Alex Sirota
My feedback
115 results found
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377 votes
Evgeny Zaritovskiy
responded
I merged another very similar thread into this one, they should be solved together – the registration to multiple events should be simple and fast if possible. There are a number of suggestions in comments on how to achieve this.
An error occurred while saving the comment An error occurred while saving the comment By the way, you’re never going to find a similar priced solution with this feature set elsewhere. Most systems are aimed at much larger orgs at 2-10x the cost.
I consider Wild Apricot the best deal in the AMS space and pretty much one of the only solutions aimed at tiny to small organizations.
There may be other systems like club express or mighty networks or bespoke WordPress powered systems but none will be as easy to configure or maintain. At least not yet.
An error occurred while saving the comment Michael
This integration issue is always a potential pitfall. But the API wild Apricot developed is the secret weapon of this system. It’s the place all integration will happen and what the mobile apps use.
Instead of relying on the company to innovate in areas where they have no skills (modern content systems) partners could step in like us. And we have and will continue to do so.
If it is commercially viable for us to make plugins and we think it is, we will maintain them for the long term. And the API will also be improved to include all parts of Wild Apricot. It’s already superb and we have built
Https://newpathconsulting.com/warm and
Https://newpathconsulting.com/waqm/ on it.An error occurred while saving the comment Michael
I understand your frustration. I share it. This is why this is not a workaround at all. Most AMS systems don’t even have a website module and integration is always custom.
Our solution is :
Inexpensive- just cost of hosting Wordpress
Capable - we spent 8 person months developing it this summer
Her have a roadmap to replace the whole WA website system with WordPress blocks and themes.
Give it a try seriously. You’ll love it.
An error occurred while saving the comment One potential idea would be to use WordPress to front end the whole event system and use a plugin to automate the registration to multiple events via the API. We are considering that using our plugin for WordPress
See https://newpathconsulting.com/wap for more.
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136 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment We just launched our new beta for Wild Apricot Press. It’s a totally new plugin that fixes many limitations of existing integration features and adds tons more functions as native blocks. Have a look at our free beta at https://newpathconsulting.com/wap
An error occurred while saving the comment Have a look at https://mcabc.org - a WordPress+Wild Apricot site we built for our customer Mechanical Contractors of British Columbia. The built in Wild Apricot website builder will *never* approximate a bespoke design. Don't even think that the company will focus any more effort into the builder. Heck they just removed the google map member gadget!
Read all about our project here - https://www.newpathconsulting.com/2020/09/mcabc-case-study.html
Squarespace, Wix and the other website builders make great brouchures. Wild Apricot is a database system first for associations. It is a website builder second.
An error occurred while saving the comment Check out our Wild Apricot Text Manager to help with theme customization and theme translation into 2 languages. We built this to make it easy to fully customize each theme without having to use the theme override feature. We provide this functionality with each website as part of our consulting service but you can download the WATM for free at
www.newpathconsulting.com/watm
Enjoy!
An error occurred while saving the comment A few more comments on customizing themes. Did you know that when you use Colors & ****** and make one change a special file gets created called customStyles in the Theme folder of your Files system. This file is actually the CSS of all customizable elements on your site. Making changes in some ways is EASIER on this file rather than the UI because now you know exactly which CSS class or ID is being modified. Now if you make a change in the UI it may overwrite this document. But once you know the class or ID you can search that on your page and know exactly what is being changed rather than guessing. Analyzing this customStyles.css document gives you a ton of ideas for customization the look and feel and is a great place to understand the CSS structure of a Wild Apricot theme. Here for example is what changes when you change the background image of the Site:
body
{background-image: url('https://sf.wildapricot.org/ThemeSharedRes/HeaderBackgroundImages/Bg-pattern-15.png');}Learning about CSS is the key to making WIld Apricot themes sing with delight!
An error occurred while saving the comment *****,
You can use CSS to modify a lot of the Wild Apricot website without changing the underlying template. Do you know how to do that?
An error occurred while saving the comment In case you want to check out the membership site in WordPress here's the link https://umichtoronto.org
An error occurred while saving the comment I have now had some experience building out equivalent functionality to Wild Apricot in WordPress. We built a membership site for an alumni club using several plugins and I must say the design capabilities in WordPress are superior to Wild Apricot. In most part this is because you are inheriting an existing template that looks good from the start. Is the functionality 100% equivalent? I don't think so, especially in the area of membership management, renewals. The plugin we used Ultimate Membership has some great capabilities that overlap with Wild Apricot but not quite as mature. There are others of course too that probably mirror. It took us 4 major plugins -- Mail Poet for email marketing, Ultimate Member for memberships/directories, WooCommerce for donations+ecommerce, The Event Calendar for event management. We also have Ninja Forms to create sign up forms to collect data through custom forms.
