Add New Event

Tuesday, November 6th, 2012

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.

Add New Event

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.

 

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.

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.

additional-attendees-questions

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.

Image

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

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 Shortcodes take the form of:

<code>[EE_META type="event_meta" name="my_meta_key"]</code>

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:

<?php echo do_shortcode('[EE_META type="event_meta" name="my_meta_key"]'); ?>

Email Confirmation

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.

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Event Overview

Friday, September 21st, 2012

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.

Image

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.

event overview - filters

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.

event overview - event list

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 overview - other actions

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Email Manager (3.1.x) & Messages (4.0+)

Friday, September 21st, 2012

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)

Settings

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.

Edit Message Template

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.

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Adding A Payment Gateway to Event Espresso

Friday, September 21st, 2012

If you are planning paid events, one of the key aspects to it, is getting paid for your ticket sales!

About Payment Gateways & Merchant Accounts

Payment gateways create the connection between your website and your customer’s bank account or card issuer. When someone tries to make a purchase on your website, the payment gateway is responsible fo sending and receiving the electronic payment requests from your website to the issuing bank. Event Espresso’s payment gateway connections keep track of the payments that are attempted, and whether those payment attempts were successful or approved, declined or failed.

Merchant accounts are different, than payment gateways. Merchant accounts hold the funds for the transaction between both parties before the money is deposited into your bank account.

Payment gateways also have a different levels of security requirements and fees.

We highly recommend Stripe and/or PayPal Smart Buttons as your payment gateways because they help with security compliance, reach a lot of customers and are professional.

You can set activate a payment method by navigating to Event Espresso > Payment Settings. Event Espresso offers a wide range of Payment Gateways for WordPress, from the PayPal to gateways that are country specific.

Selecting and Activating a Gateway in Event Espresso 4

1. Inactive gateways will be gray, Active gateways will be green. You can get started by clicking on your preferred payment gateway. Then click on the green Activate button to activate the payment gateway.

event-espresso-activate-payment-gateway

2. After activation, you’ll see some settings that will need to be completed. These settings vary between payment gateways. Be sure to save changes by clicking on the Update Settings button at the bottom of the page.

If necessary, you can also deactivate a payment gateway in the same way by clicking the “Deactivate” button at the bottom of the page.

Event Espresso logs the payment gateway requests and responses in log files located in Event Espresso > Payment Methods > Logs. These payment gateway log files can help with troubleshooting payments.

Selecting a Gateway in Event Espresso 3

1. You can get started by clicking on your preferred payment gateway. Then click on the green Activation Box to activate your payment gateway.

select a payment gateway
2. After clicking on the activation box, you will be given some fields that you will need to complete in order to process transactions by this method. These are different for every gateway.

payment gateway options

Now that you are set up to take payments for events, there are still a few more steps you need to do to get started. Head on over to the Create a Venue page

You can negotiate rates with payment gateway and merchant accounts. Once you have a consistent volume of business, contact your payment gateway and/or merchant account (Stripe and PayPal are both a combined gateway and merchant account) to discuss what processing volume you need to have to get reduced rates. They will look at your risk profile, processing history, transaction size, refund and chargeback ratio, etc.

We highly recommend Stripe and/or PayPal Smart Buttons as your payment gateways because they help with security compliance, reach a lot of customers and are professional.

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Questions (ver 3) & Registration Form (ver 4)

Friday, September 21st, 2012

Jump to Version 3.x documentation

Event Espresso version 4 Documentation for the Registration Form

This three minute video shows how to create a new question, add the question to a question group, and assign the group to an event.

Important: please make sure that a question is only assigned to one question group. This will help avoid having the question duplicated on the registration form and causing validation errors that may stop registrations.

How to set questions for registrants

Within the event you set which question groups are required for the “Primary Registrant”, or the first attendee in the transaction, and also which question groups are required for the “Additional Registrants”. You can set the questions for the Primary Attendee by checking the boxes next to the applicable question groups in the section labeled “Questions for Primary Registrant”. You can set the questions for Additional Attendees by checking the boxes next to the applicable question groups in the section labeled “Questions for Additional Registrants”.

Maximum Character Length for Answers

You can set a maximum character length for all text-type questions, to limit the amount of data that is entered for each question. Just enter a number for the maximum number of characters in the Maximum Allowed Response Size field of the question editor.

Character Limit

Event Espresso version 3 Documentation for the Questions

Questions are used when you want to capture some more information from registrants. By default Event Espresso comes with two sets of questions, all of which are locked, though they can be edited in a limited fashion.

Event Espresso will always capture the users First name, Last name and Email address. The plugin also provides address questions built in.

If you want to add additional questions specific to your needs, then you need to add them here and then add those questions to a Question Group (see Question Groups).

 

Manage Questions

This page has an overview of all the questions, including the question name, values of the questions (for dropdown boxes etc) the creator, the type of field used, if its required and whether only the admin can see it or not.

questions - manage questions

Add Question

This page is where you can add a new question

questions - add new question

Question: Type the question here i.e. How old are you?

