If you use different staff members at your events, you can add them to Event Espresso with their own reusable staff profiles and assign them to the events by editing an event in the Event Overview page. Using shortcodes, you can add the staff members details to your events, posts and pages, allowing users to have a point of contact regarding each event. This can save you time promoting information if you the staff/speakers/venues/etc. are a selling point or an attraction for an event, especially if you work with these people on a regular basis.
The Staff Manager features in Event Espresso 3 is not available until you go to Event Espresso > General Settings > Advanced Features and change the Use the Staff Manager? dropdown to Yes and save.
The Staff Manager overview page lists all the available staff you have created. You can find the staff members name, creator name and shortcode for each staff member. You can also use the Live Search Filter to search by any of those values.
Add a new staff member: Click the Add a New Staff Member button to create a new staff member. You can provide their name, contact details, role and organization, and location.
Description: You can add a bio or description about each staff member. This is a good chance to highlight the staff’s accomplishments, background, role or responsibilities, background and publications or professional highlights.
If you are using Event Espresso 4, you can use these same features for managing people, staff, and other profiles, but for more types of people by navigating to Event Espresso> Venues.
Easily set up and manage venues via the Venue Manager menu to create profiles for venues that are available to be re-used for individual events. This saves you time from having to add information about the address or location of the event every time you create an event.
The first thing you will see is the Manage Venues overview page where you can add or edit venues. (The Venue Manager screen is not available in Event Espresso 3 until you go to Event Espresso > General Settings > Advanced Features and change the Use the Venue Manager? dropdown to yes and save. The Venue management is available by default in Event Espresso 4.)
To add a venue, click one of the Add New Venue buttons at the top or bottom of the screen.
Address: add the address details of the venue. Try to use the correct format of your country so that the mapping system and attendees can find the location.
Locale: If you have the Roles and Permissions Pro add on, you can group your venues together in locales. After creating a locale (see the Locales/Regions documentation) you simply select the correct one from the dropdown box.
Contact: Add the details of the contact person for the event.
Venue Description: Add a description of the venue, this will be displayed when you use the Venue shortcodes.
Once you have some venues the Manage Venues overview page will be populated and you can see at a glance the Venues ID, Name, Locale, Creator and Shortcode. The shortcode can be used in any post, page or event.
The Live Search Filter can be used to quickly find venues by name, locale, creator etc.
Remember that sometimes the location of the event can be attraction for some attendees; they may want to travel to your event because of where it is. The venue may be a local spot or a traveling destination. Either way, take the opportunity to emphasize any benefits of the location that might matter to your attendees. Here are some ideas you can consider highlighting about your event venue:
Special prices and rates (if you negotiated special rates, mention that and how people get better prices)
Accessibility, whether the venue can the location meet any disability or special needs.
Posting photos and videos of the location can help attract and build anticipation for the event. You can contact the event venue facility for high-quality photos and videos to publicize your event at that location.
You can access this section from the Event Overview page, either by clicking the links next to the Attendees filter or by hovering your mouse over an event name and clicking the Attendees link that appears.
Attendee Report Page
Once you are on the Attendee Reports page you will be shown a list of the attendees. Depending on which filter you chose, this may be all the attendees in the database or just those specific to an event or time period.
Add New Attendee: This is only available if you have gone to the Attendee Reports page via the Attendee link in an Event (hover over the event name). This option will add an attendee manually. We have a guide to show you how to add an attendee manually.
Filters:
Events: This will take you back to the Event Overview page – you can filter by all events or those that are occurring today or this month.
Attendees: This will filter the events by all attendees, attendees registered today or attendees registered this month. You can also View Report which will show a graphical representation of the registrations.
There are also options to filter the currently listed attendees by Month, Category and Status. Along with a Reset Filters button to clear the filters back to default.
The Live Search Filter can be used to filter the attendee list by any content within the tables: i.e. name, date, event title, time, etc. etc.
How to retrieve more than 50 attendees
If there are more than 50 attendees registered for the event, Event Espresso 3 does not load all of them at once by default. You can set the number of rows to more than 50 by using the selector next to the Retrieve button. Then you click on the Retrieve button to load more attendee records.
The Attendee Table
This table shows the attendees that you have filtered.
Attendee Name: The name the attendee registered under. This links to their individual Attendee Record.
Registered: The date and time the registration took place.
Event Title: The name of event they registered for. If they registered for multiple events, they will appear in each event attendee list, or multiple times in the “All Attendees” list.
Event Time: The time the event starts.
Option: The ticket/s they purchased.
Payment: Visually shows the status of the payment: = complete, = incomplete or declined, = pending.
Type: This shows which payment type the attendee used to pay for the ticket(s) (e.g. PayPal, Invoice, etc)
Action: There are four additional actions you can do here:
Edit Payment: Send you directly to the payment details for that particular attendee
Edit Attendee: Takes you to the individual Attendee Record
Resend Registration Details: Resends the registration email to the attendee
Download Invoice: Downloads a copy of the invoice
Edit Attendee Data
When you click an attendees name in the Attendee Reports page, you are taken to the Edit Attendee Data page where you can modify the details of an individual attendee from their personal information, custom question answers, through to payment details.
Edit Attendee Payment Record
Clicking the View/Edit Payment link within the Edit Attendee Data Page will take you to the actual payment details of that specific attendee. It is broken up into two sections, Payment Details on the left and Invoice/Payment Reminder on the right.
Payment Details
Registration ID: Provides the registration ID for that attendee. There is also a link back to the attendee’s data page.
