We have been using CiviCRM for event management for over a year. This list covers the sort of things that might be needed by an organization running a wide range of events and courses of different types.
Contents
Event management
- Easier search: There should be an equivalent of the quick search bar for contacts for events. We run close to a hundred events at any one time and it would be nice if we could access them from the front screen. The workaround using Views/Finder works but doesn’t provide access to all the event functionality.
- Configurable event dashboard: The dashboard as it is now is pretty much useless for us since it only shows about a dozen events (we need a quick overview of many more) without any clear indication which events make it there. Also, it would be nice to be able to choose the columns displayed. E.g. event type is irrelevant to most admins but they would appreciate more granular registration count display. This could be built in Views in Drupal except, Views don’t seem to have access to counts of users. Plus the links provided by views to event configuration and participant listing appear to be broken.
- Multiple changes to event configuration: Often we have lots of events that need to have a small change made to them – e.g. the event price or location or default profile. It would be nice to be able to make those changes at once. Also, it would be nice to be able to edit event dates and things like registration status inline without having to go to the whole edit interface.
- Participant info: Better access to participant info would be really great. It would be great to be able to configure what is visible at a glance or have the participant profile expand similarly to what happens on case listings.
Event functionality
- Multiple registration paths: We need to register tutors, volunteers and students for the same event and it would be nice if we could have a different registration page for each. Particularly for paid events where only internal staff get to attend free. Showing a free option on the registration page is unprofessional and confusing.
- Internal/hidden prices: At the very least, it would be nice if we could have internal/hidden prices for events. At the moment, if we want to give somebody a special price we have no way of accounting for it in the database. Some of this could be accomplished by CiviEvent discount http://drupal.org/project/civievent_discount
- Post registration contributions/Partial payments: We have a number of events where the participants have to go through an approval process before they are asked to pay. It would be nice if we could associate contribution pages with specific events and have those show up as fees. Even better, it would be nice if multiple associated contributions would add up to an event’s fee (for instance, deposit and full payment).
- Internal/external event titles: This is a small but annoying feature. We would like to be able to refer to events with internal titles that would be used for internal listings and long descriptive titles that would be displayed to students. This way, managing events is cumbersome within the existing interface.
- CiviAdmissions: Many of our events require the student to go through an admissions process. We use CiviCase for this at the moment but it is a big too big of an overkill for the job. It would be nice to have some sort of an event admissions workflow to manage event status. Perhaps per event type event status list with notes on each status and a record of event status changes on the event screen. Or an integration with CiviCase where a case status would trigger an event status.
Profile behavior
- Multi step profiles: This has been mooted elsewhere before. Here’s a nice way of how this can be accomplished but it would be nice to have this as core functionality: http://civicrm.org/blogs/kurund/using-civicrm-profile-survey
- Private profile titles: The profile titles show up on the registration form as is which makes it impossible for us to manage over 100 profiles effectively since we can’t name them in a descriptive way: “Short event initial info – Version 2 since May 11”
- Profile field logic: This has also been discussed. But we could really use “If you check X, Y becomes available/compulsory” kind of logic on profiles.
- Multi value fields in profiles: This is also not new and is standard functionality on most forms. http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php?topic=11563.0
- Contribution/participant fields on non-event related profiles: Very often we want to have participants submit additional details that we want associated with their participant profile and/or a contribution. It would be nice to be able to associate specific profiles with particular events and their related contributions.