Type: The questions can be given a specific field to help get the right answer

Text: A single line of text field, useful for short answers with an unknown answer (e.g. Name)

Text Area: A larger area for paragraphs of text, useful if you need a registrants opinion, thoughts or information in detail.

Radio Button: Allows the user to select one choice from a list of many.

Drop Down: allows the user to select one choice form a list of many, takes up less space than radio buttons.

Checkbox: Allows uses to select one or more options.

Values: If you use a Radio Button, Drop Down or Checkbox type, then you will need to supply values for them to work. These are supplied as a comma separated list (for example: one, two, three).

Required: Is the user forced to answer this question? Yes or No.

Admin View Only: If this is selected to Yes, only the administrator can see this field. Useful for adding extra information regarding attendees without them being able to see or change it.

Required Text: If the question is required, and the user fails to answer it, whatever is typed here will show up when they attempt to register. By default it says “This field is required.”

Order/sequence: If you need to change the order of the questions in a group, adding a number here gives it “weight”. The larger the number the heavier it becomes and thus will sink down the list (i.e. a question with 0 in the order will be above one with 10, and the one with 10 will be above a question with an order number of 99).

Note: Since 3.0.19, you can reorder questions and question groups using the drag and drop interface on the Questions/Question Groups pages.

It is important that after you create a question that you go to Question Groups and add the question to a group, otherwise it will not show on your event.

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Updating Event Espresso

Friday, June 1st, 2012

The general procedure for updating Event Espresso via one click updates

Read the Change Log to familiarise yourself with the updated features.

Backup your database.

Backup your uploads/espresso folder if it contains any files.

Rename your uploads/espresso folder to stop any possible conflicts.

Modified files
If you have modified any of the templates, it is advisable to compare the original default templates from your version of Event Espresso, with the default templates of the new version. That way you can pinpoint any changes and apply those changes to your customized files.

Login to your WordPress dashboard and go to Plugins > Installed Plugins

Find the Event Espresso plugin and you will see a bar advising of the update, click Update Now.

Once the plugin has been updated, check the Event Espresso General and Payment settings to make sure everything is in order, and verify that the rest of the plugin is working on your site correctly.

Manual update instructions

If your version of Event Espresso does not have the automatic update feature, or you are running WordPress Multisite, please follow this procedure:
Download the latest version from your Event Espresso account page

Safari may automatically unzip the file after downloading. If the file does unzip automatically, you can right click it and click “Compress…”. To prevent Safari from automatically unzipping files, go to Safari->Preferences->General and Uncheck “Open Safe Files After Downloading”.

Backing up the WordPress database is recommended

Go to the Plugins page of your WordPress admin

Deactivate and delete the old version of Event Espresso. If you’re updating from an older version, it’s recommended to make a backup of the old version of Event Espresso and the add on plugins before deleting, in case you need to roll back for any reason.

Click the “Add New” link at the top of the Plugins page

Click Upload

Click Choose File

Select the .zip file that you have just downloaded

Click the Install Now button

Check the Payment Settings. If you have previously activated and then deactivated any of the payment options, these may be active with this update. Simply deactivate the payment option you are no longer offering.
Navigate to Event Espresso>Template Settings>Developer and check to see if there are template files located in wp-content/uploads/espresso/templates.

If there are no templates there, move on to the next step.

Modified files
If you have modified any of the templates, it is advisable to compare the original default templates rom your version of Event Espresso, with the default templates of the new version. That way you can pinpoint any changes and apply those changes to your customized files.
Important:
If you are updating from 3.1.15.P or lower, any changes made to gateway files will need to be redone into the new gateway files. Be sure to check wp-content/uploads/espresso/gateways for older modified gateway files before updating. These will need to be updated. If you offer Authorize.net SIM as a payment method, check your relay response URL setting in the Authorize.net account, it will need to be updated to the response URL as shown on the payment settings screen.

Add on Plugins

Check the version numbers of installed add-ons and update these as needed. If you leave older add ons, it can cause conflicts, so make sure you update all the add on plugins you are using.

Finish Up

Verify that everything is working correctly. If you have any questions or find a bug, please create a new topic in our forums

The general procedure for migrating from Event Espresso 3 to Event Espresso 4

Important:

Please read this article first:

https://eventespresso.com/2014/02/event-espresso-4-beta-officially-released/

Very, Very Important:

If you currently use Event Espresso 3’s promo code feature, wait lists, staff manager, or Event Espresso 3’s add-ons, please see this special note that was written just for you

Before you start a migration, backing up the WordPress database is recommended to allow for reverting to EE3 in case you want to stay with EE3 for the time being. Please note that if you plan on migrating the EE3 data you will need to be sure to have the latest version of Event Espresso 3 up to date before hand.

Step by step instructions on how to deactivate EE3 and install Event Espresso 4

Download EE4 latest version from your user profile page

  1. Go to the Plugins page of your WordPress admin
  2. Deactivate Event Espresso 3 and its add-ons
  3. Click the “Add New” link at the top of the Plugins page
  4. Click Upload
  5. Click Choose File
  6. Select the .zip file that you have just downloaded
  7. Click the Install Now button
  8. Activate
  9. A message will display that tells you that Event Espresso is in Maintenance mode. From there it will walk you through the steps to migrate the data from EE3 if you choose to migrate the data or let you start fresh with new data.