On the plus site the integration with a single sign on for membership + ecommerce is much superior to Wild Apricot.
On the minus side the event calendar solution does not have built in ecommerce and you'd need to use a form coordinated with ecommerce to build out custom registration forms.
In the end, the capabilities are much more flexible in WordPress, but you need to know what you're doing.
Wild Apricot is a perfect fit for new clubs/associations that don't have extensive design needs and ecommerce.
WordPress is a perfect fit for those that need a nearly unlimited design capability and ecommerce flexibility.
Of course with WordPress you own the code and need to maintain it, but there is no monthly increase in cost when you get to 1000 users. You just may need a better host to manage thousands of users at probably max of $50 per month in hosting fees.
Wild Apricot is really aimed at a special kind of association and club -- one without an internal Marketing/IT department or staff.
An error occurred while saving the comment A few observations we've had. Many customers come to us with an existing WordPress website wanting to integrate Wild Apricot into their site. They recognize the limitations of the WA design capabilities out of the box. It's quite interesting too because WordPress plugins and themes have a ton of capability and it is very likely that Wild Apricot like functionality can be assembled with lots of benefits.
Yet, they don't want to do that or invest in the exploration and testing required. There are just a lot of gaps and unknowns.
The Wild Apricot current theme functionality is actually quite mature. With theme overrides there appears to be almost a limitless set of capabilities, but there is one thing that really scares me:
Theme overrides override an existing theme. Once that theme is updated the override is probably totally separate from the underlying theme.
It would be ideal to build a stock theme built specifically for theme design. Then open a theme library where themes can be put into a marketplace. Some are free. Some are premium. Some start free go to premium. This theme development system in WordPress is one of the primary reasons WordPress has gotten so big -- that and the plugins of course.
I think Wild Apricot is quite close to that but the marketplace and ecosystem has to be developed with some marketing push from WA. I hope you consider this for a future effort. Your partners can help kick start this process.
ps. Custom WA theme designs right now cost $5000+ -- this is totally out of the range for investment for most WA customers unless they don't have an existing site and the current designs are not "worthy."
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34 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment We have fixed this issue and implemented a ton more with our new suite of plugins. Wild Apricot Press is in beta.
Https://newpathconsulting.com/wap
Have a look. You will be amazed.
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4 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Our new plugin Wild Apricot Press does this. Have a look
Https://newpathconsulting.com/wap
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6 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment We have launched our plugin with membership group support. Have a look at
Https://newpathconsulting.com/wap
An error occurred while saving the comment We are implementing this with our fork called WAWP. SEE https://waxm.newpathconsulting.com/wawp for more details.
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4 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment We have launched our Wild Apricot Press plugin to accomplish this and much more.
Https://newpathconsulting.com/wap
The beta is free!
An error occurred while saving the comment Check out https://waxm.newpathconsulting.com/wawp -- we have started development of a directory plugin that supports Wild Apricot member directories from 1 or more ** websites.
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14 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment We have launched our new plugin to support this and much more. Have a look
Https://newpathconsulting.com/wap
It’s currently free. -
10 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment We made a new plugin called Wild Apricot Press which has a lot of features the old plugin lacks. We also added native member directory support and have future plans to totally replace the website module with wordpress but keep the single source of truth in Wild Apricot.
The beta is free!
Https://newpathconsulting.com/wap
An error occurred while saving the comment We have implemented a way to create custom member directories from 1 or more Wild Apricot sites with our WAWP plugin. Visit https://waxm.newpathconsulting.com/wawp to download the WordPress plugin.
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13 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Our totally new Wild Apricot Press plugin is now available for free beta testing at https://newpathconsulting.com/wap
Have a look. I think you will be amazed. And we have a long road map planned.
An error occurred while saving the comment Check out https://waxm.newpathconsulting.com/wawp -- we have started development of a directory plugin that supports Wild Apricot member directories from 1 or more ** websites.