Payment Status: Provides the current status of the payment (e.g. completed) and this can be modified by the admin.
Transaction Type: The payment type the attendee paid with (e.g. PayPal, credit card, etc). This can be modified by the admin.
Transaction ID: A transaction ID for the payment.
Amount: The total monetary amount of tickets purchased. There is a link to the Edit Attendee Data page to edit this.
Coupon Code: If a coupon has been used it will display here. One can also be added here to record any manual discounts. Note that entering a discount code here will not automatically provide the discount.
Date Paid: The date payment was received.
Do you want to send a payment received notice to the registrant?: If you have manually updated the payment, you can select yes here and then press Update Payment. The system will generate and email the attendee with a payment received email.
Invoice/Payment Reminder
If you wish to send a manual payment reminder to this attendee, you can do so from here. You can either select an email from one you have previously created in the Email Manager or create an email only for that specific attendee.
Event Espresso version 4 Documentation for Adding a New Event
Add New Event
In order to add a new event you need to click the Add New Event button in the Events menu.
This will take you to the Add New Event page.
This page contains 4 tabs: Add Event, Overview, Import and Default settings.
Please note that if you click anything other than the Add Event tab, you will be taken away from that page and any data entered will be lost.
Event Title – add a title for the event, this is visible on the front end.
Permalink – add a custom permalink for the event. If nothing is entered, then it will use the event title.
Event Description – this is a standard WordPress editor and you can add a description and format it as well as add images etc.
Event Datetimes – add in the start date, end date, times, and limit for each Event Datetime. An event can have more than one Datetime. Click the “Add Datetime” button to add more Datetimes. Click the ticket icon to assign tickets to a datetime. Click the the copy icon to duplicate a Datetime. Click the garbage can icon to trash the icon.
Available Tickets – enter the price and quantity for each ticket type; click the “Create Ticket” button to add more tickets. Click the gear icon to toggle the advanced options where you can assign a ticket to a date time, set minimum/maximum purchase limits, and set price modifiers.
You can click on the Help tab on the upper right corner of the event editor page, then click on Event Tickets for more detailed information about how to use the Ticket editor.
Venue Details
Here you can select a venue from your list of venues. Venues can be managed in Event Espresso > Venues. The venue information can be displayed on the event information page.
Notifications
This area controls which emails are sent on a per-event basis. If you don’t need to control the individual events emails, and are happy to use the same ones across all your events, you can happily ignore this section.
By default the event will use the Global emails created in the Messages area, but you can select a pre-built custom email or start a new custom email by clicking the Create New Custom button. When you click the button, a modal will appear and you can create the custom email.
Event Registration Options
These control important aspects of the event.
Active Status
Shows the current status for an event. A status will appear as Active, Upcoming, Postponed, Inactive, Sold Out, Expired, or Cancelled. Please see the help tab in the for a list with definitions of the event statuses.
Maximum number of tickets allowed per order for this event
Control how many tickets can be purchased in a single order. If the ticket limit allows, the ticket quantity selector will allow a quantity selection up to what’s set here.
This defaults to 10, which is a change from Event Espresso 3’s default where Allow Group Registrations defaulted to No.
If you set this option to 1 a radio button will appear instead of a ticket quantity selector.
Display Ticket Selector
Show the ticket selector or don’t. This can be useful to set to no when registration isn’t required to attend an event.
Alternative Registration Page
Takes a URL to a different event page. If this is set when the user clicks the link to go to this event’s registration page, they will be redirected to the alternative URL.
Event Phone Number
Enter a phone number for this event. This field is optional.
Default Registration Status
Select the default registration status for this event only. This will override the global setting that’s set in the Default settings tab. The options are Approved, Not Approved, and Pending Payment. An explanation of each setting can be found in the Default Settings help tab.
Featured Image
Set featured image
If the WordPress theme adds support for featured images, you can set a featured image for the event. This is primarily used in the Calendar display if the option to display Calendar images feature is enabled. Your theme may also display the featured image in the archives template (for the event list) and the single post template (for the event page). Please see the notes in the calendar documentation for tips on getting the best results for displaying images in the calendar.
Questions for Primary Registrant
Here you can select which question groups are shown to the Primary Attendee during registration. The default Personal Information question group is always selected.
If you have any other question groups created they will show here, and you can select them as necessary.
Questions for Additional Registrants
Just like the questions for the Primary Attendee, here you can select question groups to be shown to the Additional Attendees. This will allow you to ask for information from attendees if more than two tickets are being purchased.
Event Category
Event categories help you to split up your events into manageable groups. If you have any event categories created you can select them here.
Event Espresso version 3 Documentation for Adding a New Event
This guide covers all the options within the Add New Event options page.
It is split into three main segments: Basic Details, Sidebar Options, and Advanced Options. Only the core plugin options are covered here, please see the individual add on documentation to view what additional functionality they provide.
Basic Options
This segment consists of the of the basic event data: description, times, and prices. Event Title: Add a title or name for your event.
Unique Event Identifier: This is system generated but is used in other places such as shortcodes.
Event Description: Add a description of your event. You can use the edit box’s tools to format the text and add images, just like a normal WordPress post.
Event Date/Times
Registration Dates: Add the start and end date for registration. Normally registration ends before the event starts but it can carry over until the event ends. You can set events to Expired when the registration date has gone, in General Settings.
Registration Times: Not a requirement. If set registration is limited to those times.
Event Dates: When your event starts and ends, can be the same day. Required.
