osnicky59

I understand the validity of the points made in the above posts, but I just want to balance the frustration about what is missing with my gratitude about what is already there. I think I could in no way or shape have been able to keep my 300+ meetings up to date in Covid times without this invaluable plugin.

Having said that, it might be a good idea to make an inventory of the functionality that we all feel we will need once we start to truly move into the next stage of Covid/re-opening.

I cannot speak to the GSO app as I belong to another 12-step program.

I like that we can tag a meeting as having a ‘Location temporarily closed’ tag. I also like that we have the ‘online’ tag and that it automatically uses the strike through font style for all location details. I like that the location is still visible, because I think that newcomers to our program, who meet people in certain online meetings, would benefit from knowing where to find these people ‘in the flesh’ once the distancing is over.

I happen to be an IT worker and I also happen to know that what sounds like ‘simple adjustments’ often sparks a lot of work behind the scenes. So instead of asking the development team this, that and the oter, why not try and keep this a bit more simple.

If meetings have an online meet, a physical meet in another than their normal location AND maybe at some point also their original meeting in their original locations, why not list them 3 times? You cannot be in two places at once, really, so people either go to one or the other.

This might require additional data entry, and that may suck for large areas, but does that not keep it the cleanest we can make it? We need not add extensive notes to the core group meeting. All we have to do in time is remove the ones that become obsolete as the world re-opens. I hear many meetings talk about maintaining their online presence even if after things go back to our new normal. So those meetings would require an additional listing anyway.

Next we would have to discuss what the preferred display style is of all these meetings.

A meeting that is no longer physically closed, can be shown in the regular way.
A meeting that is online, shows the physical details of the originating physical meeting as greyed out and strike-through, with the additional tag ‘Online’.
And a meeting that is held physically in a new location (park, someone’s garden, during a hike) is show with another tag. Not sure I like the term ‘hybrid’. What does that even mean to a newcomer?

Those who have seen my other posts know that my main data repository is not in WordPress/in the plugin. I use the import feature extensively and because I do not participate in the app, this is of no consequence to other tools that use meeting information. Thanks to this import feature, batch corrections are done quickly for all of my 300 plus meetings. It takes no more than 10 minutes at the most.

Bulk deleting is easy in the WordPress pages of the plugin. Bulk detail adjustments not so much. Which is why I have the setup that I have. It gives me full control and all I have to relie on is that the import feature remains as strong as it is today

Anyway: these are just my thoughts. Lets make an inventory of other opinions before we start asking fragmented features that we will probably all need….

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by osnicky59.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by osnicky59.

Hi Cory.
the issue with this is: how do you build your found set? As far as I know, the WordPress interface only allows for one type of search at the time. So using the function you are describing would require me to go to the full list and then tick the selection box for the meetings that have gone online or closed. It is just not very practical.

I would love to have an advanced search option so I can build a found set and then use this option.

Too much work right now with over 300 meetings, 175 closed and 80 online. When those closed meetings re-open (and they are scattered throughout the 30 districts in my area) I’d have to tick them all manually to include them in this option.

It will work find in a District with 30 some meetings but in bigger areas it just is not practical.

To make my life a bit easier I have renamed all online meetings so I can find them in one search and same with the closed ones. But I think I will keep using the re-import from my database.

I don’t blame the plugin for this complication: it’s just part of WordPress. It may be a content management system, but until it allows us to do more advanced batch actions, I am happy with my choice to manage data off-website and use the import functionality of the plugin – which makes it into an awesome tool for me.

Just my five cents…

Nicky

Hi Scott,

It is and it is not…
First issue: the development team, as far as I am aware, has not yet tackle the fact that the Export Meetings feature contains the same information as the Import Meetings.
Second issue: WordPress does not offer batch modifications (i would truly LOVE to see that as a feature)
I would suggest you wait and see if the development team can help you with this.

If you rely on just WordPress and the plugin for your data management, it might become a painful exercise for you.

But… here is something to consider in future: have an off-website repository in which you maintain the details about groups and meetings and do it in a tool that allows for the automatic creation of a csv.export file that the plugin can handle in its import.

My area (Al-Anon) has over 300 groups/meetings and I can update the lot within 10 minutes thanks to the import feature.
I maintain all data in a custom-built solution (this happens to be my daily job, so the choice was easy, keeping in mind that I do not want to depend on WordPress or plug-ins for my core group/meeting data). I use Claris FileMaker.

