JEvents & JomSocial

This is exactly the right place to ask your questions - unless there are commercially sensitive aspects to the questions.

Well, I don't believe I have to take this offline, so let me take a swing at some technical questions we have.

1) Will JEvents allow for setting up Paid Events and Non-Paid Events? (I think I found this to be a yes)

2) When configuring a paid Event, is there a way to purchase directly from the Event itself, as opposed to clicking several times to get to the place where you register for the event? (Here again, I believe I found that to be a yes also - including an addon that shows you who has already signed up.)

3) When registering for a paid Event, I noticed you referenced VirtueMart. Do you integrate with any other e-Commerce extensions for Joomla?

4) Can JEvents handle multiple locations for events? (I believe this is a yes too.)

5) Is there a way to allow some people to create Events, but prevent others from creating Events? JomSocial Groups perhaps? That might be a question for the JomSocial folks, but you might know. :-)

6) Have you ever had someone want to replace JomSocial's EVENTS menu with JEvents? I read on your site where you can import JomSocial Events into JEvents, but my client doesn't want two separate extensions that perform the same function. I know JomSocial won't help modify the code, but I might be able to figure that out myself. Is that possible? I guess I'm wondering what you have found to be the "best practice" when combining. JEvents & JomSocial. (Assume Joomla 2.5.9 at the very least and JomSocial 2.8.2)

This client is terribly gun-shy as it pertains to JomSocial and VirtueMart. Why? Because the site is still running Joomla 1.5 and terribly old versions of JomSocial and VirtueMart, and a different Calendar extension entirely. We've looked over the new JomSocial and it's got a very clean interface. I have worked with VM some, but not enough to know if this client is willing to give it a second chance. That's why I asked question #3.

By the way, after reading up on your products, I really like several of your addon products. I can't wait to try them out, too.

Thank you for your help.
I look forward to your answers too.

Well, I don't believe I have to take this offline, so let me take a swing at some technical questions we have.
1) Will JEvents allow for setting up Paid Events and Non-Paid Events? (I think I found this to be a yes)

Yes using the RSVP Pro addon

2) When configuring a paid Event, is there a way to purchase directly from the Event itself, as opposed to clicking several times to get to the place where you register for the event? (Here again, I believe I found that to be a yes also - including an addon that shows you who has already signed up.)

did you see the demo videos (http://www.jevents.net/jevents-club/demo-videos)? You register within the event detail page.

You can configure the addon to hide or show the attendees and to whom.

3) When registering for a paid Event, I noticed you referenced VirtueMart. Do you integrate with any other e-Commerce extensions for Joomla?

You can pay using manual, paypal or authorize.net directly from RSVP Pro. The only shopping cart we integrate with (as a payment mechanism) is Virtuemart. We looked at RedShop but it was full of very basic bugs and difficult to interact with as a result. HikaShop looked good but to customise it enough to work with would require an enterprise subscription to HikaShop and we felt the combination of RSVP Pro and HikaShop would end up being too expensive.

4) Can JEvents handle multiple locations for events? (I believe this is a yes too.)

Not using the locations addon BUT you can if you use the managed people/resources addon which has the ability to create location type resources which you can attach to events with all the mapping features you would have from managed locations.

5) Is there a way to allow some people to create Events, but prevent others from creating Events? JomSocial Groups perhaps? That might be a question for the JomSocial folks, but you might know. :-)

JEvents permissions are either based on specific user permissions or Joomla user groups.

6) Have you ever had someone want to replace JomSocial's EVENTS menu with JEvents? I read on your site where you can import JomSocial Events into JEvents, but my client doesn't want two separate extensions that perform the same function. I know JomSocial won't help modify the code, but I might be able to figure that out myself. Is that possible? I guess I'm wondering what you have found to be the "best practice" when combining. JEvents & JomSocial. (Assume Joomla 2.5.9 at the very least and JomSocial 2.8.2)

Currently its possible to suppress the Events features in JomSocial and wrap JEvents within the JomSocial template thereby making it appear that JEvents is running the JomSocial events. BUT there is no guarantee that JomSocial could change their functionality in the future to make this more difficult.

This client is terribly gun-shy as it pertains to JomSocial and VirtueMart. Why? Because the site is still running Joomla 1.5 and terribly old versions of JomSocial and VirtueMart, and a different Calendar extension entirely. We've looked over the new JomSocial and it's got a very clean interface. I have worked with VM some, but not enough to know if this client is willing to give it a second chance. That's why I asked question #3.

By the way, after reading up on your products, I really like several of your addon products. I can't wait to try them out, too.

Thank you for your help.
I look forward to your answers too.

which payment mechanism did you want to use? Some clients have developed their own country specific payment gateways for RSVP Pro.

WOW!! Thank you so much for the reply, especially all the "right" answers!! :-) Seems like I'm almost ready to recommend the Gold Membership to my client.

Been running into a huge Joomla snag today (it's Monday after all) with regards to PHP versions. What version of PHP does JEvents 2.2 (latest) require?

Additional questions I had from my client.

1) Will paid events need to be configured in VirtueMart as well? In other words, will this be a double configuration for each paid event? (once in JEvents and once in VM)

2) How does JEvents pass information to VM or e-Commerce extension?