Event Times: What times the event starts and finishes.
Qty: (Quantity) This option will only appear if you have turned on the “Use registration limits on time slots?” option in General Settings. It allows you to allocate a number of tickets to a time slot. Experimental feature.
Add Additional Time: Want to add multiple time slots to day? Click the Add Additional Time button and more fields will appear, this can be done multiple times.
Current Time: Shows you the current time/date format as per WordPress.
Event Pricing
Standard Pricing
Without the WP User Integration (Members) add on, you will just see the Standard pricing system. You can still create multiple prices for each event.
Name 1: The Prices name – this is visible on your website.
Price: The actual price (please include the trailing zeros, e.g. 10.00)
Surcharge: If you need to add an additional cost to the event price, such as a tax, VAT, fuel costs, etc, then you can add it here.
Surcharge Type: Determines if the above figure is a percentage of the event price or a figure to add on top of the standard event price.
Add A Price: Add additional price levels.
Member Pricing
Very similar to the standard pricing you can add multiple member prices.
You must still add a Standard price otherwise it will default to zero (free) for non members. Likewise if you fail to set a price for Members, any logged in users will be able to get the events for free.
The surcharge is automatically applied to the Member price if it is set within the Standard price.
Sidebar Options
The options in the sidebar allow you to tweak your events even more, allowing more flexibility for you and your customers.
New Event/Quick Overview
If this is just a new event, this box will only contain the Submit New Event button, which saves and publishes the event.
If you are editing an existing event, you will see the Quick Overview information, which consist of the Event start date, the current status of the event, how many attendees are signed up, the attendee limit, and a quick link to email all the attendees of the event.
Event Options
Attendee limit: cap how many people can attend, leave blank for unlimited.
Allow group registrations?: This means that one person can buy tickets for a group.
Max group registrations: You can cap how many tickets someone can buy in one go.
Additional Attendee Registration Info?: Do you need to collect question information from everyone in a group or just the buyer? If you need everyone’s information then select one of the options available here.
Is this an active event?: The default is yes. If set to no, the event becomes unavailable to users and an expiry message is displayed.
Event Status: Public: live and accessible; Waitlist: used as an overflow for limited capacity events; Ongoing:live and accessible; Draft:live and accessible but has a draft warning; Deleted:removed from the site and the event list. It can still be accessed by filtering the dashboard event list for deleted events, it also remains in the database.
Display Description?: Default is yes, if set to no the event description is hidden when viewed from the site.
Display Registration Form?: Default is yes, if set to no the registration form is hidden when viewed from the site. Useful when using the Multiple Event Registration add-on.
Default Payment Status for Event: If set to anything other than No Change the payments will be set to the appropriate status no matter whether payment has been received or not. Settings are – No Change, Incomplete, Pending, Completed.
Alternative Registration Page (optional): Allows you to set an alternative page that the user is directed to when they click on the event, or visit the event registration page directly.
Alternative Email Address (optional): Add an alternative email to send admin notifications to. This can be a comma separated list and include the admin email.
Featured Image
Add a featured image to your event. This is primarily used in the Calendar display if the option to allow images has been turned on. Event Espresso 3 will display featured images in the event listings page and on the event registration page (individual event page) so long as it is turned on in the Template Settings options.
Featured image
Event Category
If you have created Event Categories, you can select which ones the event belongs to. This allows you to list events by category, like you would with normal WordPress posts. The Manage Categories link takes you to the Event Categories setting page.
Event Promotions
Here you can set basic discounts for your event
Early Registration Discount: This is an Early Bird discount, so if a customer registers before a certain date they get a discount applied to their purchase. Only one Early Bird discount can be set per event.
End Date: This is the date when the promotion ends. So if you set this as 1st October, then a customer visiting the site at the start of 1st October (00:00) would not get the discount.
Amount: The discount amount.
Percentage: Is the above figure a percentage or full figure?
Allow Discount Codes?: If you have created discount codes via the Promotional Codes options page, you can allow this event to make use of them. Simply tick the boxes next to the promotional codes listed.
Manage Promotional Codes: A link to the Promotional Codes options page.
Event Questions for Primary Attendee
Choose which question groups need to be shown to the Primary Attendee (the person making the purchase). Note that Personal Information is always required so cannot be de-selected.
Event Questions for Additional Attendees
Choose which question groups are shown for Additional Attendees (group bookings). Note that Personal Information is always required. However, the Additional Attendee question groups do not have to be the same as the Primary Attendees question groups.
Event Staff/Speakers
This is unlocked via the Event Espresso General Settings.
If you have set this up, simply tick the box next to the relevant staff members names and it will show the information in the Event description.
Advanced Options
Additional Event/Venue Information
This section allows you to attach a venue to the event, the details of which can be displayed on both the event registration page, and ticket.
Select from Venue Manager list: Choose from a pre created venue, see the Venue Manager documentation for details.
Virtual Location
This information can be used to add non physical locations, such as for webinars, live chat discussions, online gaming, etc.
Phone: Phone number of a contact.
URL of Event: The web address of the event.
Call in Number: Used for virtual events.
Event Meta
Exactly like standard WordPress meta fields, these boxes allow you to add custom information to your events and used in templates and custom pages.
This extra information can also be displayed in your event listings or registration pages via shortcodes.
The name parameter is the the first box labeled ‘Key‘ and allows the shortcode to identify which meta box is to be displayed; the ‘Value‘ is the actual content you wish to be shown.
