Planned Plugin Changes

Thank you very much. I am super grateful for all the work you are doing. The only other online meeting type I’ve been asked to add so far, is Skype, and that is being listed as “Email so-and-so at [email protected] for the Skype meeting details.” I’ve seen a few other Intergroup web sites list Google meetings; but none of the people in my area are doing those (that I know of).

Skype and phone teleconference services are the most popular solutions for online meetings in Poland. There are also many Discord, Google Meet and a few GoToMeeting meetings.

Skype and Zoom

@marekmierzwa, How are you using Discord? Is it for video and audio calls in a “chat room”? Or are you using more like Slack for texting back and forth between members?

Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!

One big complaint is when the meeting has the “Temporary Closure” flag set, the meeting is grayed out on both the website and the Meeting Guide app. This is true even though the meeting is still alive and well in the virtual realm.
Would a unique “Temporary Online” flag be more appropriate? The meeting displayed would not be grayed out but may have some other indicator that it is online.

@mikecnc,

We had a lot of people complain because the meetings weren’t grayed out :-).

But, I agree with your assertion that meetings that end up displaying the online tag should have something to show there.

Thanks for the feedback.

It might be helpful to show active meetings first, and theetje greyed out ones.

I have added (elec) for electronic meetings. Unchecked ‘temporary close’ and put details for virtual credentials in the notes field. Ungreys the meeting.

The “Temporary Closure” type is associated with the meeting not the location. The Meeting Guide app displays this type as “This meeting is temporarily not meeting” which of course is not true in the case of transitioning to online meetings. This is confusing to the users because they wonder is this meeting closed or not? I’m sure this is even more confusing to newcomers using the Meeting Guide app.

I don’t know if we need to convey what type of online tool is being used. We are ok putting that in the meeting info field.

We’d really like something we can associate with the physical location because in truth, the physical location is temporarily closed but the meeting is still ongoing in virtual space.

We are also getting requests for a separate spreadsheet on the website showing all the online meetings. We’ve been resisting that because we will end up supported two dbases with the usual issues.

Maintaining an association with a physicla location is helpful for people looking for a specific group, like “Saturday Beginners Group” that is in Beaverton.

We tried keeping a spreadsheet going at the same time we added online info to the TSML but it got really unwieldy as it grew, not to mention double work for staff (me).

Here is an idea.
My meetings are either open, closed or electronic. All meetings, whether grayed out or not, can be seen in detail. Meeting location is visible in list and in detail.

When you perform, as webadmin, a search for all TC meetings, the URL of the resulting page can be connected to a button or hyperlink. When clicked all TC meetings are shown in a list.

If you find a solution for renaming meetings that go online (mine have (elec) in front of the normal meeting/group name and TC has been unticked, so the meeting is not grayed our), then you can apply the same principle: copy the url of the page after you have performed a search for (elec) or whatever you choose to add to the name. Then connect that URL to a link or button.

The plugin has all of this in place for us to use. It should not worry about the data content but just about functionality.

I have picked up from the forums how to add a text widget to the header of the meeting. In that text are hyperlinks that do what is described above.

So there is no need for a spreadsheet, unless you really want to make that yourself. And IF you choose to do that, why not start with the export from the plugin settings page to Excel and use the info that is already in the plugin? Don’t retype. Just reformat the output.

Of course: it would be better to just have people use the website pages the plugin gives us.

Just my five cents.

My site is at al-anon.alateen.on.ca if you want to see how the links and buttons work.

We should be releasing 3.6.0 soon which will allow users to add an online meeting type and add videoconferencing URLs (initially for just some services; we’ll add them as we can) and phone numbers.

We still need to do more to how these display on the front end, and that will come as the .1 version.

I may have found a problem in the new 3.6.0 plugin. I just updated to it, and have started tagging online meetings as such. I have two meetings for Monday morning at the same location: one goes from 7:15 AM to 8:00 AM, and the next from 8:10 AM to 8:40 AM.

I updated the first meeting with the online info, and saved it. Checked it out (not logged in as admin) and it looks very nice.

I updated the second meeting at the same location, and see that the first meeting’s data is pre-populated in data entry field. Huh, I thought. That’s nice that I don’t have re-enter the telephone number. I replaced the URL and saved the meeting.

I went back and looked at the first meeting, and it now has the second meeting’s URL in it.

I suppose it could be that my browser is auto-filling in stuff it should not be; but, I don’t think so. If it is a bug, we probably want to quash it early.

If it helps: https://aa-tulareco.org/meetings/abc-group/?tsml-day=1 and https://aa-tulareco.org/meetings/abc-group-book-study/?tsml-day=1

The Zoom URL on those two should be different.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 12 months ago by degrees57.

@degrees57,

*** UPDATE: I just tested on my system (with 3.6.1) and did not see the duplication you’re reporting. ***

Please update to 3.6.1 and test again. If it is a bug, I doubt that will fix it, but I want to make sure our hiccup in our release process isn’t the cause of the issue.

If you do confirm (and I’m going to start testing on my side), would you please create a formal bug report for me at our dev site?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 12 months ago by tech2serve.

I updated to 3.6.1
I selected the new “Online Meeting” type through the plug-in UI but it didn’t stick after I updated.
I was able to add the “Online Meeting” type by importing the meeting csv file.
I was able to update a meeting using the plug-in UI with the “Online Meeting” type but I’m not sure why that worked but the prior attempt with a different meeting didn’t.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 12 months ago by mikecnc.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 12 months ago by mikecnc.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 12 months ago by mikecnc.