Wired Impact

I’m sorry you’re running into issues @covinahills and thanks for hopping in to help out @sterndata.

I agree with @sterndata that deleting the folder then trying to install again is the right approach.

Let us know how that goes.

Jonathan

That’s great that you translated the plugin into Russian. Unfortunately, you would have to submit online in order for the translation to work. You can submit translations by following the instructions on https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/handbook/tools/glotpress-translate-wordpress-org/. You can also find the page focused on translating our plugin into Russian on https://translate.wordpress.org/locale/ru/default/wp-plugins/wired-impact-volunteer-management.

The main reason for going through these channels is that there is no way for our team to verify the accuracy of the translations since we don’t speak Russian. By using the WordPress system to submit translations someone who speaks Russian and English can verify the translation.

I hope that’s helpful. Take care.

Jonathan

Thanks a lot @hbaer2. We really appreciate the kind words. Take care.

Jonathan

Good questions Tim. I’ve answered both below.

1. Is there any sort of roadmap you can share with features that are coming?

Unfortunately, we can’t share a product roadmap. We have a lot we want to do with the plugin, but since it’s free we always have to prioritize our paid nonprofit client work. Because of that, we can’t share any kind of timetable since it tends to change based on what comes up with our clients.

2. Have you tested the plugin on a multisite installation?

Yes, the plugin has been tested on WordPress multisite and is being used on live multisite websites.

Do you have any other questions at all?

Jonathan

Thanks for posting a support request @cassman. Similarly with your review, I’ll try to answer each one of your notes individually:

When someone signs up for an opportunity, a WP user is created with the role of “Volunteer” (is that the default or did I somehow set that up by accident? TBH I’m not sure, LOL!).

Haha, don’t worry. This is the default role. You didn’t set it up by accident.

Now, giving a volunteer a WP user account is fine, I guess, but what’s the purpose of it? Because:

(1) the user is not notified of the fact they now have an account on the site; (I’m looking into using WP Email Users to trigger an email to send login credentials to the user, but is there an easier way?)

(2) if I include text about their new account in the “Volunteer Signup Email,” they still don’t have a password, so they can’t login anyway. They would have to use “Forgot Password” to create a PW, which is counter-intuitive for someone who hasn’t previously been given a PW to remember or forget; (or again, is there an easier way to create and send a PW to this new user?)

(3) if they go to the trouble of setting up a password and then login, being logged in serves no benefit to them vis a vis this plugin. (Or does it? I don’t see any.) I would think that at the VERY LEAST, when this new user logs in and views an opportunity, the Sign Up Form could be filled in for them on an opportunity they haven’t signed for, and/or, for an opportunity they HAVE signed up for, it could show them that fact, and even possibly give them the ability to UN-sign up for it, or change their sign up info…

(4) Why the role “Volunteer?” Can I use this role with some other role permissions type plugin?

But my guess is these features aren’t planned because it would complicate the plugin. Creating a user is just an easy way to store volunteer info, right?

There is a lot to unpack here. Basically, the reason we used the WordPress user system to create the volunteers is for two reasons:

1. WordPress already has an entire system built around dealing with people, and that’s their user system. Storing information like their name, email and phone number is very simple to do with that system, and WordPress is already set up to handle it in the most efficient way possible from a performance standpoint. Excuse the poor analogy, but it would be like building your own trash can from scratch instead of using the one provided by the city. It’s true, if you build one from scratch it might be a more appropriate size and shape for your current needs, but it would take a ton more time to build your own and once the city changes the way they handle trash your can might become useless.
2. The second reason is really related to the first and covers many of your comments. By using the WordPress user system the plugin can be extended in a number of ways. If another plugin wanted to build out the permissions of volunteers, such as allowing their information to prefill into the form, they could. Or, for example, if you wanted to export all the volunteers, you can do so with a plugin like Export Users to CSV. By using WordPress’s existing system there are infinite possibilities in regards to how the volunteer system can be extended. And it also gives us the option to build out more of our own features in the future.

It’s true that initially being a volunteer doesn’t provide the volunteer themselves a ton of permissions, but like you mentioned, you can extend their permissions using one of the many role plugins available through WordPress. I completely understand why you want the plugin to do more with existing volunteers. We would too, but since this is a plugin offered for free we have to stick with the absolutely essential features given our team’s time and the complexity of building out some of these features. Most people who use the plugin actually prefer that volunteers can’t log in. If they can log in you end up having to deal with a mess of administrative tasks. People want to know where they should log in, what to do if they forget their password and why their information isn’t prefilling correctly, among other things.

My complaint is that the new signup’s email address is used as their WP Username. This caused me a headache when I tested the signup process using the same email address I use for my Admin account. I suddenly had a new user with the Username of my Admin’s email address — and both accounts had the same email address!

What you’re describing here shouldn’t happen given how the plugin is coded. The plugin actually uses the email_exists() function built into WordPress to check if the email address is already in use. If it is then WordPress only updates the information for that user. It does not create a new user. Would you mind testing this again and if it happens another time, please let me know the exact steps we can take to replicate it?