If you are using custom templates (moved to the uploads folder) you can add the shortcode directly to the template, this would take the form of:
This section allows you to over rule the default confirmation email on a per event basis.
Send custom confirmation emails for this event?: This must be changed to Yes if you want to override the default confirmation email for this event.
Use a pre-existing email?: If you have defined an email in the Email Manager screen you can choose one of those pre-defined emails here. If the option states “No Results” then you have not created any emails yet.
Create a custom email: If you have not already defined an email you can create a custom email directly in the event.
Emails created in an event will not be available to other events. In order to allow custom confirmation emails to be available to all events, they must be created via the Email Manager screen.
Create a Post
This section allows you to create (or remove) an additional Post or Custom post related to the event. Creating a Post for the event can be very useful, as the events are outside of the normal WordPress loop, so they will not show up in your blog or other feed. By creating a Post, which is in effect a duplicate of the event, you can insert this information into your blog or feed.
Add/Update post for this event?: If changed to Yes, a post will be created when the event is saved or updated.
If no, delete current post?: Once a Post has been created, you can delete it by changing the above option to No and selecting the tick box for this option and updating the event.
Author: Select an author for the post if the site has more than one author. Default is admin.
Tags: Add tags to the post, these are the same as the standard WordPress tags and will add to that list. Comma separated.
Post Categories: Select or add a new category for the Post. These are standard WordPress categories and are separate from Event Categories.
Event Espresso version 3 Documentation for the General Settings
The General Settings section is comprised of six sections
Organization Settings
Page Settings
Email Settings
Optional Event Settings
reCAPTCHA Settings
Support Licence
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Organization Settings
It is important that you fill out this section and make sure the details are correct. These settings tell Event Espresso who you are and will be used again and again throughout the event creation process.
Company logo: add your logo here to enable branding of your invoices, tickets, certificates and payment templates. We recommend that the image be 400px or less.
Contact information: all of your basic contact information. Your organization’s name will appear on all of your correspondence. Make sure you add your organization’s country as this determines what currency is shown. The email section here is where all notifications will go to so make sure its correct.
Time & date: choose the correct time zone to ensure that your event registrations open and close at the correct time.
]Please do not use UTC time. Please find the closest city to where you are, otherwise some aspects of the plugin will not work.
Page Settings
There are a number of pages that you need to have for Event Espresso to function correctly, and when the plugin is installed, it creates 4 default pages for you to use.
Most of these should be excluded from your website navigation. If you are using a WordPress 3.0+ theme with navigation support then you can do this by omitting the pages from the menu you create at Appearance > Menu.
Main Registration page – the plugin will create a page called Event Registration, which will contain the [ESPRESSO_EVENTS] shortcode and will display your events.
Auto Return URL – the plugin creates a page called Thank You, and this is where the users are sent when they have completed the signup process.
Cancel Return URL – the plugin creates a page called Registration Cancelled, and this is where the user will be sent when a payment is cancelled.
Notify URL – a page called Transactions is created. It is used behind the scenes to process the payments.
The Main Registration page can be in your navigation (or not) if you wish. The other pages MUST NOT be in your navigation menu.
The page settings let you adjust these pages. If you change one of the default pages then you must insert the corresponding shortcode into the page.
So, for example, if you change the Main Registration page, you must insert the [ESPRESSO_EVENTS] shortcode.
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Email Settings
Overall email settings. These cover all emails sent via Event Espresso.
Send payment confirmation emails?: Toggles whether the user receives a system generated email confirming payment.
Send registration confirmation emails before payment is received?: Toggles whether the user receives confirmation of their registration before payment has been received.
Use fancy email headers?: By default Event Espresso sends emails from WordPress and the email headers (this defines what you see in the from section when the email is received) and as such displays WordPress. If you want it to display the site name instead, toggle this to Yes.
Payment confirmation email: This section allows you to customize the Payment Confirmation email that goes to users. This is for ALL events.
Default registration confirmation email: This section allows you to customize the Default Registration Confirmation email that goes to users. This is for ALL events.
Below each edit box for these is a link to a pop up that shows you what special codes you can use in the emails to automate adding data, such as first names, venue details, etc. A break down of these can be found here.
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Optional Event Settings
Additional options to help customise Event Espresso to meet the needs of your events.
Default surcharge: Adds a surcharge (e.g. Sales Tax) to every event. A great time saver.
Display text: Changes the Surcharge text to something else (e.g. VAT, Sales Tax).
Default payment status: The default is “Incomplete”, and if you change this it will be the payment status for all event attendees. Useful in some situations, but use with care.
Show the Upcoming Events widget in the dashboard?: Adds a widget to the Admin dashboard that shows upcoming events. This is great if you are running lots of events.
Use registration limits on time slots?: Experimental function. Use with care!
Use a custom time zone for each event?: Very useful for worldwide events.
Enable attendee pre-approval feature?: If yes, the system will mark every attendee to be approved manually by the Admin.
Show payment options for “Pending Payments” on the Payment Overview page?: If this is set to yes and a user tries to make a payment and fails, it will display payment options on the return page so that the user can try again.
Use the Venue Manager?: Adds the Venue Manager option the Event Espresso menu, allowing you to add venues for your events.
Use the Staff Manager?: If you have staff, then the Staff Manager can help with organizing which staff are assigned to which event. Once activated you can also add staff details to your events by using shortcodes.
Use full logging?: Generates a file called espresso_log.txt in your uploads/espresso/logs folder. Use this when you are trying to track down a problem.