Post migration notes

  • Once the migration is finished, any upcoming events will display as a list on http://yoursite.com/events as a custom post type archive. You can change the ‘events’ slug to something else by following this guide.
  • If you used EE3’s event list shortcodes or event category list shortcodes on pages or posts, these will need to be manually updated. Please see the Event Espresso 4 shortcode documentation for more info.
  • You can revert back to Event Espresso 3 by deactivating Event Espresso 4, then restoring to the database backup that was made before Event Espresso 4 was activated.

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Securing your Registration and Payment Pages

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

Overview

If you will be offering on-site payment options (like PayPal Pro or Authorize.net) then we recommend adding SSL-encryption to your site. This guide will help you set up SSL for your Event Espresso powered website.

Notes:

Before you start, be sure you have a private (non-shared) SSL certificate installed for your domain.

If your site is hosted on WPEngine, please follow this guide instead:
https://wpengine.com/support/securing-all-urls-with-ssl/
The plugins mentioned in this guide duplicate already existing WPEngine features and therefore should not be used on WPEngine hosted sites.

Option 1: How to secure your entire site with Really Simple SSL

  1. Download, install, and activate the Really Simple SSL plugin.
  2. That’s it! The switch to https will log you out of the site, so you’ll need to log back in.

Option 2: How to secure only certain pages of the site with WordPress HTTPS

  1. Download, install, and activate the WordPress HTTPS plugin.
  2. Go to the HTTPS tab in your WordPress admin menu.
  3. You will want to enable Force SSL Exclusively if you only want to load your site in SSL on selective pages. (If you want to enable SSL on all pages you can use the other plugin recommended in option 1)
    If you have Event Espresso 4 you will also need to secure the WordPress admin by checking the box with the label “Force SSL Administration”.
  4. Now you will need to Force SSL on the Event Espresso pages that display the ticket selector and handle checkout. You can set these with the URL Filters > Secure Filters fields on the HTTPS settings page.

    Image

    Refer to the Page Settings in your Event Espresso General Settings to make sure you are updating the correct pages. If you will be adding new pages that have the Ticket selector shortcode on them, you can force those pages to be secure from the page editor.

    Secure post

    The pages that need to be secured are also listed in Event Espresso>System Status/ Event Espresso>General Settings>Critical Pages. These are:

    • Main Registration Page/Registration Checkout Page
    • Auto Return URL/Thank You Page
    • Notify URL/Transactions Page

Image

  1. Now you can go to your event list and do a test registration. You should be able to complete the transaction with SSL.

Other notes:

If you have Event Espresso 4 you will also need to secure the WordPress admin by checking the box with the label “Force SSL Administration”.

Event Espresso 3 only: If you have Multi Event Registration installed and are using the [ESPRESSO_CART_LINK] shortcode on pages and posts you’ll need to secure those pages as well.

If you are using the WP Users integration, you may want to enable FORCE_SSL_LOGIN or force SSL across the site to be sure that your members do not get logged out when the site they enter the SSL-encrypted pages. See Administration over SSL for more information.

Some WordPress theme authors and plugin developers hardcode “http” when linking to page resources like images and JavaScript files. This will usually lead to insecure content warnings. Theme files and plugin files may need to be altered to use the WordPress template tags get_home_url and site_url.

If you have WooCommerce installed on your site you’ll need to ensure that you do not have any force HTTP/HTTPs settings turned on in the WooCommerce plugin.

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Translating Event Espresso

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012

Event Espresso is one of the few event management systems that allows localization in your language. There are a few things you need to do or be aware of if you want to use Event Espresso in your language or translate Event Espresso.

Localize your version of WordPress

As of WordPress version 4.2 it is now really easy to change the language of your site.

From the Dashboard simply go to Settings -> General and scroll down to the bottom of the page. There you will see an option to set the site language:

WordPress site languages settings

WordPress will only display languages that are fully translated within the list, you can view all of the available languages for WordPress here:

http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_in_Your_Language
(Click on your locale for further instructions on how to set up the site language)

If your language is not available within Settings, but is shown in the above list you will need to manually set the sites language within your wp-config.php file using the WPLANG constant explained below.

Define the language of your site in wp-config.php (Site Settings in Multisite)

Now you need to do is set the language definition of the site in your wp-config.php file. Find this line:

define ('WPLANG', '');

and change it to your native language, e.g.:

define ('WPLANG', 'it_IT');

Note: If you are using WordPress Multisite, you need to set the WPLANG variable for the site you are working on via Site Settings. For multisite, go to Network Admin -> Sites -> All Sites and click on the Settings tab for the site you are working on. Scroll down (or CTRL/Command + F) to find the WPLANG option. Set this to the language code for the language you want to use.



