FLUG Case Study
FLUG – Conference and Event App
The Florida local users group and engineers nonprofit for continuing education came to us with a problem they needed to solve. They hold an event every year, sometimes twice a year, and they need a way for their members / attendees to register for the conference and also sign up for various workshops, sessions and lectures. While this seems straightforward, their specific needs required a custom solution, as no ready-made services or website add-ons could meet their requirements.
Sign up and pay for the 4 day conference with ability to pick any day combination
Sign up and pay for workshops, etc with mutual exclusivity. This is a 2part issue in that classes can only be purchased for the days they are attending, and since workshops vary in time – The ability to block a conflicting classes based on time as attendees cannot be in different classes at the same time.
Ability for companies to register multiple employees on the same invoice
Waiting list for workshops as many classes require laptops there is limited capacity
Track Attendees Professional Engineering (PE) numbers and generate Continuing Education Certificates when classes have been completed
Check in Attendees at workshops to track the Continuing Education attendance
Attendees have an agenda so they can see their class schedule
Track the attendee type and assign discounts such as speakers and sponsors
Lead generation for sponsors and attendees
Print color coded badges for attendees which identify the attendee type along with a QR code that can be scanned with contact information
What was interesting about this project was that several other web developers were unable to grasp the requirements. For us this just made common business sense, and it part of why we have been successful with software and internet solutions for over 30 years.
Believe it or not, there’s no event system that takes into account event and class conflicts. Say the event will be 4 days (Tue,Weds,Thurs,Fri). If an attendee signs up for Tues and Weds, then they should only be able to attend classes on Tues and Weds. Thurs and Fri classes should not be able to be purchased. Additionally the classes are varying times with 4 times slots a day, but some are both morning slots or afternoon slots, or there is a ¾ day or all day classes. To us, it is common sense that someone not be able to sign up for a class at the same time. Other solutions only exempt the EXACT same time, but cannot restrict a morning class and a ¾ day class. We immediately saw this situation and we built this into the solution.
The Solution:
We built the website using WordPress and WooCommerce. We created a custom plugin to utilize the main feature set and used custom fields on WooCommerce categories and products to track the time and location of all the various details of the workshops and sessions (classes). We use the WordPress users capability and added additional data fields to track the attendee type such as speaker sponsor or officer of the user group. We also added fields to track the various types of continuing education data.
Rather than use the traditional shopping cart method we use redirects to block the WooCommerce store and direct the customer to a checkout funnel that we built. This way the customer can select if they are going to register a single attendee or if it will be a company that will be registering multiple attendees at the same time. This also controls the flow so that the attendee registers for the day that they wish to attend then they can select the workshops that they want that are on those days and then they can select the sessions or lectures that they wish to attend after they’ve selected their workshops. This method allows us to ensure that various classes do not conflict with previous classes.
The next piece of the puzzle was how to monitor the attendee check-ins at the workshops for their continuing education credit. We built an app, available on the google and apple stores, that scans a unique QR code that is available in each classroom. This cut down on the management having to manually sign in the various attendees in each class. At the end of the class, the website checks the attendee list and marks the class complete and the attendee can print the Continuing Education Certificate from their dashboard. We added an additional check to make sure the attendee was physically checked into the conference. One other thing that made sense, was to alert the management if not all attendees were checked in to a workshop. Many workshops sell out and have a waiting list. The management can check if open seats and can send an alert via the app to the people on the waiting list that a spot opened up and another attendee can fill the open spot on the fly.
Another issue was that the sponsors wanted a way to collect attendee info during the breaks and meals as they had conversations. We added a lead generation tool in the app. Each attendee has a QR code on their badge with their contact info. Sponsors and Attendees can scan the QR code and add notes in the app and have a contact list in their website dashboard. This list can be exported and used how they see fit.
Of course there is a plethora of other issues that had to be integrated like reporting and order modification if the attendee needs to be changed, etc. but these are just a few of the highlights of a very fun project.
If you want have a project you need help with just give us a call and lets see if we can help you.
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