I'm making a website for a choir and I'm considering using Umbraco as the CMS for the site. However there are a few requirements for the site, that I'm not quite sure if Umbraco can support it. I need the following:
1) A calendar on the frontpage, which displays upcoming concerts, which the normal website visitor user can click and see more info.
2) A calendar with rehersal dates, which only the choir singers have access to. Every singer must be able to access a rehersal and set he/she will come to the rehersal. Each rehersal should have a list of which singers who will attend, not attend or haven't answeredd yet.
Definitely both are possible within Umbraco but to achieve all that you want you will need some coding knowledge to implement.
www.ashgrove.school.nz is a site I built in Umbraco with calendar functionality.
From the information provided you are also wanting a member area (quite standard functionality) for choir singers - the part for confirming attendance could be achieved in several ways, namely:
1. Add nodes to the rehersal with the members name.
2. Add a relationship to the member and the rehersal.
Then you would need to code the output tp list who was attending.
So the calendar is pretty much out of the box, the rehersal attendance will need some development.
Coding is no problem - I've lots of .NET experience. I've already got the members area done - as you say, it's standard functionality. But can you give me some pointers to how you've built your calendar?
Ideally I want an administrator to create concerts and rehersals in the Umbraco adm-area and when the members log in, they can see the rehearsals and their current "attendance status". Is that possible to do?
Sorry I could have been more specific - I have used the calendar functionality from the Business Website Starter Pack package. I simply installed this package on a dummy site, worked out how it works and then took the bits needed and added to my own site. From memory it is just document types and xslt files.
With the calendar functionality you add a node for each event and so as originally outlined you could either add another node below the event for attendance of the person (this has the benefit of providing easy visibility in the back end) or work out how to add a relationship between the eventy node and the repsective member.
All the attendance functionality would have to be done using the API but is pretty standard functionality. Personally I think the idea of adding nodes under the event would be the way to go - it would seem a quicker and simpler solution to develop and as stated would provide simpler visibility in the admin area.
Adding relationships is probably the better way from a purely technical perspective but would then require some additional coding to display in the admin area ( a property on the event listing all members with associated relationships to the event). uComponents package does have a relationship type built into it.
Thank you for a really detailed answer. This has pushed me in the right direction. The calendar seems like pretty easy stuff, so now I just have figure out how to make the relationship between the users and each event.
If I understand you right, you're suggesting that the umbraco admin, should add each user as a subnode below each event? I don't like this approach as this will require a lot of work each time a new event is created (the choir consists of approx. 40-50 singers). So I think I'll try to make the relationship between the singers and each event in the database. That seems like a much more flexible approach instead of forcing the Umbraco model onto the event system.
In terms of creating the subnode, I was meaning that the choir member could do it themselves from the front end.
One way to do it would be create a user control with a button on it.
When the button is clicked by the choir member it would create the new subnode (In order for the information to be stored in the database you need to create a document, which you then publish (again in code behind) which then makes it available as a node).
You may need to add a property to the document type to record the member ID of the person - this would then enable you yo check if that member is already attending and so not display the button or provide a way to remove their attendance, etc.
Hmmm....that does sound like an interesting solution. I'll definitely look into doing that. I've already made a user control, which work fine, so I'll just have to make a user control which the users can use.
Is Umbraco the right fit?
Hi guys
I'm making a website for a choir and I'm considering using Umbraco as the CMS for the site. However there are a few requirements for the site, that I'm not quite sure if Umbraco can support it. I need the following:
1) A calendar on the frontpage, which displays upcoming concerts, which the normal website visitor user can click and see more info.
2) A calendar with rehersal dates, which only the choir singers have access to. Every singer must be able to access a rehersal and set he/she will come to the rehersal. Each rehersal should have a list of which singers who will attend, not attend or haven't answeredd yet.
Is this possible to do in Umbraco?
Hi Steffen
Definitely both are possible within Umbraco but to achieve all that you want you will need some coding knowledge to implement.
www.ashgrove.school.nz is a site I built in Umbraco with calendar functionality.
From the information provided you are also wanting a member area (quite standard functionality) for choir singers - the part for confirming attendance could be achieved in several ways, namely:
1. Add nodes to the rehersal with the members name.
2. Add a relationship to the member and the rehersal.
Then you would need to code the output tp list who was attending.
So the calendar is pretty much out of the box, the rehersal attendance will need some development.
HTH and Merry Xmas
Nige
Hi Nige
Thank you for your answer.
Coding is no problem - I've lots of .NET experience. I've already got the members area done - as you say, it's standard functionality. But can you give me some pointers to how you've built your calendar?
Ideally I want an administrator to create concerts and rehersals in the Umbraco adm-area and when the members log in, they can see the rehearsals and their current "attendance status". Is that possible to do?
Merry x-mas
Steffen
Hi Steffen
Sorry I could have been more specific - I have used the calendar functionality from the Business Website Starter Pack package. I simply installed this package on a dummy site, worked out how it works and then took the bits needed and added to my own site. From memory it is just document types and xslt files.
With the calendar functionality you add a node for each event and so as originally outlined you could either add another node below the event for attendance of the person (this has the benefit of providing easy visibility in the back end) or work out how to add a relationship between the eventy node and the repsective member.
All the attendance functionality would have to be done using the API but is pretty standard functionality. Personally I think the idea of adding nodes under the event would be the way to go - it would seem a quicker and simpler solution to develop and as stated would provide simpler visibility in the admin area.
Adding relationships is probably the better way from a purely technical perspective but would then require some additional coding to display in the admin area ( a property on the event listing all members with associated relationships to the event). uComponents package does have a relationship type built into it.
In either case you will have to build the functionality for the members to add / delete their own attendance "flag" - http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/reference/api-cheatsheet/relationtypes-and-relations
Does this help ?
Cheers, Nige
Hi Nige
Thank you for a really detailed answer. This has pushed me in the right direction. The calendar seems like pretty easy stuff, so now I just have figure out how to make the relationship between the users and each event.
If I understand you right, you're suggesting that the umbraco admin, should add each user as a subnode below each event? I don't like this approach as this will require a lot of work each time a new event is created (the choir consists of approx. 40-50 singers). So I think I'll try to make the relationship between the singers and each event in the database. That seems like a much more flexible approach instead of forcing the Umbraco model onto the event system.
Thank you very much for your help :-)
Happy new year!
Steffen
Hi Steffen
In terms of creating the subnode, I was meaning that the choir member could do it themselves from the front end.
One way to do it would be create a user control with a button on it.
When the button is clicked by the choir member it would create the new subnode (In order for the information to be stored in the database you need to create a document, which you then publish (again in code behind) which then makes it available as a node).
http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/reference/api-cheatsheet/creating-a-document details how to create a document.
You may need to add a property to the document type to record the member ID of the person - this would then enable you yo check if that member is already attending and so not display the button or provide a way to remove their attendance, etc.
Hope this helps
Best wishes to you too for a great 2013.
Nige
Ooops! Double post :-/
Hmmm....that does sound like an interesting solution. I'll definitely look into doing that. I've already made a user control, which work fine, so I'll just have to make a user control which the users can use.
Thanks a lot!
is working on a reply...