Show a link to Event Espresso in your event pages?: Support us by adding a small link to Event Espresso in your event pages. You can even generate money for yourself by adding your affiliate link there!
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reCAPTCHA Settings
The reCAPTCHA system helps weed out automated spam registrations by making users type in words they see in a box. You will need a reCAPTCHA account, full details can be found here.
Use reCAPTCHA to block spam registrations?: Turns the function on or off.
Public key: This is obtained from reCAPTCHA.
Private key: This is obtained from reCAPTCHA.
Width: Change the width to fit into your site (in pixels).
Theme: Choose from Red, White, Blackglass, and Clean to fit into your sites overall design better.
Language: Changes the language for the interface.
If you do not have an account on reCAPTCHA, go to google.com/recaptcha and click on the “Use reCAPTCHA on Your Site” link. To use reCAPTCHA, you will need to be signed into a Google account. Clicking Sign Up Now on the next page will ask you to log in if you aren’t already. Once you are signed in, you can specify the domain you are going to use reCAPTCHA on. You can also create a global reCAPTCHA key pair if you plan on using it on many different sites. This is somewhat less secure, and really only advisable if you are having problems with your domain-specific key pair. Click Create Key and you’ve got your key pair. Enter these into your reCAPTCHA settings in Event Espresso’s General Settings page and turn on reCAPTCHA.
Support Licence
When you purchase a licence for Event Espresso, it allows you to upgrade the plugin and add ons with the licence period. By adding your licence key here, it will enable the auto updates. You can obtain your licence key by logging into your Event Espresso account.
Event Espresso version 4 Documentation for the Settings (In Progress)
The general settings page covers most of the site wide settings that you will need. It is split up into 6 tabbed areas.
Critical Pages
This section lists the pages that Event Espresso needs in order to function. Should you wish to change a page that is used you will need to move the shortcode to the new page and then allocate it here. Otherwise your registrations will not work correctly.
This section also provides a status of the page to show you at a glance if something is not right.
Templates
This section deals with the general front end settings.
Event Listings:
These settings affect the main event listings and any listings provided by the [EVENT_LIST] shortcode
Display Descriptions – toggle the event descriptions on or off
Use SHORT Descriptions – if your event description contains a MORE tag, setting this to yes will cut off the event description at that point. Otherwise the full description is shown.
Display Addresses – toggles the address on or off.
Google Maps
This section provides numerous options for the Google maps that can be added to events.
Activate Google Maps – turns it on or off.
Reg Page Map Settings
Options for maps displayed on single event registration pages.
Set Map Width – the map width in pixels. Please just use a number and no additional information like px
Set Map Height – the map height in pixels.
Set Map Zoom level: Range 1 – 19 – this is the default zoom level for the map.
Set Map Navigation Overlay – to be confirmed
Keep Map Navigation Small – to be confirmed
Set Map Type Control – Default Horizontal Dropdown
Set Map Alignment – None Align Left Align Center Align Right
Events List Options
Set Map Width – the map width in pixels. Please just use a number and no additional information like px
Set Map Height – the map height in pixels.
Set Map Zoom level: Range: 1 – 19 – this is the default zoom level for the map.
Set Map Navigation Overlay – to be confirmed
Keep Map Navigation Small – to be confirmed
Set Map Type Control – Default Horizontal Dropdown
Set Map Alignment – None Align Left Align Center Align Right
Your Organisation
This whole settings tab is about you and your organisation, as well as some core Event Espresso details.
Your Event Espresso License Key
This section also contains an area to add your Event Espresso licence key to allow you to get one click updates whilst you have a currently valid licence.
Contact Information and Company Logo
The contact details that you add here, including the logo, will be used in various places most prominently invoices.
Event Espresso User eXperience Improvement Program
This is an optional system to help us to improve your Event Espresso experience.
By opting to send us anonymous secure data, we will be able to tell general patterns about the plugins usage meaning we know what areas of the plugin most of our customers are using and we can put focus on improving those areas.
Admin Options
WordPress Dashboard
Upcoming Events Widget
Activates/de-activates the Upcoming Events Widget in the WordPress Dashboard so that you can see a list of upcoming events as soon as you log in.
How many days into the future?
Defines how far in the future the Upcoming Events Widget will show, in days.
Time and Date Settings
Clarification of the current date/time settings and a link the the WordPress settings.
Please note that the date and time settings are, for the most part, controlled by the WordPress settings.
Debug/Logging Options
Enable full logging
This will turn on/off the logging system to help with debugging. Th file is available at: /wp-content/uploads/espresso/logs/
]Warning!
Please use caution when using this feature. These files may be publicly available.
Also, please remember to turn this off after use, otherwise the file may grow very large.
Enable Remote Logging
Enables the logging file to be sent to another location.
Remote Logging URL
If the above is set to yes, this is the url where the file will be sent to, it must be a write enabled location.
Promote Event Espresso
You can help Promote Event Espresso by displaying a link to our site on each of your events. You can even generate commissions on every sale that comes from one of your links.
Link to Event Espresso in your Registration Page
This turns the link to Event Espresso on or off.
Event Espresso Affiliate ID
If you have the above on and you enter your affiliate ID here, then any sales that resulted from someone visiting Event Espresso via your affiliate enabled link will gain you a commission.
Countries
These settings are used throughout the plugin in different areas, so it’s important to get them set up.
Country name – The name of the country you are in/do business in.
Activate Country – When set to yes, the country details will be shown in various options throughout the plugin.
States/Provinces – Here you can add different regions applicable for your country.