It’s not as if I never make small changes on the website manually in WordPress: I do. But if I have to make more than a few adjustments, I prefer to do it as a batch, so I understand where you are coming from for your website.

If you do not have knowledge or access to a custom solution, you could make a one time effort to capture website details in an Excel worksheet and then convert that into an ‘importable’ format for the plugin. The steps I take when I do a complete refresh would be scary if I did not have the independent solution because it requires deletion of all existing details and then a new import.

If you are AA, the team might not like you doing it this way, because the plugin website is synced with their accompanying meeting app, but in Al-Anon we do not have that app so there is no reason for me not to do a refresh like that.

If you feel like putting in the work, maybe starting from the export is a good first step, no pun intended ??

The export can be opened in Excel and you can then use that to add missing information.
The format of the import csv I use has the following columns:

Time,Day,Name,Notes,Location,Address,Region,Location Notes,Group,District,Group Notes,Types,Conference_URL

The change you are looking to make needs to be done in the ‘types’ column.

There is a bit more to it than the above, but feel free to contact me if you want more background.

This is just how I do it, others might have their own routines.

Best,
Nicky

Piggy backing on this with a question I have posted before but have not had a response to, unless I missed it.

Every group in AA and Al-Anon that is registered has a group ID by GSO/WSO.
I would love to have a box for that number and see it in the main editing list, so I can search by that instead of group names. We have multiple groups with similar names and it can be a bit of a drag to have to go through them to find the one I need to edit.

I currently have the group ID in the group notes, but not as a separate box. I think I have already entered it as a feature request ‘at the other side’.

Thanks for (maybe) considering it

Chiming in late here…
Just a thought or two…

It seems to me that we simply have to have additional listings if groups open up at their usual physical location and also have an online meeting, as TheViv suggested. One could refer to the other in the meetingnotes. If those online meetings stop at some point, delete those entries.

About complex searches for phone line volunteers:
Would it not serve us all if we had access to an ‘Advanced Search’ window?

I know a search by multiple criteria is not written in a minute. But if it existed, finding the data would be up to the website visitor and all the development team would have to do is write the code, without needing knowledge about any specific content in the checkbox values. Is this not keeping it ‘simpler’?

Wordpress is a fantastic tool for content management, but it is not a database system in classical terms. So expecting it to be able to do complex searches might be too much to ask for. It also requires some insight of the user of the website. It is not always the plugin or other tools that are missing functionality. Sometimes it is a matter of educating our users.

As a sideline for the development team:
In my line of IT business more and more technologies are going ‘codeless’. A good example of a simple online implementation of that technique is in Jotform. It is a tool that I use to build online forms for the website. These forms can be made conditional. What that means is: I define that, when Box 1 has the value ‘not applicable’ another series of Boxes is hidden. When Box 1 has another value, I can indicate to show those other boxes to be displayed. This can be defined in ‘flows’ without any knowledge of underlying code. The intelligence (with full code) is at a different level and the ‘normal’ user does not have to bother with it.

I am not sure that this already exists for plugin-buiders but I am fascinated by the new horizons that open up with these codeless platforms.

I just tested this:
Have a zoomlink in the classic way, showing the password. It prompts for the password and will not continue.
Then tried using the new zoomlink and the meetings opens up without the prompt.

Have you checked the URL linked to the button?
Zoom has changed their policy awhile ago and do no longer show the password in the URL link. It now shows up as a random set of characters. So if you had the combination of meeting ID and password in the link it no longer works?
I am just guessing, but that is where I would look first…

Gotcha. I think in Al-Anon our WSO (our equivalent of your GSO) manages ‘official’ and permanent online meetings. For the current situation they do not require us to register the temporary meetings with them. We also, as you probably already know, don’t have an accompanying app for the meetings.

I would say that the logic could possible be adjusted the other way around:
Leave the check box where it is or is not, and only force-fill it when a valid URL is entered. That would give us the freedom to check or not check it, without the risk of the plugin overruling us.

Like I said: the workaround is fine for now, as it does give me the flags that I was after… ??

I just tested out putting zoom.us into the URL field and that’ll do me for now. It does give us the button that then opens the general Zoom page. I guess it is better than nothing and because that URL is accepted, the online flag also appears.

I am hesitant to use a child theme, because I have heard conflicting reports about it. I am not a developer at that level and from what I understand, each update of the plugin might undo whatever I do in a child theme. So I will stay away from that.