This means it is possible to have a WordPress multisite set up to serve a separate language on each site (and have a separate, localized version of Event Espresso active on each — assuming, of course, that there is an Event Espresso language file for each site language).

Event Espresso in Your Language

If you would like to translate Event Espresso, we want to hear from you! Please see this page for more information and an application:

https://eventespresso.com/features/languages/

All our translations are submitted by users and could always benefit from vigilant updates and revisions, and new translations are always welcome. By letting us know that you intend to translate or update a translation, we can show our appreciation by offering discount codes or free copies of the plugin or add-ons.

To start translating Event Espresso, you must first follow the steps above so your are now using a localized version of WordPress. You will then be able to see your changes on your Event Espresso installation. We recommend setting up a local installation of WordPress via WAMP/MAMP/XAMPP if you do not want to make the changes on your live site. We also recommend using Poedit for the actual translations.

The Event Espresso translation files are available through our GlotPress project:

Event Espresso 3 glotpress project

http://translate.eventespresso.com/projects/event-espresso

Event Espresso 4 glotpress project

http://translate.eventespresso.com/projects/event-espresso-4

In Poedit, translating Event Espresso should be fairly straightforward. Select a line to translate, and enter the translated string in the box below. When you are done, click the Save Catalog button and an .mo file will be generated automatically. When your translation is complete, send it to support@eventespresso.com and cc sales@eventespresso.com, so we can test it and add it to the plugin.

Uploading your Event Espresso language files

Firstly we need make sure we are using the correct filename that Event Espresso is looking for.

EE3 allows for a single filename:
event_espresso-{locale}.mo

EE4 allows for two filenames:
event_espresso-{locale}.mo
event-espresso-4-{locale}.mo

{locale} will need match what is set for WPLANG which is taken either from the site language you have set in General Settings (which actually automatically sets WPLANG constant) or you match the WPLANG constant above if you set it manually.

For example if you have the site language set to French, this automatically sets WPLANG to fr_FR, therefore an example of your .po/mo files would be:

event_espresso-fr_FR.po
event_espresso-fr_FR.mo

or

event-espresso-4-fr_FR.po
event-espresso-4-fr_FR.mo

Now that you have your translation files (with or without custom translations) you will need somewhere to safely store them on your server so Event Espresso can use them on your site, we have a location for doing just that.

Using FTP you upload your .MO file to
/site_root_directory/wp-content/uploads/espresso/languages/

EE language files example upload

In this example the site_root_directory is ‘example’, if you are unsure please contact your host for further information.

Event Espresso 4 automatically downloads the translation files from github and places them within /wp-content/plugins/event-espresso-core-reg/languages/ this location is not to be used for your custom translation files as they will be lost on each update of Event Espresso and the github versions re-downloaded. The translation files in the location above will override the default ones EE4 downloads automatically.

Translation Resources

List of ISO 639-1 (language) codes — This is the complete list of language codes that should be used/referred to when creating a new language file. The two-letter language code should be lowercase in your language file, e.g. event_espresso-es_XX.po
ISO 3166-1 alpha (country) codes — This is a complete list of country codes that should be used/referred to when creating a new language file. The two-letter country code should be UPPERCASE in your language file, e.g. event_espresso-xx_ES.po
WordPress in Your Language — Official directory for localized WordPress versions. Translations may not appear if not using a localized version of WordPress and the WPLANG variable will not appear in Site Settings on Multisite without at least one language file in /wp-config/languages.
Translating WordPress — Codex documentation mostly targeted toward translating WordPress core, but can be helpful in translating plugins as well.
Translating WordPress into another language (themes and plugins too) — Excellent post that covers pretty much the whole process fairly succinctly
Poedit — Use this to create your language files (this is what we use, though other options are available).
WampServer — For setting up a local WordPress installation on a Windows PC.
MAMP — For setting up a local WordPress installation on a Mac (OSX 10.6.6+ for the latest version, OSX 10.4+ for MAMP 1.9.6.1)
XAMPP — For setting up a local WordPress installation on a Windows PC (Windows 2000 and above)/Mac (OSX 10.4 and above)/Solaris (8 or 9)/Linux PC.

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Events Calendar Add-on

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

The Event Espresso Events Calendar add-on is an easy way to display and register for events.

View quick links for this add-on –> 

Documentation for Event Espresso 3 is located at the bottom of this wiki page.


Need to buy a support license for the EE4 Events Calendar add-on?
https://eventespresso.com/product/ee4-events-calendar/

Installation for the Event Espresso 4 Events Calendar add-on

This add-on is a plugin for WordPress and can be installed through your WP dashboard (WP-admin).

Download the latest version of the Events Calendar add-on for Event Espresso 4 from your Event Espresso account.

Then login to your WordPress dashboard (WP-admin) and go to Plugins. Next, click on Add New –> Upload and browse to the plugin on your computer. Then select the zip file and begin the upload process. Wait for the plugin to upload and then click on Activate.

Setup and Configuration for EE4 Events Calendar add-on

Login to your WP dashboard and go to Event Espresso –> Settings –> Calendar. This will take you to the settings screen for the add-on. Below are explanations of the various settings.