If you have followed the Getting Started guide from the start, you will now have the basic information for your event prepared.
This means you can now create your event!
Start by going to Event Espresso > Event Overview and then click Add New Event.
There are a lot of options here, and we won’t cover them all in this little guide, so feel free to check out the full Event Espresso documentation at your leisure.
The Basics
Start by adding an Event Title and an Event Description. Don’t worry about the Unique Event Identifier. The system will add this in for you.
Event Date/Times
It is important that you get these right; otherwise it can affect how the events work.
Registration Dates: These will determine when registration will open and close for the event. Please make sure that both of these are filled in, Even Espresso does not allow open-ended events.
Registration Times: Add the times that registration is open each day. Optional.
Make sure that your time is not set to UTC, but to the closest city to your location. This setting is found in your WordPress dashboard under Settings > General.
Event Dates: What dates your event will run from and too. Required.
Event Times: The times your event is on each day. You can add additional times if the event is repeated within a day.
Event Pricing
Here you can add the all important Price, and start making money from your events! You can add as many pricing options as you like here. They will be displayed in a drop down box on the registration page allowing users to select the correct one.
If you have the Membership add on, you will also see a membership pricing option. Be sure to fill this out as well, unless you want members to get free tickets!
Name: The display name for the price/ticket type
Price: formatted like so 10.00
Surcharge: This is for additional costs like Tax, fuel costs, etc. It is optional.
Surcharge Type: Flat rate means the figure you enter will be added to the ticket price. Percent means that the figure you enter will be converted into a percentage and tacked on top of the ticket price.
Event Options
Attendee limit: Caps how many people can attend, leave blank for unlimited.
Allow group registrations?: This means that one person can buy tickets for a group.
Max group registrations: You can cap how many tickets someone can buy in one go.
Additional Attendee Registration Info?: Do you need to collect question information from everyone in a group or just the buyer? If you need information from each attendee, you can select either “Personal information only” or “Full registration information”. These options will make the registration form display a dropdown of additional questions for each attendee added.
If you need information from only one attendee you can select “No info required”. If you select this option it will display a quantity ticket selector below the registration form.
Did you create a venue?
If so scroll down and under Venue Information select the venue you created from the drop down list.
Did you create some new questions?
If so scroll down and on the right is Event Questions for Primary Attendee and Event Questions for Additional Attendees (this one is used if you allow group registrations). Tick the box next to the question groups you want to use.
The Personal Information question group is required by the plugin and is always selected.
Submit New Event
In the top right of the screen is a shiny blue button called Submit New Event, click it and your event will be created!
We havent covered every option available to you in this guide, but full documentation is available here.
Also if you need a real world example, check out the our Example Event Espresso Setup to see how we would create a basic event site.
Event Espresso version 4 Documentation for the Events Menu
Events
This area contains the overview of your current, future, and past events. From here you can create and edit events as well as fine tune site-wide event settings.
Overview
Add New Event button – Found at the top of the page, this button will take you to the new event page.
Filters – Here you can select to view All Events, Events occurring today, or Events occurring this month. You can also filter events by month/year and by the event status.
The event lists itself shows lots of information at a glance:
Event ID
Event Name
Venue Name
Event Start Date
Event Start Time
Reg Begins (Registration start date and time)
Status
Attendees – shows a split figure: attendees registered/max. attendee limit
Actions
The Actions icons allow quick access to important features
View event
Edit Event
View Registrations for that event
View reports
Copy short URL
Also, when you hover your mouse over the individual event names, a sub menu appears
View – view the event on the front end of your site
Edit – edit the event
Delete – delete the event. Note that events are not truly deleted and remain in your database and are accessible via the Deleted filter.
Attendees – displays the attendee list for that event
Categories
You can create and manage Event Categories here.
Calendar Colors
Each category has a set of “Calendar Colors” options where you can set a background color and text color. These color settings can be used by the Calendar when displaying events. First, create your categories, set their colors, then assign one category to each event. The events assigned to a category will be displayed in the calendar using their selected category colors.
Event Categories are a custom WordPress taxonomy that automatically get displayed in a taxonomy archive. Event Category archives can be found at the following URL yoursite.com/event-category/your-category-slug.
Templates
You can change how the single event pages, the event lists, and the ticket selectors are displayed with the settings here. For example, if you want to move the Ticket Selector to the bottom of the event page, you set Use Custom Display Order? to Yes and drag and drop the Ticket Selector to the bottom of the Display Order.
Default Settings
These options are site wide, so all events are affected, unless otherwise over ruled in an individual event.
Default Registration Status – This value will be automatically filled in for each person’s registration status, until payment is made, for each event.
Default Tickets
You can trash any unneeded default tickets here. Note there must be at least one default ticket.
Customize the admin Event list table
You can change the amount of events that display per page and remove columns by clicking on the Screen Options tab on the upper right corner of the Events admin page. Each column’s visibility is controlled by a checkbox, and the Pagination (number of events per page) is controlled by inputting a number.
Event Espresso version 3 Documentation for the Events Menu
The Event Overview section allows you to see all of the events that have been created, past and present, along with at a glance details of each event.
From here you can select and edit individual events, find and edit all the attendees or attendees specific to an event, export spreadsheets, mass email attendees and more.
The Filters
Add New Event: Adds a new event, see the Add New Event documentation for details of that screen.