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3 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment We launched our new totally rewritten plugin here
Https://newpathconsulting.com/wap
Have a look.An error occurred while saving the comment We have started to develop a new plugin to eliminate need for iframes. See https://waxm.newpathconsulting.com/wawp for more details.
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10 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment We have launched our new plugin suite to support this venture.
Https://newpathconsulting.com/wap
Have a look at the free beta.
An error occurred while saving the comment Check out https://waxm.newpathconsulting.com/wawp -- we have started development of a directory plugin that supports Wild Apricot member directories from 1 or more ** websites.
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50 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment This is all possible now with our wild apricot press plugin for WordPress. Have a look
Https://newpathconsulting.com/wap
An error occurred while saving the comment Another idea for this request - allow limiting the # of members per page to show rather than defaulting to 50 for long lists and 10 for shorter ones. Also allow a member search ONLY without showing any members to start with. That way it's more of a member directory search engine rather than a directory.
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227 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment NewPath Consulting now has a custom mobile app solution that is totally customizable and runs on Android and iOS. Have a look at https://newpathconsulting.com/wamm
An error occurred while saving the comment By the way unless you are an app developer and pay 99 per year to Apple you cannot change the icon or name of an app dynamically. It is against the terms of the Apple App Store.
An error occurred while saving the comment It is possible to use the shortcuts app to attach a custom icon to the Wild Apricot member app.
See the attached Debbie Harry icon with a custom name linked to the members app via shortcuts app in iOS. Unfortunately this has to be done by each member so it’s not ideal but instructions could be made. A crap workaround but still a workaround.
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261 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment One thing I can recommend is if you need someone to look at content throughout the system but not make changes use the Read Only role. For many this is good enough to make decisions as exports can be made. Once things are running there usually is no need to make changes at all, so if you cannot abide by allowing module administrators to have access to make changes, then just switch them to full admin- read only. It works great!
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32 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment With Integromat it is possible to import invoices and payments from external systems. Have a look https://www.newpathconsulting.com/integromat.html
An error occurred while saving the comment We also have a customer who is transitioning off Salesforce.com and has financial transactions stored there. They can export this data in a simple CSV file. Even a mandatory format for donations import would be nice since we can transform the data to fit Wild Apricot's requirements in Excel before import.
Alterntively opening the API to support financial transactions would be helpful.
In the end this is about how much data there is to import. Clerically speaking, if there are only a few hundred this can be done manually using the backend UI. If there are a few thousands to tens of thousand it becomes quite a problem.
I have thought about a workaround that involves storing historical transaction data as part of the contact record but this really is the worst case scenario.
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1 vote
An error occurred while saving the comment See updates here https://waxm.newpathconsulting.com/watm
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249 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment This is possible with our custom reporting solution, which uses google data studio. Have a look:
Https://waxm.newpathconsulting.com/warm
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122 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment If you have multiple bank accounts, multiple currencies tied to each account would also be desired. Multiple currency support in general is missing right now.
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34 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment The idea of moving changes from one site to another is attractive.
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3 votes
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Michael
NewPath is a partner for Personify on both Wild Apricot and MemberClicks. We work together closely and try to understand each other’s objectives.
Personify is one of the only companies in the AMS space that has a partner program. They have that for a reason - all successful platforms need partners to make customers successful. Wild Apricot is an all in one solution, but it can’t always be everything for everyone. It’s not a Salesforce type system where you can model anything for a price. So they realize it has a very specific area of capabilities.
I can’t guarantee they won’t ship their own new WordPress plugin, but the lack of maintenance in the existing one tells me they probably won’t. Wild Apricot Login hasn’t been modified in any way in 5 years. They don’t have the resources.
As for price, our plans are to charge fees only for plugins that have a commercial benefit for the organization that uses them in. So if you use our future event registration plugin that will give you lots more flexibility than the built in event workflow WA has, that will hopefully be worth it because it generates value for your organization. This is the freemium business model many WordPress plugins follow. It will be a fraction of Wild Apricot’s yearly fee though.
The idea is to have as many clubs and associations try WordPress at no risk just to see how powerful it really is. It opens all sorts of capabilities unknown to date. And liberates you from needing Wild Apricot from building new features every year. It gives you many more choices!
My hunch is that they believe that Wild Apricot is mature and won’t be investing heavily in much more new modules. They probably will just maintain what they have refining any rough edges.
A modern, fast, responsive website is a must today and the built-in Wild Apricot website module only takes you so far. I hope others will consider this path to having the best of both worlds.