.
Evan would get and be charged for one t-shirt.
It’s not included with the business license. It’s a stand alone pre-release product that is available to those who have support licenses and they have opted into the pre-release channel. I’d also recommend checking out the free test drive so you can get familiar with the basic Event Espresso features like creating events and adding questions to the registration forms: https://eventespresso.com/pricing/test-drive-event-espresso/ |
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Ok, when I said event type I meant an event that can be registered for of which, with MER, there could be numerous. I think I understand now that you are saying as long as only one event is being registered for (no matter how many people are being registered for that one event in the transaction), the price modifier add-on will work. The moment you add a second or more events to the transaction, it stops working. Any plans underway to make multi event reg and price modifier add-on work together? A few posts back Seth said the following: “There is a unique identifier per registration, but that can apply to a group registration. Our system generates a unique registration id for each registration (group or single) that is stored with the attendee record. For example, if two people sign up in the same registration, then they will have one unique identifier. However, each individual attendee is issued an auto-generated id. So I am guessing you should be able to use the attendee id, as that is unique to each registrant. Does that make sense?” That is the Attendee ID (auto-generated id) that I am referring to. Does each attendee get assigned a unique ID as Seth said in the database no matter how many people are registered in a single transaction? If so can you provide an example of what this would look like? Is it random or is it sequential? |
Not exactly. Even if it’s only one event, but it’s going through the Multi Event Registration cart, the price modifier will not work. For the price modifier to work it has to be on a single registration page. You can disable Multi Event Registration to ensure that the registration flows through a single registration page.
It’s planned, but development is not underway.
Yes.
The first attendee ID in the system gets an ID of 1, then 2, then 3. They’re sequential. A custom plugin could be developed to add a new unique attendee ID field if you need something more random. |
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Something just came to mind given the MER. Does each event have a separate database? or are all transactions entered into a single database and each event has it’s own unique identifier? Example, we have 10 events, so there is 10 databases? My impression is there is one master database that can be queried by event if you want or that you can extract all events into one output if you like. I just want to make sure my assumption is correct. Great, thank you very much for all your time and effort on my numerous questions. |
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Event Espresso uses the same database that WordPress gets installed onto. It adds its own database tables for things like events, attendees, venues, and registration form questions. |
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