Basic Settings

Time/Date Settings

Show Event Time in Calendar: Allows you to specify if the event time should be shown in the calendar?

Time Format: Select the format that the time should appear in. Learn how to customize the time format

First Day of the Week: Select the first day of the week. This day will appear in the first column of the calendar.

Show Weekends: Specify if weekends should appear in your calendar

Page Settings

Week mode: Determines the number of weeks displayed in a month view. Also determines each week’s height.
“fixed” – The calendar will always be 6 weeks tall. The height will always be the same, as determined by the calendar height setting or the aspect ratio.
“liquid” – The calendar will have either 4, 5, or 6 weeks, depending on the month. The height of the weeks will stretch to fill the available height, as determined by the calendar height setting or the aspect ratio.
“variable” – The calendar will have either 4, 5, or 6 weeks, depending on the month. Each week will have the same constant height, meaning the calendar’s height will change month-to-month.

Height: Enter a specific height for the calendar in pixels. This is optional

Link to Post or Registration Page: Select where the registration button on the calendar should take an attendee/registrant.

Theme Settings

Enable Images in the Calendar: This option can be used to show features images in the calendar. For best styling, use uniformly-sized images for featured images in your calendar. Recommended filetype: jpeg.

Enable Filters in Calendar: Specify if filters should be made available. Filters will let a registrant/attendee view a specific group of events either by event category or event venue.

Show category legend: Specify if the event category should appear above the calendar. It allows an attendee/registrant to quickly browse to a category of events on the calendar.

Use Color Pickers: This lets you customize the default event background color and text color.

Event Background Color: This is a color picker option for the event background.

Event Text Color: This is a color picker option for the event text.

Show Tooltips: Tooltips are a short description of your event. They will appear when you hover over a calendar event. This option will let you enable or disable them.

Tooltip Position: Specify where the tooltip should appear (when you hover over an event on the calendar).

Tooltip Style: Select a color for the tooltip.

Advanced Settings

Formatting

Header Style: Enter the buttons and title that should appear at the top of the calendar. View all available options here: http://fullcalendar.io/docs/display/header/

Button Text: Enter the text that will be shown on the buttons in the header. View all available options here: http://fullcalendar.io/docs/text/buttonText/

Title Format: Enter the text that will be shown in the header’s title. View all available options here: http://fullcalendar.io/docs1/utilities/formatDate/

Column Format: Enter the text that will be displayed in the calendar’s column headings. View all available options here: http://fullcalendar.io/docs1/utilities/formatDate/

Memory Management

Display Attendee Limits: This option will show attendee limits in the calendar. This will increase the queries on the database and may use a lot of resources on your site.

Disable Categories: This option can help speed up your calendar but will break any event category option on the calendar such as the event category legend.

Reset Calendar Settings: This setting will reset the calendar back to its default settings. Any exist settings will be lost!

Add the Calendar shortcode to a post or page

The calendar shortcodes allow you to display the calendar on a WordPress page or post. Unless otherwise specified, the calendar will show all events by month and exclude expired events. Here are some examples of shortcodes that you can place on a WordPress post or page to display a calendar:

  • Show a calendar with all of your events
    [ESPRESSO_CALENDAR]
  • Show events on the calendar and include expired events
    [ESPRESSO_CALENDAR show_expired=true]
  • Show events from a specific category on the calendar
    [ESPRESSO_CALENDAR event_category_id=your_category_id]
  • Show events from a specific category on the calendar and include expired events
    [ESPRESSO_CALENDAR event_category_id=your_category_id show_expired=true]
  • Show events from a specific event venue on the calendar
    [ESPRESSO_CALENDAR event_venue_id=your_venue_id]
  • Show events on the calendar by specific month (numeric value) and year (numeric value)
    [ESPRESSO_CALENDAR month=01 year=2016]
  • Show events on the calendar by month
    [ESPRESSO_CALENDAR cal_view=month]
  • Show events on the calendar by a regular week
    [ESPRESSO_CALENDAR cal_view=basicWeek]
  • Show events on the calendar by a regular day
    [ESPRESSO_CALENDAR cal_view=basicDay]
  • Show events on the calendar by an agenda week
    [ESPRESSO_CALENDAR cal_view=agendaWeek]
  • Show events on the calendar by an agenda day
    [ESPRESSO_CALENDAR cal_view=agendaDay]

Shortcode Parameters

The following parameters are available for this add-on. You can see examples of these parameters in use in the section above.

show_expired=false (set to true to show expired events)
event_category_id=456 (show events from a certain event category (e.g. an event category with an event category ID of 456))
event_venue_id=123 (show events from a specific venue (e.g. an event venue with a post ID of 123))
cal_view=month (set a default view for the calendar: month, basicWeek, basicDay, agendaWeek, agendaDay)
month=01 (set the starting month using a number (e.g. 01 for January or 12 for December)
year=2020 (set the starting year using a number as the year (e.g. 2020))
max_events_per_day=1 (limit the number of date times displayed per date to 1 in the month view)