Filters: These links enable you to specify which events or attendees you want to view: All, only Today, this Month. See the Attendee Report page documentation for more info
The drop down boxes below these allow more filtering:
by month/year
by category: this is the Event category not the standard WordPress one.
by event active status: Lists the events based on their Status
Active
Inactive
Pending
Draft
Waitlist
Ongoing
Denied
Deleted
Database Retrieval
Since version 3.1.29 there has been a new system in play that limits the number of Events or Attendees displayed to 50. This can be increased by clicking the dropdown box next to the Retrieve button and selecting a new amount and then clicking the Retrieve button.
Live Search Filter: Search for events by name
Show/Hide Columns: Need more or less info on the events, click this. You can show or hide the following columns – Venue, Start Date, Start Time, DoW (Day of Week), Reg (Registration) Begins, Status, Attendees, Actions.
The Event List
Very similar to the post or page lists in WordPress, here you can see all the events you have, alongside the at a glance information.
ID: The event ID, often used in coding. Don’t confuse this with the Event Identifier.
Name: The event name, this will be displayed on the site. Hovering your mouse over this shows some quick options (View, Edit, Delete, Attendees, Export)
Venue: If you have a venue attached to the event, its name will display here.
Start Date: The start date of the event.
Start Time: The start time of the event.
DoW: The day of the Week the start date is on.
Reg Begins: The full date and time of when registration begins.
Status: See the filters above for details.
Attendees: Shows the number of attendees registered against the max number of attendees set for the event.
Actions: These icons show different actions you can make with the events. See below.
Actions Explained
View Event: Opens up the event registration page in a new window.
Edit Event: Opens the edit event page.
Event Attendees: Opens the attendee list for that event.
View Report: Opens the attendee list for that page with added informational graphs.
Short Code: Shows a pop up with the short url and shortcode for that event. The short url is the link to the event you can give in emails etc. The shortcode can be pasted into any post or page on your site and it will display the event registration details.
Excel Export: Exports a XLS file with the event and attendee details.
CSV Export: Exports a CSV file with the event and attendee details.
Event Newsletter/Email: Allows you to email all the attendees of that event directly from your dashboard. Useful for important event announcements.
Other Actions
Delete Events: When you select one or more events using the tick boxes or the check all tick box you can delete those specific events. Use with care!
Import Events: Import events via a CSV file. Please check out the sample file that we have provided, in order to make sure the events import correctly. Also not that the file must be a CSV file, not XLS.
Export All Attendee Data: Exports the attendee data for all of the events.
Export All Event Data: Exports the event data for all of the events.
Add New Event: Takes you to the Add New Event page.
Event Espresso version 3 Documentation for Email Manager
You can create custom emails which you can use for different communications relating to your event. For example, you could create:
Thank you for signing up email
Reminder emails
Payment emails
Thanks for attending emails
The great thing about creating emails from the WordPress dashboard is that you can insert tags to tell Event Espresso to insert registrant and event information, such as names or event names, into the emails.
Check here for a full list of the email tags you can use.
To create an email navigate to Event Espresso > Email Manager and click “Add New Email”. Add the email name and subject line.
To find tags that you can insert into your email simply scroll down to underneath the text editing field, and click “View Custom Email Tags“.
Write your email, adding the relevant fields.
When you’re done click “Add Email”. Your email will now be ready for you to use when creating your events.
Check out the Add New Event documentation for how to add your newly made custom email to an event.
Event Espresso version 4 Documentation for Messages
IMPORTANT
If you were previously using Event Espresso 3.1.X and had modified your email content, then you will need to recreate the emails in 4.X as they will not be transferred over when upgrading. It is recommended to back up the email html to a text document before converting your site over to 4.X, to allow for easier transposing of the email content.
In 4.X the messaging and notification system has been completely overhauled, and is much more flexible and powerful. One of the main ways of looking at the messaging system, is to consider the messages as groups of emails that are sent at a particular point. For example, the Payment Reminder message, will send 2 emails, one to the admin and one to the Primary attendee. Whereas the Registration message will send 3+ emails, one to the admin, one to the primary attendee and one to each of the additional attendees.
NOTE: Custom message types cannot currently be created.
The Messages section consists of two tabbed areas: Overview and Settings.
Overview
The default messages consist of:
Resend Registration – a reminder email regarding the registration.
Payment Reminder – a reminder email regarding payment.
Registration – the initial registration email.
Payment – the initial payment confirmation email.
The overview list shows various bits of information about the messages:
Event – the type of event that this message is triggered on FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THIS MEANING
Message Type – The name of the message
Messenger – This is important and is where you access the various emails attached to the message type. Clicking the Email link, will always show the default admin email. Clicking the Event Admin, Primary Attendee or Attendee links will show the appropriate emails for those people.
The Edit Message Template page is discussed below (LINK)
The On/Off button on the right turns toggles whether the emails are sent via the WP-Mail function of WordPress. If turned off, you will need to have another service available to deal with sending emails.
WARNING: If set to Off, absolutely NO email messages will be sent out.
Each grey box contains further information and settings for those particular messages, hover you mouse and click the arrow image to expand the boxes.
This is the heart of the individual emails. From here you can customize the email to be perfect for your recipient.
In the top left of the page is a drop down box where you can easily swap between the different emails within this message group. Remember to save any changes before swapping!
There is also a Preview button to show you a mock-up of how the email will appear to most people (note this will never be 100% due to some people not allowing images, etc. in their emails).
Messages Shortcodes can be used in all the fields on the edit message template page.
To – Required. Who the email will be sent to, you can use the shortcodes here or enter a direct email address.
