Hey guys, I tried this with D5 and was never able to come up with a good solution. Anybody have ideas on how to accomplish this? Here's the bare minimum requirements I'd have:
- Create an event/service (this part I can figure out, lol)
- Schedule users for various positions (such as guitar, piano, etc...)
- Add songs and other things (such as special music, offering, message, etc...) to the event. (This much I can also figure out, but I'm open to suggestions.)
- A simple way to email only those scheduled for an event/service. Automated would be great.
Other features that would be nice:
- Auto-reminders for each service sent out the week of the service to those scheduled
- A way for users to block their availability for a particular date.
- A centralized place where a user could see at a glance what services they are scheduled for (most likely their user profile, I'd think)
There are a dozen websites that offer this service, but they are getting pricey for small churches. Planningcenteronline.com currently charges 29.95 a month for ministries over 20, and the space you can use for files and such is severely limited. I'd really like to come up with a drupal solution that churches could use on their own website platforms, or by purchasing a cheap shared hosting solution and installing drupal on it.
Also, is there anyone out there who would like a solution such as this for their own ministries? People who are already paying monthly for such a service as we are? Maybe if something custom needs to be written, we could pitch in together and save our ministries some money in the long run.
Anthony Pero
http://www.limafirstag.com
Comments
Limitations
You are going to have some limitations right off that bat which would require extra work. For example, adding songs and other things. Someone would have to do all the data entry for the songs and other things.
This could most certainly be done with drupal. I'm not sure how to do it off hand using out of the box modules, though.
Anyone else have any ideas?
Matt Farina
www.innovatingtomorrow.net
www.geeksandgod.com
www.superaveragepodcast.com
www.mattfarina.com
re: songs
On my site I created a content type of Worship Song and a Song List that has a relationship to Worship Song. When a Song List is created the person selects the Worship Songs that will make up that weeks sermon. This of course is all kept in an OG for the worship team.
Still trying planning the whole scheduling the band. We use PCO, but the worship pastor doesn't like to upload music to it so that is why I came up with the solution I have.
Possibility?
Haven't tried it but from the description this module could be worth taking a look at.
http://drupal.org/project/volunteer_timeslots
Unfortunately
Unfortunately, while volunteer_timeslots module allows people to sign up for a particular event, it doesn't allow the event creator to assign volunteers to an event. In D5 I was able to create a "songbook" and using node reference to assign songs to an event. I used usernode to create users as nodes, and used node reference to assign users to the event. I used node referrer to "backlink" scheduled events to the user's profile page, allowing them to see at a glance on their user profile what services they were scheduled for. I also was able to use node referrer to backlink services to the song page, to show what dates each song had been used in, much like PCO. Users were able to access the songbook from the event page, download songs and charts, etc... Nothing like the sweet functionality of PCO, but still usable.
Unfortunately, not being able to figure out a way to email just those users scheduled for an event was a deal-breaker, since it didn't actually save me any time, which should be the POINT of using technology in your ministry! So, if anyone figures out how to set this up and email people scheduled for an event, let me know!
Anthony Pero
Lima, OH
http://limafirstmedia.com
http://anthonypero.com/booking
Anthony Pero
Lima, OH
http://premiereventconcepts.com
http://tripsports.com
Rules?
Just doing some poking around got me this link to rules
http://drupal.org/project/rules, though I'm trying to figure out a way to do it with actions. I think many churches are looking for an module (or a way to get there) that will replace the cost of PCO, I know I am.
Module
I'm pretty sure a custom module will be needed to finish this off. What I'm really hoping to do is drum up some interest and share the cost with a bunch of churches, and have someone write what we need. Then we pay once, and the church at large can benefit. Anyway, if we get like 10 or 13 churches, I think it would be less for each of us than 6 months of planning center.
Anthony Pero
Lima, OH
http://limafirstmedia.com
http://anthonypero.com/booking
Anthony Pero
Lima, OH
http://premiereventconcepts.com
http://tripsports.com
Rules Module
I don't see from the description how the rules module would gather in the email addresses of just those scheduled. That's really the crux of the issue.
Anthony Pero
Lima, OH
http://limafirstmedia.com
http://anthonypero.com/booking
Anthony Pero
Lima, OH
http://premiereventconcepts.com
http://tripsports.com
similar project
Ran across this post. The feature requirements are similar to yours. Might be worth tracking.
http://arancaytar.ermarian.net/2008/11/10/event-management-drupal-introd...
Making Progress
I've made some progress on this just using contrib modules. I've successfully added the scheduling feature I needed through use of the signup module. It's a little awkward, however, to use. If you disable allowing users to sign up themsleves to the node, it still allows the admin to sign users up, which is what I want. However, to add users to specific positions, I'm using cck and userreference. Then, I have to click on a signup tab on the node and physically enter in user names again. Then it sends out confirmation emails, as well as a reminder email before the event.
It would be great if the signup module, or something else, would auto-populate the signup fields with users referenced in the node. How difficult would that be to code? Could it be written as a plug in for the signup module? Other than that, it does everything I need.
You can check out and play with what I'm doing on this at http://limafirstmedia.com/worship
username: guest tester
password: guest
This is a limited administrator account, so you can play around under the hood a very little bit. Don't worry about breaking it, I'm gonna blow it up and start from scratch next week.
Word of warning: I edited a contrib theme on this to make it variable width, and I haven't touched the iehacks style sheets yet, so it looks like crap on IE. I'm gonna start from scratch when I theme this for real, although the aqua marine theme is sweet looking!
Blessings,
Anthony Pero
Anthony Pero
Lima, OH
http://limafirstmedia.com
http://anthonypero.com/booking
Anthony Pero
Lima, OH
http://premiereventconcepts.com
http://tripsports.com
Just a thought, but if all
Just a thought, but if all the people who are being schedule are users...
on #2 you can setup a CCK field that refers to a user. Then have a CCK field, guitarist that looks for a user. It fills kinda like the tag taxonomy stuff does and is pretty slick. I've been using it to allow users to associate their accounts with spouses.
That's what I'm doing...
That's what I'm doing, I'm using a userreferrence field to select users of specific roles. I.E, Guitarists are given a role of guitar, and only guitarists show up in the drop down box on the node creation form. I would rather use taxonomy than roles, but I haven't figured out a way to tag users with taxonomy terms yet. So for now I'm using roles.
Current issues with my set-up:
Everything else works pretty good right now. I'm theming the site at the moment, but you can check out what I've done by looking at my previous post and visiting the site.
Blessings,
Anthony Pero
Lima, OH
http://limafirstmedia.com
http://anthonypero.com/booking
Anthony Pero
Lima, OH
http://premiereventconcepts.com
http://tripsports.com