How to start the calendar display on a specific month

You can add the month parameter to the calendar shortcode to start the calendar on a specific month. For example, if the events are planned to start on the month of September, you can use this shortcode: [ESPRESSO_CALENDAR month=9]

How to display a list of events instead of a calendar on small screens

You can use this excellent Mobile Detect Plugin to serve a list of events, week view, or other format, while still displaying the Calendar’s month view for larger displays. Some usage examples follow:

Use these shortcodes to show calendar on larger displays, list of events on mobile

[wonderplugin_cond deviceinclude="iPhone,iPod,Android"]
[ESPRESSO_EVENTS]
[/wonderplugin_cond]

[wonderplugin_cond deviceexclude="iPhone,iPod,Android"]
[ESPRESSO_CALENDAR]
[/wonderplugin_cond]

Use these shortcodes to show calendar on larger displays, grid of events on mobile (requires Events grid template add-on)

[wonderplugin_cond deviceinclude="iPhone,iPod,Android"]
[ESPRESSO_GRID_TEMPLATE]
[/wonderplugin_cond]

[wonderplugin_cond deviceexclude="iPhone,iPod,Android"]
[ESPRESSO_CALENDAR]
[/wonderplugin_cond]

Use these shortcodes to show month view calendar on larger displays, toggle table view on mobile (requires Events table template add-on)

[wonderplugin_cond deviceinclude="iPhone,iPod,Android"]
[ESPRESSO_EVENTS_TABLE_TEMPLATE template_file=espresso-events-table-template-toggle.template.php]
[/wonderplugin_cond]

[wonderplugin_cond deviceexclude="iPhone,iPod,Android"]
[ESPRESSO_CALENDAR]
[/wonderplugin_cond]

Troubleshooting the Event Espresso 4 Events Calendar add-on

The plugin does not work as expected. Can you help?
Please double-check your calendar is up-to-date and that the calendar shortcode is published on a WordPress Page.

Calendar featured images are cropped or not rendered to the correct sizes
For best results use uniformly sized and oriented featured images for the events. Use only jpeg files for best results.

jQuery conflicts
The registration forms and events calendar depend upon jQuery. If another theme or plugin loads jQuery after WordPress loads its version of jQuery, the calendar or form validation may break and therefore allow blank registration forms to be submitted and/or the calendar to disappear. This usually happens because a theme or plugin may be loading the scripts directly in the header of your site. The proper way of loading scripts is by using the WordPress function wp_enqueue_script.

This can also occur if a theme or plugin loads the jQuery Google api (as seen in the video below.) The jQuery loaded by Google is not compatible with the jQuery.noConflict function that is loaded automatically in the WordPress jQuery library.

For a fix, please adjust the jQuery scripts that are loaded in the header.php file of the theme or plugin to use the wp_enqueue_script method.

Below is a video tutorial on troubleshooting a broken events calendar. You can use this same method to troubleshoot other plugins and themes.

To run this test you will need the Web Developer Tools add-on installed in your Firefox web browser, or alternatively use the Inspect Element in Chrome.

wp_footer() is needed
The WordPress theme needs to call the wp_footer function in order for the calendar (and many other plugins) to work correctly. Look in footer.php theme template file and add this right before the closing body tag like this:

wp_footer();

Customizations for the Event Espresso 4 Events Calendar add-on

Our support team cannot write custom coding for you. Below are some examples on customizing this add-on.

Need to load the calendar via a theme template file? You can use a do_shortcode function to display the calendar from a custom template. Here is an example:

echo do_shortcode('[ESPRESSO_CALENDAR show_expired=false]');

You’ll need to set a variable and make a call to wp_enqueue_scripts() in your template. This will ensure that the calendar’s scripts and styles will load on that page. Example code to include at the top of the custom template, before the call to get_header() or wp_head(), follows:

if ( class_exists( 'EED_Espresso_Calendar' ) ) {
	global $is_espresso_calendar;
	$is_espresso_calendar = TRUE;
	add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', array( EED_Espresso_Calendar::instance(), 'calendar_scripts' ) );
	if ( EED_Espresso_Calendar::instance()->config()->tooltip->show ) {
		add_filter('FHEE_load_qtip', '__return_true' );
	}
}

Exclude events with certain statuses (e.g. cancelled, sold out) from events calendar

Custom ‘Register Now’ buttons

The button HTML is filtered within the calendar so you hook in and change the output if needed, for example, the calendar will remove the ‘Register now’ button for sold out events but it is possible to hook in and output a button for those events using this snippet:

https://github.com/eventespresso/ee-code-snippet-library/blob/master/addons/eea-calendar/tw_calendar_tooltip_reg_btn_html.php

Need to buy a support license for the EE4 Events Calendar add-on?
https://eventespresso.com/product/ee4-events-calendar/


Need to buy a support license for the EE3 Events Calendar add-on?
https://eventespresso.com/product/espresso-calendar/

Installation for the Event Espresso 3 Events Calendar add-on

This add-on requires Event Espresso 3.1.33 or newer. It cannot be used with old versions of Event Espresso 3.

