I’m really happy to introduce you the result of our design work and our development plans.

Based on your comments, we have divided all recurring events into two types:

Events series – events that repeat monthly, daily, etc. For example, monthly meetings. These events have the same details, registration options, and other settings, but separate registrations for every event, and different registrants list for each event.

Event with sessions. For example, program/classes that have a schedule, like every weekend, and have a single registration. So, people register and pay once for the whole event, all sessions.

We understand that both scenarios are very important, but the first one is much harder to design and develop - our current event management system will have to be changed a lot. So, as we usually do, we decided to start with scenario #2 and then continue with the #1 later.

To see our design solution, click the link to open the presentation https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1g5aSw3lYej9PbRsPp9JURdvl9YgFdYVn4LD_L6UBZkc/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=15000 . Please, place your questions and comments here, in this thread. We will reply to you.
Scenario 2 is currently scheduled for v5.5 in July - see our Product Roadmap http://help.wildapricot.com/display/DOC/Product+roadmap . Note that dates can change any time.

Recurring events:

1. I'm putting in my wish for people to be able to sign up for several events in a series at once, though I know that's not yet on the horizon.

2. When we have the same people coming to an event series / workshop / whatever, it would be great to be able to import attendees from a previous event and then just make changes instead of having to enter them all by hand again.

Thanks

ruthiyael

Excellent suggestions.

Each week, our organization applies significant volunteer hours re-entering recurring events. We now have a reasonable proof-of-concept that embeds Google calendar for recurring events. We prefer a "pure" WA solution but we need a solution to the problem that recurring events consumes too many resources.

Recurring events is a tough issue for WA to fix; it has been an issue for several years. WA serves most of our needs well but the recurring events problem is a big one. I wonder at the scheduled solution for April because (judging from the past) it's a challenging fix for WA.

We'd be delighted with a simple fix for now.

We run a lot of bike rides every week, April through October, if not all year. It takes a lot of time to add them one by one. We would like to have a repeat choice for each day of the week so one entry can cover all Monday Night rides until X date.

Two things not to miss are around exception management: 1. The ability to modify a single instance (this week we will start at 7pm rather than the typical 6pm of the recurring meeting) 2. The ability to delete a single instance (e.g. this instance of the recurring meeting will be cancelled since it falls on a public holiday).
While recurring meetings would be a huge win for Wild Apricot customers everywhere there are other event management efficiency improvements I have outlined here: http://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8827492-bulk-event-management . Community, please let me know what you think about those ideas. Wild Apricot has such a great contact import/export functionality... I wish I could similarly bulk manage events!

I agree -- we are wasting hours and hours each week copying events. And when something has to be changed and it requires going into 20 or more events to make a simple fix, it gets really maddening.

The Google calendar approach for recurring events is wonderful. Can you just copy its functionality?

There must be some reason why this has not been done before -- there certainly have been plenty of requests for it. If that's the case, could you at least add a search box to the page where you have to scroll through to find an event to copy. We have hundreds of events and my eyes go bleary trying to find the one I want to copy so I can update it for the next recurring time.

I'd like to add my voice to this thread - having recurring events is really a necessity. As someone else has said, this has been requested since 2008. And clearly many people would like to see this available. Why has it not been done?

Google calendar has a very easy to use interface for recurring events. It's been done before, this isn't a radical idea!

Please add this to your next update.

I think the approach of copy and paste of recurrence calendar event is incorrect and cumbersome.

If you have an event that recurs 20 time, you have 20 records. If you want to change the details that affect the event, you'll have to correct it 20 times. Not an easy task.

The approach should be 1 event record with recurrence as an "attribute". The GUI that list the events or calendar view will just regenerate the same record over and over again per recurrence date/time and frequency.

If you want to change the event, there is only 1 record to change. If you want to change just 1 instance of the recurrence, the single instance is a subset of the parent event, linked by an internal event number.

I believe that's how Google and Outlook handles recurrence.

Please consider this high priority. We just roll out this MMS solution to 260 members with multiple recurring events through out the year. It's the most painful point of the whole system.