From – Required. Who the email is coming from, you can use the shortcodes here or enter a direct email address.
Subject – The subject line of the email, shortcodes can also be used here.
Attendee List – Currently only available on Admin related emails. Here you can style how the attendee data is shown to the admin. Shortcodes can be used here.
Event List – This section creates the content for the [EVENT_LIST] message shortcode, which is normally added to the Main Content section.
Main Content – This section is where you can add the non-event information, such as company branding, contact information etc. The event related data can be inserted via the messaging [EVENT_LIST] shortcode.
Update Actions:
Override all custom – to be confirmed.
Save and Close – save your changes and return to the Messages Overview
Save – save your changes and stay on the same page.
Extra Actions:
To – Who to send the test email to.
Reset Templates – reset the message template back to the default settings and content.
Test Send – sends a test email to the email address in the To field.
Valid Shortcodes – these shortcodes insert various information into the emails. Only usable in messages, not in events.
Posted in | Comments Off on Email Manager (3.1.x) & Messages (4.0+)
If your events use separate venues other than your companies own location, then you can set up different venues which can be added to an event. The venues are individual profiles that can be reused again and again for other events. This can save you time and money by not having to re-create the venue or location information multiple times.
The first step is to head to the Venue Manager page via the Event Espresso menu. If for some reason you cannot see this menu item, go to General Settings > Optional Event Settings and make sure “Use the Venue Manager?” is set to Yes.
If you only host events at your company’s location, feel free to skip this step and head on to the Create Question Forms section.
Add a Venue
Click “Add New Venue”.
Add your venue’s name and address details.
There is also room to add contact information for a contact based at the venue.
Optionally add a description of the venue.
Once you’re happy with your information click “Save”. Your venue will now be available for you to use when you create an event.
When you create a new event or edit an existing event, you will be able to select the new venue you created from the Select from Venue Manager list.
After you select the venue, be sure to click “Save” in the event editor to update and save the venue you selected. Now the venue information you created in the Venue profile will show on the event details page.
Now that you have Event Espresso installed, you will need to make sure all the basic settings are in order.
These can be tweaked later, but let’s go through them now so that you understand what everything does.
First, log in to WordPress and navigate to Event Espresso > General Settings.
This page is split up into 6 parts:
Organization Settings: Your business contact details, logo, and time and date settings
Page Settings: Decide which page the core Event Espresso Functions will be on
Email Settings: Basic email settings, and creation of default emails
Optional Event Settings: Advanced event settings
reCAPTCHA Settings: Settings for the reCAPTCHA anti-spam system
Support Licence: Site licence key section
In this Getting Started guide we are only going to cover the first two sections. For more detailed information, check out the General Settings documentation.
Organization Settings
It is important that you fill out this section and make sure the details are correct. These settings tell Event Espresso who you are and will be used again and again throughout the event creation process.
Company Logo: add your logo here to enable branding of your invoices, tickets, and payment templates.
Contact information – all of your basic contact information. Your organization’s name will appear on all of your correspondence. Make sure you add your organization’s country, as this determines what currency is shown. The email section here is where all notifications will go to, so make sure it’s correct. Please note: By default, you can enter only one email address in this field. If you wish to have more than one primary contact email address entered here, you’ll need to hook into the wp_mail() function so it overrides the “Reply to:” address when sending out notifications from Event Espresso.
Time & Date – choose the correct time zone to ensure that your event registrations open and close at the correct time. Please do not use UTC time. Please find the closest city to where you are, otherwise some aspects of the plugin will not work.
Make sure your time is set to the closest city to your location. If you leave the time as the default UTC setting, some parts of Event Espresso may not function correctly.
Page Settings
There are a number of pages that you need to have for Event Espresso to function correctly. When the plugin is installed, it creates 4 default pages for you to use.
All of these can be excluded from your website navigation. If you are using a WordPress 3.0+ theme with navigation support then you can do this by omitting the pages from the menu you create at Appearance > Menu. If your theme does not have nav menu support you can use the Exclude Pages from Navigation plugin.
Main Registration page – the plugin will create a page called Event Registration which will contain the [ESPRESSO_EVENTS] shortcode and will display your events as well as process the registrations.
Auto Return URL – the plugin creates a page called Thank You. This is where the user is sent to when they have completed the signup process. It will have the [ESPRESSO_PAYMENTS] shortcode on it and must be publicly viewable.
Cancel Return URL – the plugin creates a page called Registration Cancelled, and this is where a user is sent when a payment is cancelled. It can also be used to clear the session or cart when using the Multi Event Registration add-on. It will have the [ESPRESSO_CANCELLED] shortcode on it.
Notify URL – a page called Transactions is created. It is used behind the scenes to process the payments. It will have the [ESPRESSO_TXN_PAGE] shortcode on it. If you navigate your browser to this page, it will display a message that says “An error occurred. No ID or an invalid ID was supplied.” This indicates it is set up correctly.
The four pages listed above need to be published publicly if you are using a payment gateway to collect payments. They should not be set to Private or set to Password protected.
The Main Registration page can be in your navigation (or not) if you wish. The other pages MUST NOT be in your navigation menu.
The page settings let you adjust these pages. If you change one of the default pages, then you must insert the corresponding shortcode into the page.
So, for example, if you change the Main Registration page to My Events, you must insert the [ESPRESSO_EVENTS] shortcode on the My Events page, with nothing else there.
OK, now it’s time to move onto the next step, Payment Settings, and return to the optional settings at a later date.
= pending.