As a database developer it does not make complete sense to me to make the check box content dependent on the button vice versa. The flag is shown when the check box is on ‘online meeting’. That makes total sense. The button is shown when there is a valid URL. that makes sense to me as well. If there is no link between these two, then it depends, as it should imho, on whether the admin actually checks that box.

But… this might be a matter of preferred approach. I can live with this work around. Thanks for suggesting it and keep up the good work!

I would like enter a request to change this.
I have a lot of meetings that wish to preserve confidentiality – they publish their meeting ID but ask people to contact an email address or a telephone number for the password. Some don’t publish their meeting ID. When this is the case I do not have an URL for an online meeting. I have renamed groups that have electronic meetings to ‘(elec) groupname” and this is my saving grace because I can still help people find those online meetings. But…. like is explained above, when the URL is not entered , the checkbox Online meeting is emptied.

So, I wonder if you would consider taking out that last part. Not all online meetings are equal after all. If I decide that a meeting should be labeled ‘online’ despite the fact that I do not have a valid URL, I think I should be able to do so. What are the chances of this being changed or solved i a different way?

My visitors have gotten used to seeing the ‘online meeting’ flag in the meeting list and some are afraid that if it says (elec) but not online people may think that there still a physical meeing.

I think the rule to empty the checkbox for online meetings that choose to not display the meeting ID is too strict. What do you think?

I just logged into a meeting using the button so I think it does work. Maybe double check the URL: you might have a small typo?

Question: the flag for online meeting still does not show for Al-Anon meetings. Is that still to come? I reported it as a bug so you should already have that original ticket.

Well, we do have quite a few members who cannot afford either dataplan nor internet so they have to dial in.
Right now, different discussions are happening and I just adjusted my site to reflect them. Our phone lines refer to online meetings but when they only see the button to go right into the Zoom meeting, they cannot tell somebody who calls what the meeting ID is.
I had refrained from listing it, for security purposes, but of course this means that the ID can no longer be found.
So now I have done both. The button brings people to the meeting, but the ID is also (again) shown in the meeting details. I think that doing it this way still offers some protection from computer trolling. But it also means that we need to make our meeting hosts aware of the importance of good moderating.
I find that although it is possible, hosting and chairing a meeting at the same time does not bring much serenity. So I ideally want someone else to do the chairing and pure Al-Anon business, and I keep an eye on who enters the meeting room. When they misbehave, I remove them. I like that Zoom now gives us the option of locking the room at some point so that people who are too late can not come in. With proper moderating I think our meetings can be fairly safe in this way…

If you have other views, would love to hear them. This thing seems to change every day and all insights are valued!

Maybe I am stating the obvious, but…
A CSV needs “quotes” around all values. It may be that you have not shown those for clarity in this post. The comma separates ‘fields’ but whatever is in those fields will no come through unless you put the quotes in.

One of my meetings produces a CSV output like this:

First row declares the fields, the rest is meeting details that follow that field structure.

Time,Day,Name,Notes,Location,Address,Region,Location Notes,Group,District,Group Notes,Types,Conference_URL,Conference_phone
“7:30 PM”,”Thursday”,”(elec) Aldershot Men’s AFG – Burlington (D14)”,””,”West Plains United Church – Burlington”,”549 Plains Road West
Burlington ON L7T 1H1
Canada”,”Burlington”,”Wheelchair Accessible”,”(elec) Aldershot Men’s AFG – Burlington (D14)”,”District 14 – Hamilton West”,”Group ID: 30647400, District 14 – Hamilton West. Meeting type: Al-Anon. Focus: Regular. Open to Families and Friends of alcoholics only. Men’s group. “,”,Online meeting”,”https://mcmaster.zoom.us/j/344909951″,””

So, it just happened again (or was just spotted). This time with two downloadable documents that are on a page. As I added them again (again! the originals were gone), I did notice that the link contains a reference to the upload date. It says:
“https://al-anon.alateen.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/A-Printable-order-form-update-July-2019.pdf”

So, is it noral that the date (2020/04) is shown and can this cause problems when I get to May? It would shock me if it did, but you never know. I have, at some point tried to find a plugin that would allow me to create more order and logic in the archive. I think it was a plugin that said it could download all docs from the Media Library but the resulting .zip was always corrupt so I disabled that plugin.

Any ideas?