3) Is there an API we can use for an e-Commerce solution, assuming client still hates VirtueMart?

4) What Payment Gateways are available? Actually that might be a VM question. VirtueMart is the shop and I suspect they use gateways like PayPal, 2Checkout, etc.

Thank you again for all the great feedback and help!

Janis

JEvents needs PHP 5 at least - we've not tested it with versions prior to 5.2 for a while. 5.3 is recommended to be future proof.

RSVP Pro will 'auto-create' the virtuemart product and configure the pricing on the fly so you only need to configure Virtuemart once during the installation/setup.

Passing info to VM is via a custom field we create for VM using a VM custom field plugin. This way the product in the basket/cart/order is linked to the registration - the pricing is all taken care of by RSVP Pro and this plugin.

We support Paypal IPN, Authorize.net (SIM) and manual/offline payments natively and via VM all the gateways it supports.

You could create your own gateway for 2checkout etc. - based on either the Paypal or Authorize gateways. One is a callback gateway and the other is an inline gateway so there is an example of both to go on.

You are the best, Geraint! Thank you so much for all your answers. Just purchased the Gold Membership.

Can't wait to get started!

Do you recommend JEvents 3.0 or 2.2.8?

Guess it's time to move out of the Pre-Sales forum. :-)

JEvents 3.0 is where all the future development is going so for a new site I would recommend starting with JEvents 3.0.

I am using Jevents and Jomsocial in a very sophisticated business network. Every user has its own calendar embedded in his profile and ever ygroup has its own calendar.
Whenever an evennt is created, the creator has to specify, if the event is visible only to him, to allm user or only to his friends or the members of a certain group.
Thus, Jevents improves the functionality of Josocial and introduces a perfect event management system.

Hi,

I see that this topic has generated a lot of interest, and I want to know whether the following features are part of any plug-in/add on:

1. display the events that a user has subscribed to in his/her profile

2. display the events that are owned by that particular user in his/her profile page.

3. Connecting Event SHARE tab of Jomsocial with Jevents so that when user submits an event, it will actually work thru Jevents platform.

Regards,
Amir.

1. Events a user has registered for using RSVP Pro will show in the profile page

2. Events created in JEvents would appear in the creator's profile page too

3. You can import events created in JomSocial into JEvents (and keep this import up to date) and configure JEvents to redirect back to JomSocial. This allows you to use the JEvents calendaring and latest evnets modules etc and still use JomSocial to create and display the events.

Thanks for the feedback.

Re. item 3, how conveniently does the function of importing to Jevents happen (in terms of interface and having to do it manually/automatic)? As you know, it is quite important to be able to preserve JS interface and yet having Jevents as underlying platform.

Does Jevents additions/changes appear in JS stream activities?

I see that RSVP Pro works with J2.5 and Jevents 2.2 versions, and so is many other modules; what should I expect to have as latest version of Jevents and modules working with J3.x and JS2.8.x? How about being able to utilize Jevents 3?

Regards,
Amir.

You set up an crontab job (instructions provided) that automates the import.

Events added to JEvents CAN feed to the activity stream if you configure them to do so.

RSVP Pro (and 99% of club addons) works with JEvents 3.0 in Joomla 2.5. RSVP Pro is the last of the main addons to offer Joomla 3.0 support and that is now in beta testing.

Hi,

I am about to finalize all extensions and components for the project so I need to get all facts right.

Based on what you have said, my understanding is that Jevents 3 and all extensions are Joomla 3.x and JS 2.8 compatible, and RSVP Pro is the last item to be added to the list of compatible components; please confirm? Any release date for RSVP Pro final version?

(as you say 99%) Which of the other components are not Joomla 3 compatible; it seems JS plug-in works up to Joomla 2.5?

Regards,
Amir.

RSVP Pro should be stable in Joomla 3.0 within a couple of weeks.

the 1% are things like some newsletter plugins or integrations with Virtuemart that are not yet Joomla 3.0 compatible. If you find there is an addon that is not yet Joomla 3.0 compatible we will address it quickly - as I said RSVP Pro is the last of the 'heavy weights' and the rest can be converted with just an hour or two's work.

There are JomSocial plugins that are Joomla 3.0 compatible and I'm working on extending their functionality too.

Hi Geraint,

Although I have made the subscription purchase while ago, I have intentionally delayed download and install for purpose of making sure the add-ons have also been updated. Currently, I have J3.1.x and Jomsocial 3.x on my site, and I want to know particularly whether the RSVP and Jomsocial addons are compatible with the setup described in above.

Best regards,
Amir.

they should all work with Joomla 3.1 - if you have any issues just let us know and we'll look into them and resolve asap

My concern is with Jomsocial 3.x as well.

I checked with JomSocial 3 a couple of weeks ago and it was working ok.

Hi,

I would like to know whether it is possible for the user to use Simple Events Registration in order to announce his/her attendance at an event in his/her JS profile page and Jreviews detail page (thru a module)? Or, we have to use RSVP Pro for this purpose. Please guide me more on Jreviews aspect as well.

Thanks,
Amir