When I tried to recreate this by again signing up for an opportunity using my Admin email again, I used a dummy Firstname and Lastname. It didn’t create a new user the second time, but what it DID do was update my Admin user account FirstName and LastName.

In other words, if a NON-logged-in user signs up for an opportunity using an email address already used by an existing WP user, the First and Last name of the existing user — EVEN THE ADMIN — gets updated. That doesn’t seem like it should happen.

This is actually intended functionality. We’re trying to account for the fact that people’s names and phone numbers can change and we want nonprofits to always have the most up-to-date information. For example, if Annie Smith fills out the form to volunteer, then a year later fills out the form to volunteer again, but her name has changed to Annie Jenkins, we want the nonprofit to have the most current name, not the old one. That’s how we account for this. I agree that in certain situations this isn’t ideal. Someone could intentionally and maliciously try to change your name on the site, but they would need your email address and it would also serve basically no purpose for them to do this. That said, this is something we’re monitoring closely in the support forum to make sure a bunch of organizations aren’t running into problems here.

Thanks again for your detailed post. I know there was a ton in there. If you have specific questions about how to use the system it might be best to open up a new thread so we don’t end up having a bunch of conversations at one time. Otherwise, let me know if you have any other questions.

Jonathan

Thanks a lot for the very thoughtful and detailed feedback @cassman. We always appreciate when folks are honest with us about what’s working well and what could be improved with the plugin. I’ll respond to each one of your comments to provide some context, but also in case the information would help others.

I like how simple this plugin is to setup and use. Very intuitive, but that’s because it’s basic. Less is more, perhaps.

This is great to hear. Our number one priority with our work is to keep everything as simple to use as possible. Like you noted, we struggle with the idea of adding a lot of features as this naturally makes systems more complicated to use. That said, there are also features that hopefully make the administrator’s job easier.

1) No way to duplicate an opportunity. Seems pretty simple and obvious, and I doubt I’m the first person to have an identical event at the same place at a future time, but with this plugin I have to input everything again. There’s not much to enter (less is more, as I said) but it would make my life a tiny bit easier.

This is definitely something we’ve heard before and is high on our list of features to add. While it’s not as easy to build as just copy and paste since there is a lot of other information stored for each opportunity like publish dates, featured images, etc., it is something we would love to build out since it would really benefit those with recurring opportunities.

2) Recurring opportunities are essentially useless. I would use recurring opportunities as a stand-in for duplicating one time opportunities, but they can’t be displayed together for some reason. Even the docs suggest not using them. Not sure why they exist, TBH.

I would love to hear some more information about this. The flexible volunteer opportunities, which I assume is what you mean when you say “Recurring opportunities” are meant for volunteer opportunities that don’t exist at a specific date and time. For example, this might be an opportunity focused on ongoing social media support or a flexible summer internship.

In regards to displaying flexible opportunities with one-time opportunities, the issue there has to do with ordering the opportunities. One-time opportunities are ordered with the soonest opportunity first, but that wouldn’t be possible with flexible opportunities since they don’t have a start date and time. If you want, you can place both the one-time opportunities and flexible opportunities shortcodes on the same page. The only potential issue there might exist with pagination, but that’s not a huge deal.

Let me know if I’m misunderstanding your complaint here at all.

3) No way to setup time slots or shifts during an opportunity. At an all day event, I need 2 volunteers for 2 hours each from 9 to 5. All I can do as it currently stands is create 4 separate opportunities (9-11, 11-1, 1-3, 3-5) with 2 volunteer signups for each (unwieldy), or 1 opportunity for the whole day, where people sign up and then I have to ask them what time slot(s) they can work (extra work required).

I completely hear you on this one. This comes back to keeping the plugin very simple to use and allowing time slots would definitely complicate the WordPress admin. Like you said though, it ends up creating more work if that’s a requirement for your organization. While we haven’t heard this concern much in the past, it’s definitely one we’re going to keep in mind moving forward.

1) Integration with WP users. I would like logged in users to be able to sign up for an opportunity without having to enter all their information again. If this exists, I don’t see it. If it’s possible using some other plugin or extension, I haven’t found it.

Thanks for sharing this. This is good feedback and definitely something we’ve considered in the past.

2) I agree with the idea of showing featured images/thumbnails on the main Opportunities page. Also seems kind of obvious.

This one is unfortunately a little trickier than most people expect. The issue comes down to image sizing and the fact that themes tend to display featured images very differently. If we included code to display the featured image by default, we would likely have a lot of folks upset about how they display and the size of each image, since both are so dependent on the theme.

All that said, it is possible to display featured images using the templating system within the plugin. You can copy the opps-list-one-time.php file into a folder within your theme called “wivm”. Once that’s there, you can add the code <?php the_post_thumbnail(); ?> wherever you want the featured image to display. I agree with you it’s not perfect, and obviously not everyone would be comfortable making changes to the code, but hopefully it’s enough for those who really need to display these images.

Thank you again for all your detailed thoughts. They are incredibly helpful as we consider the future of the plugin.

Jonathan

Of course. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any other questions.

Jonathan

I completely understand. Let me know if at any point you’d like us to log into the site and take a look around. Otherwise, I’ll go ahead and mark this as resolved. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have more questions in the future.

Jonathan