I have asked for this update as well as it is very time consuming to have to create new events for each recurring date even when you can copy a previous event. I am very surprised to see that these requests have been made since 2008! Why is this taking so long?

Hi Folks,

I'm one of the webmechanics for a Toronto area yacht club that's recently adopted and licenced up for your system.

First, congratulations on getting v5 out. Major releases are HARD. But it must feel good to get it out there.

So, today I'm helping create events.... i find it hard to believe you haven't yet got a handle on recurring events. Clubs like ours run mainly recurring events, so this is going to be a bit of a pain for us, til you address this.

Here's a couple of suggestions for a way to maybe bridge the gap:

- copying events is workable, but cumbersome, especially if the event details need updating. How about this: the option to make the copied events true clones of a master event, so that when you edit the details of the master event, all the clones are updated?

- the clone dialog could include 'cloning' preferences: type of clone (weekly, monthly, specific date...) and the start and end dates over which to 'clone'

Thanks for your consideration.

I'll add my vote; this should be basic calendar management capability.

I'm not concerned with the payments feature.,I do however require the ability to setup recurring events, with the ability to individually modify each one.

Our group has two monthly events that happen at the same time and place every month. It would be nice if we could just use a recurring event feature, instead of having to copy the same events and re-create them every time.

Thanks

Telly

Yes, we need exactly this functionality, as well: register and pay once for a multi-week event, but all meetings show up on the calendar. This is huge for us.

I have to agree that this seems to be a huge gap in functionality especially since this is a very basic piece of functionality that every single calendar program on the market already seems to have.

We are a sailing club and we have many recurring events (Tuesday night racing, Sunday PHRF Racing, a separate Sunday Racing Series, Spring Adult Sail School, Fall Adult Sail School, etc) that occur one day a week for several weeks and the setup of these is very problematic. We are all volunteers (myself included) and with an annual change in positions, I am constantly assisting people with how to do this manually. I would like to see this feature sooner rather than later. Thank you.

I understand what you feel, but this was our development team call - they estimated it as a quite a big change, so we decided to take something else instead in first place. As I described in http://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8827717-roadmap-2015-plans-releases-expected-dates , we treat all features in the roadmap more or less equally, as all of them have quite a lot of people having voted for them - at least 10 different ones who decide to put the public comment, and probably hundreds more who did not.

I really appreciate the fact that some action on this important issue is in sight, However it is hard to believe that you see it as such a minor issue as to not even schedule it in the next 3 releases!

I believe there is a flaw in your update selection logic. Have you ever heard of the term "the silent majority" ?

Recurring Events is, without doubt, the most painful process on your site, yet it looks as though it could be at least another year before you address it. This issue has been on your list since 2008!

See http://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8827717-roadmap-2015-plans-releases-expected-dates

I posted in May 2011 and February 2013. Still no solution in sight.

I like the new version 5 so far but it might have added a step to adding events.

For our organization adding 1 recurring weekly event for a year takes about 572 mouse clicks and 52 times scrolling for the finding of the event you want to copy. As a comparison, with our previously free online calendar we used, it took about 20 to do the exact same thing.

For a software that manages website, memberships and events it should be a priority. Not something that's still on the wishlist after 6 years.

Not within 2 months for sure. As a rule of thumb, you should count on what Wild Apricot has at its current state - plans always change.

Our most immediate plan now is to wrap up our long development project and release version 5 - it takes all our resources (including new people). See http://help.wildapricot.com/display/DOC/Version+5+preview for more details.

Then we will switch to regular system updates, including recurring events (by the way, this feature is not in design stage)

When I was trialing WA, I noticed that I could add recurring events. However, I was so sure that I must have been doing it wrong or I must have missed it. I was disappointed to find that WA just doesn't have the feature. Since 2008??? You should have hired more people to help you.

I give classes every Saturday from 9-11 and they pay for the monthly session at once. Do you have plans to fix soon - is in the next two months? I need to know so we can decide what to do....