TOPIC: Would like to buy, but Demo seems crippled and noone to call

I'm searching for a Joomla extension to allow booking tours on my site, and DT Register appears to fit the bill on the surface, but I need to use the admin and frontend demos to see if it can do everything I need. I found links and logins to both demos, but I can't create new JEvents in the Admin ("you are not authorized to view this resource"). I also tried to edit an existing event with a future date to suit my needs, but the event doesn't show up in the frontend demo... so I have no idea how the event details look to the end user. There are so many options that connect to the Jevents (which I can't edit or create), so it's very difficult to get a feel for how things work in the "crippled" admin demo.

I might find some answers using the frontend demo, but it requires a user account to register some events and doesn't provide demos of events linked to articles.

I have tours that are once a month, some that are only offered a few select days of the year, and others that are available daily during June and July. I'd love to test each of these tour types, but the demo is not allowing me to.

My needs are:

1. Tour detail page (Joomla article) with text and photos, that links to the calendar of available dates and "make a reservation". Using a module to pull in a list of upcoming dates by tour title or category would be great. I do this all the time with a number of different photo gallery extensions, so it should be possible.

2. Need to have (a) Calendar view and (b) Event list view. Select a tour to view the short description which also has a link to view the full article for that tour, and another link for making a reservation. Would be great to show other dates for the same event.

3. Some tours are daily, and I've already discovered that DT Register doesn't support repeating events... so I know that I'll have to copy them (ugh!). Does this mean that for a month of tours, I have to create 30 different copies of an event in JEvents (then change the dates), and 30 more events in the DT Register component? Are the copies exact duplicates, requiring just the date change, or will there be more manual changes/settings necessary that don't automatically apply to the copies? I'm assuming the related JEvent will need to be set each time, but is there anything else?

BTW, if I could create JEvents, and copies of JEvents in the demo, I could answer this myself...

3. Is there any way to limit the number of registrations by the type of registrant? In my case, we need to limit the number of child tickets to no more than 2 per adult on the tour for safety reasons. So, if there are 30 seats available, only 20 can be children and 10 can be adults... a ratio of 2:1. Sounds complicated to solve, but is there any way to do this? If the registration system can't do it, then I should at least be able to sell and track sales of tickets by age group.

4. We have tours in the USA, Canada, and Australia. Can we list all event prices in US dollars, but offer the customer the option to convert to CAN or AUS funds on the reservation page? If so, how does the converted price get determined, since exchange rates are constantly changing?

5. Is it possible to display the number of registered and/or available spots on the event details page and the article describing the event?

6. If there are changes/updates to an event or new events added, will an RSS subscriber be notified?

I need to make a decision ASAP, so please advise me on how I can get help on this. If I could talk to somebody via chat or on the phone to ask and get some answers to my questions, or access to a backend demo that fully works, that would be great.

Thanks,

Harold

Check the demo site now. Someone had messed it up. It is in need of some TLC, we know, but it's back now. The frontend was not loading, but the backend was still fine. On the demo site, you should be able to create events in JEvents on the backend. It is not configured currently for frontend event creation/editing.

Regarding your listed needs...

1. Tour detail page (Joomla article) with text and photos, that links to the calendar of available dates and "make a reservation". Using a module to pull in a list of upcoming dates by tour title or category would be great. I do this all the time with a number of different photo gallery extensions, so it should be possible.

Not a problem. Each event can be assigned to an article. Then our EventLink plugin will automatically place a registration button at the end of the article. We also have an Upcoming events module that has the ability to also show category, location and price.

2. Need to have (a) Calendar view and (b) Event list view. Select a tour to view the short description which also has a link to view the full article for that tour, and another link for making a reservation. Would be great to show other dates for the same event.

Calendar view would be from JEvents. The event listing view would be what DT Register provides. Listing allows a short description then the Details button will take you to the article for full details.