This add-on is a plugin for WordPress and can be installed through your WP dashboard (WP-admin).

Download the latest version of the Events Calendar add-on for Event Espresso 3 from your Event Espresso account.

Then login to your WordPress dashboard (WP-admin) and go to Plugins. Next, click on Add New –> Upload and browse to the plugin on your computer. Then select the zip file and begin the upload process. Wait for the plugin to upload and then click on Activate.

Setup and Configuration for EE3 Events Calendar add-on

Login to your WP dashboard and go to Event Espresso –> Calendar settings. This will take you to the settings screen for the add-on. Below are explanations of the various settings.

Basic Settings

Time/Date Settings

Show Event Time in Calendar: Allows you to specify if the event time should be shown in the calendar?

Time Format: Select the format that the time should appear in. Learn how to customize the time format

First Day of the Week: Select the first day of the week. This day will appear in the first column of the calendar.

Show Weekends: Specify if weekends should appear in your calendar

Layout Settings

Week mode: Determines the number of weeks displayed in a month view. Also determines each week’s height.
“fixed” – The calendar will always be 6 weeks tall. The height will always be the same, as determined by the calendar height setting or the aspect ratio.
“liquid” – The calendar will have either 4, 5, or 6 weeks, depending on the month. The height of the weeks will stretch to fill the available height, as determined by the calendar height setting or the aspect ratio.
“variable” – The calendar will have either 4, 5, or 6 weeks, depending on the month. Each week will have the same constant height, meaning the calendar’s height will change month-to-month.

Height: Enter a specific height for the calendar in pixels. This is optional

Link to Post or Registration Page: Select where the registration button on the calendar should take an attendee/registrant.

Display Settings

Enable Images in the Calendar: This option can be used to show features images in the calendar. For best styling, use uniform images for featured images in your calendar.

Enable Filters in Calendar: Specify if filters should be made available. Filters will let a registrant/attendee view a specific group of events either by event category or event venue.

Show category legend: Specify if the event category should appear above the calendar. It allows an attendee/registrant to quickly browse to a category of events on the calendar.

Use Color Pickers: This lets you customize the default event background color and text color.

Event Background Color: This is a color picker option for the event background.

Event Text Color: This is a color picker option for the event text.

Show Tooltips: Tooltips are a short description of your event. They will appear when you hover over a calendar event. This option will let you enable or disable them.

Tooltip Position: Specify where the tooltip should appear (when you hover over an event on the calendar).

Tooltip Style: Select a color for the tooltip.

Advanced Settings

Formatting

Header Style: Enter the buttons and title that should appear at the top of the calendar. View all available options here: http://fullcalendar.io/docs/display/header/

This can also be used to include the various styles of calendar, an example:

month, agendaWeek, agendaDay, basicWeek, basicDay, next

The above would include buttons for all the different styles, plus the next button.

Button Text: Enter the text that will be shown on the buttons in the header. View all available options here: http://fullcalendar.io/docs/text/buttonText/

Title Format: Enter the text that will be shown in the header’s title. View all available options here: http://fullcalendar.io/docs1/utilities/formatDate/

Column Format: Enter the text that will be displayed in the calendar’s column headings. View all available options here: http://fullcalendar.io/docs1/utilities/formatDate/

Memory Management

Display Attendee Limits: This option will show attendee limits in the calendar. This will increase the queries on the database and may use a lot of resources on your site.

Disable Categories: This option can help speed up your calendar but will break any event category option on the calendar such as the event category legend.

Reset Calendar Settings: This setting will reset the calendar back to its default settings. Any exist settings will be lost!

Usage for the Event Espresso 3 Events Calendar add-on

The calendar shortcodes allow you to display the calendar on a WordPress page or post. Unless otherwise specified, the calendar will show all events by month and exclude expired events.

  • Show a calendar with all of your events
    [ESPRESSO_CALENDAR]
  • Show events on the calendar and include expired events
    [ESPRESSO_CALENDAR show_expired=true]
  • Show events from a specific category on the calendar
    [ESPRESSO_CALENDAR event_category_id=your_category_id]
  • Show events from a specific category on the calendar and include expired events
    [ESPRESSO_CALENDAR event_category_id=your_category_id show_expired=true]
  • Show events on the calendar by month
    [ESPRESSO_CALENDAR cal_view=month]
  • Show events on the calendar by a regular week
    [ESPRESSO_CALENDAR cal_view=basicWeek]
  • Show events on the calendar by a regular day
    [ESPRESSO_CALENDAR cal_view=basicDay]
  • Show events on the calendar by an agenda week
    [ESPRESSO_CALENDAR cal_view=agendaWeek]
  • Show events on the calendar by an agenda day
    [ESPRESSO_CALENDAR cal_view=agendaDay]

Shortcode Parameters

The following parameters are available for the Calendar add-on. You can see examples of these parameters in use in the section above.

show_expired=false (set to true to show expired events)
event_category_id=featured-12345 (show events from a certain event category (e.g. an event category with an event category ID of featured-12345))
cal_view=”month” (set a default view for the calendar: month, basicWeek, basicDay, agendaWeek, agendaDay)

Troubleshooting the Event Espresso 3 Events Calendar add-on

The plugin does not work as expected. Can you help?
Please double-check your calendar is up-to-date and that the calendar shortcode is published on a WordPress Page.

jQuery conflicts
The registration forms and events calendar depend upon jQuery. If another theme or plugin loads jQuery after WordPress loads its version of jQuery, the calendar or form validation may break and therefore allow blank registration forms to be submitted and/or the calendar to disappear. This usually happens because a theme or plugin may be loading the scripts directly in the header of your site. The proper way of loading scripts is by using the WordPress function wp_enqueue_script.

