CUNY Academic Commons

Update for everyone: I did some research and playing with plugins in the WordPress sandbox Boone made for me, and here are my findings thus far:

I could not find a booking or appointment plugin in a FREE ($0) form that would do what we want. But there are a few that, after playing with their live demo versions of the paid/premium options, look like they would provide capabilities we are looking for. They include:

1) The best option I could find = Booking Calendar: At its "Business Medium" paid level, it seems to offer all the functionality and customizability needed for my immediate purposes, as well as many more features that might be useful for others. But from what I can see, it is quite expensive. (http://onlinebookingcalendar.net/buy/)

2) WP Booking Calendar: This plugin seems from their demo pages to do what I want, but since even the most basic version of it is paid, I could not test it completely. (http://codecanyon.net/item/wp-booking-calendar/4639530?ref=wpmayor)

3) Booking System PRO: Similar to "Booking Calendar", this plugin would have way more functionality than my immediate needs, but appears to be adaptable to my purposes. I played with it as much as possible in the Wordpress sandbox, but of all three options, I am the least confident about this one, as I have had the hardest time deciphering if the paid version will do exactly what is desired.
(http://codecanyon.net/item/booking-system-pro-wordpress-plugin/2675936)

Aside from these paid plugins, another solution is the Gravity Forms + Events Calendar plugin I mentioned in my original ticket (https://wordpress.org/plugins/gravity-forms-custom-post-types/). However, note that I could not test this in the sandbox b/c Gravity Forms is a paid plugin.

I have hit a point where I am not sure what to suggest is the best next step. I will keep researching, but any second opinions on the plugins and options cited above would be welcomed!

Thanks for the update, Naomi. Regarding Gravity Forms etc: would it help if I installed some more plugins to the sandbox? I have access to Gravity Forms and can put it there for your testing if it'll help. If so, please give a list of the plugins you'll need.

Regarding paid plugins: One part of this is cost, one is ideology, and one is the practical flexibility of the license. I think the first is probably not a huge issue in any of these cases for a one-time purchase. The second - our desire to use free tools where available - is important, but certainly we can make exceptions for cases like this. The third is the most problematic. The licenses you've pointed to are either for a single site, or for five sites, or are one of Envato's invented licenses. We've had exchanges with them in the past where they've made it clear that the Commons as a whole does not count as a single installation. We could easily enough just ignore this, but it doesn't sit quite right with me.

If it turns out that one of the paid options are best for Naomi, my suggestion is that Matt review the budget and decide whether there are funds to cover the purchase of a plugin for exclusive use on a single site. If so, we will limit the plugin to being used on that site. I don't want to be in the business of counting the number of sites using a plugin and making sure they stay under some arbitrary ceiling, so I think that the "multi site usage" licenses are not a good idea. And we'll just have to bracket this discussion off from the larger discussion of what to do about events/bookings/appointments on the Commons as a whole.

Thanks, Boone. Naomi, I'll await your feedback. We definitely do have the budget to buy a personal license for one of the paid plugins if needed.

Hi Boone - Apologies for the delay in getting back to you on this! I am just diving back into it now, and my first thought is that it would be VERY helpful to have Gravity Forms in the sandbox, if that is still a possibility. I think that is the only plugin I will need for the time being.

There are a few free plugins that require Gravity forms in order to connect a form to a custom post type that will interact with a calendar/event post submission. One plugin works with Events Calendar, the other with Sugar Calendar, and I think there is one for the Google Calendar WordPress plugin as well. So if I have Gravity Forms in the sandbox, I can see if any of these connecting plugins will work and do what I want, and then go from there.

Boone Gorges wrote:

Thanks for the update, Naomi. Regarding Gravity Forms etc: would it help if I installed some more plugins to the sandbox? I have access to Gravity Forms and can put it there for your testing if it'll help. If so, please give a list of the plugins you'll need.

Regarding paid plugins: One part of this is cost, one is ideology, and one is the practical flexibility of the license. I think the first is probably not a huge issue in any of these cases for a one-time purchase. The second - our desire to use free tools where available - is important, but certainly we can make exceptions for cases like this. The third is the most problematic. The licenses you've pointed to are either for a single site, or for five sites, or are one of Envato's invented licenses. We've had exchanges with them in the past where they've made it clear that the Commons as a whole does not count as a single installation. We could easily enough just ignore this, but it doesn't sit quite right with me.

If it turns out that one of the paid options are best for Naomi, my suggestion is that Matt review the budget and decide whether there are funds to cover the purchase of a plugin for exclusive use on a single site. If so, we will limit the plugin to being used on that site. I don't want to be in the business of counting the number of sites using a plugin and making sure they stay under some arbitrary ceiling, so I think that the "multi site usage" licenses are not a good idea. And we'll just have to bracket this discussion off from the larger discussion of what to do about events/bookings/appointments on the Commons as a whole.

Sounds great, Naomi. I've added Gravity Forms to the site. Let me know when you need something else from me.