3. Some tours are daily, and I've already discovered that DT Register doesn't support repeating events... so I know that I'll have to copy them (ugh!). Does this mean that for a month of tours, I have to create 30 different copies of an event in JEvents (then change the dates), and 30 more events in the DT Register component? Are the copies exact duplicates, requiring just the date change, or will there be more manual changes/settings necessary that don't automatically apply to the copies? I'm assuming the related JEvent will need to be set each time, but is there anything else?

When you copy, all details are copied. You would just change the date so it's not a big deal. However, another solution is that you could make an event, for example, for one week. Then use custom fields to allow the user to select which dates they want to regsiter on. You can limit how many times each option can be chosen, so it's like a capacity check on each checkbox, radio button, or dropdown selection.

3. Is there any way to limit the number of registrations by the type of registrant? In my case, we need to limit the number of child tickets to no more than 2 per adult on the tour for safety reasons. So, if there are 30 seats available, only 20 can be children and 10 can be adults... a ratio of 2:1. Sounds complicated to solve, but is there any way to do this? If the registration system can't do it, then I should at least be able to sell and track sales of tickets by age group.

You would make a custom field where the user selects if they are an Adult or Child. You can limit how many of each can be chosen during the course of that event. So if 30 seats are available, you set a limit of 20 adults and 10 children. Once the limit is reached for an option, that option will no longer show as a choice on the form.

4. We have tours in the USA, Canada, and Australia. Can we list all event prices in US dollars, but offer the customer the option to convert to CAN or AUS funds on the reservation page? If so, how does the converted price get determined, since exchange rates are constantly changing?

Better solution... DT Register allows you to set a default currency and payment setup PER EVENT. So you don't even have to mess with conversion. When you setup the event in Australia, it will use AUS. For you events in Canada, they can use CAN, etc.

5. Is it possible to display the number of registered and/or available spots on the event details page and the article describing the event?

The listing of events from DT Register can show: title, date, time, price, capacity, # registered, category, location as well as a link to the details article and a link to the attendees list. There is not presently a method of dynamically showing the number of resistrations inside of the article itself.

6. If there are changes/updates to an event or new events added, will an RSS subscriber be notified?

There is no RSS feed for DT Register. JEvents does have a RSS feed I believe, but I'm not sure what type of notification is made to subscribers.

Hope these answers help. If you still have an issue with the demo site, send us an email and we'll check it out further. Thanks.

Thanks,

I like most of your answers, but would like to try a few things out in the demo before I buy.

I tried again, and still can't add or edit anything in JEvents. The frontend demo is a complete mess, and there's no menu anywhere to navigate to any articles, and the backend is crippled too much to allow much editing. None of the events in the demo that I can navigate to have ANY information, text, photos or pretty much anything to SELL the event. The demo just makes you go right into the registration process every time. I created an article (Ultimate Adventure) then tried to link an event (TestEvent2) to it, but viewing the event doesn't show anything.

You should have this demo setup to restore to a working database every 24-48 hours, so when it gets messed up it's back up and running smoothly every day or two. Right now, it's making people like me frustrated and wanted to find another solution. Unfortunately for me, nobody else seems to have the same features... not that I can seem to see most of them in action before I buy.

What's your refund policy, if I buy this and then determine it doesn''t suit my needs?

The demo still doesn't work. You can't edit or add JEvents, and there is no menu to allow viewing created articles or for any sort of navigation. The frontend demo is a completely different installation, so you can't do much with it either. If you really want people to buy this extension on more than the features list alone... there needs to be a working demo that shows ALL or at least MOST of the features in action. If the user demo won't show the features, then the admin demo should have enough permissions to test the features. Right now, neither demo does much to show anything. I'd really like to buy this extension based on the features, but I need to make sure it will work right for my site... and right now, I can't make that decision.

If I buy a license, and it doesn't do what I need, can I get a refund?

-Harold

Sorry for the delay... but the demo has been redone a bit. The frontend demo at http://www.joomlaeventregistration.com has been setup with some additional features to show how the article details work, prerequisites, and other things. Also the backend demo is also cleaned up. To be able to create an event in JEvents, you need to use the demo1 user (pw = demo123) instead of a user account that you may have registered. Thanks.