This can also occur if a theme or plugin loads the jQuery Google api (as seen in the video below.) The jQuery loaded by Google is not compatible with the jQuery.noConflict function that is loaded automatically in the WordPress jQuery library.

For a fix, please adjust the jQuery scripts that are loaded in the header.php file of the theme or plugin to use the wp_enqueue_script method.

Below is a video tutorial on troubleshooting a broken events calendar. You can use this same method to troubleshoot other plugins and themes.

To run this test you will need the Web Developer Tools add-on installed in your Firefox web browser, or alternatively use the Inspect Element in Chrome.

wp_footer() is needed
The WordPress theme needs to call the wp_footer function in order for the calendar (and many other plugins) to work correctly. Look in footer.php theme template file and add this right before the closing body tag like this:

wp_footer();

Auto <p>
If you view source and see much of the calendar content wrapped in <p> tags, try wrapping the calendar shortcode like so:

[raw][ESPRESSO_CALENDAR][/raw]

autop

Customizations for the Event Espresso 3 Events Calendar add-on

Our support team cannot write custom coding for you. Below are some examples on customizing this add-on.

Need to load the calendar via a theme template file? You can use a do_shortcode function to display the calendar from a custom template. Here is an example:

echo do_shortcode('[ESPRESSO_CALENDAR show_expired=false]');

You’ll need to set a variable in your template. This will ensure that the calendar’s scripts will load on that page. Example code to include in the custom template follows:

global $is_espresso_calendar;
$is_espresso_calendar = TRUE;
Need to buy a support license for the EE3 Events Calendar add-on?
https://eventespresso.com/product/espresso-calendar/

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Anti-spam & reCAPTCHA

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

Protecting your site against spam registrations is an important part of running an event site. Some webservers have safeguards against spam registrations while others do not. This guide will cover what you can do — both within Event Espresso, as well as with the help of your web hosting provider — to make sure you are covered.

You can find more information about spam and methods to counter act it in our blog post – Protecting your events against spam.

ModSecurity

The best defense against spam (comment spam, spam form submissions, spam user registrations, and spam event registrations) is an Apache (and IIS, and nginx) module called mod_security. From the website:

ModSecurity™is an open source, free web application firewall (WAF) Apache module…WAFs are deployed to establish an external security layer that increases security, detects and prevents attacks before they reach web applications. It provides protection from a range of attacks against web applications and allows for HTTP traffic monitoring and real-time analysis with little or no changes to existing infrastructure.

ModSecurity is available and active on many webhosts without any configuration needed. On other hosts, you may need to enable it manually or contact your host to ask if they can enable it. DreamHost has set themselves apart from other webhosts by adding an easily-configurable toggle in your domain settings to enable Extra Web Security which turns on mod_security. If mod_security is not a toggle-able setting in your control panel, and it is not active on your site, contact your webhost and ask them to enable it.

reCAPTCHA

reCAPTCHA

reCAPTCHA helps prevent automated abuse of your site (such as comment spam or bogus registrations) by using a CAPTCHA to ensure that only humans perform certain actions. You must sign up for a free reCAPTCHA account to use it with this plugin.

The reCAPTCHA settings in Event Espresso can be found in Registration Form –> Reg Form Settings. This page has the following options:

  • Use reCAPTCHA (Yes / No) – allows you to require people registering to correctly enter the letters in the reCAPTCHA message to complete the registration
  • Public Key – this unique key can be found by logging into your reCAPTCHA account and going to My Account –> My Sites and selecting your site
  • Private Key – this unique key can be found by logging into your reCAPTCHA account and going to My Account –> My Sites and selecting your site
  • Width – set the display size of the reCAPTCHA on the registration form
  • Theme – choose the color theme of the reCAPTCHA form (Red, White, Blackglass, Clean)
  • Language – select your websites’ primary language


reCAPTCHA


The new NoCAPTCHA ReCAPTCHA on Event Espresso 4


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 Reg Form Settings page and turn on reCAPTCHA.

WP User Integration

Another way of blocking access that doesn’t require reCAPTCHA is to have a member-only site. Require your users to register for your site before registering for events and make your events member-only with the WP User Integration add-on. This requires bots to not only spam-register for your site, but also spam-register for your event with the same username and password it used to create the spam user account. There are many plugins that can then be used to verify your users are human that do not use reCAPTCHA. Again, the best solution is to enable mod_security for the most protection.

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