Below is a dump of use cases that vistiors, users and camp organizers might need for Events functionality on g.d.o. that webchick, jerdavis and I came up with in IRC. :
Please add your own, and if some kind soul could also tidy this up, that would be super.
Event use cases
(possible mockup: https://img.skitch.com/20110423-dwx7gikkya2m38qsr48mpfbcy8.png)
- I am traveling to a strange new city, and want to easily find out if there are any events happening while I'm there.
- I want to find out what DrupalCamps/Regional Summits are happening around the world and when so that I can plan my year's travel budget
- I want a broad view of all of the events in groups I'm a part of
- I want a big-ass map of all Drupal events to show off how awesome and vast the Drupal community is! (yes!)
- I want a list of upcoming DrupalCamps in a particular region (e.g. East coast of USA, or Australia) so I can plan to present or sponsor
- As a student, I need to know what events are free or affordable
- As a [newbie|expert|designer|developer], I want to find events that cater to me, no matter where they're located.
- I need to see a list of all my upcoming local meetups so I can add them to my calendar/plan around them
- I need to easily find details of the next DrupalCon(s)
what about some of the "off" event types: online, training, "other"? what are the use cases around those?
- As someone who cannot travel easily, I need to know when upcoming online webinars/presentations are (and duration).
- I need to know if an online presentation will be repeated (if I cannot make it -ok maybe this is a "tough luck" situation
- I want to be able to subscribe to notifications about a type of event
Event organizer use cases
- Big call to action to Add their event to the event listing (what is the "event listing"? is this a call to action to organizers or attendees?)
- Reminder of best practices for adding event to site (this already exist, just make it more obvious - where does it exist?)
- Automatic status (like Signup is open/Signup is closed - automatic based on preset dates? based on the date of the event?)
- Waiting lists that notify users when they've been moved from waiting list to attendee list
- Integration with PayPal to let people buy tickets for events (this is a wishlist, right?)
- Designate a date and time that signup will open for an event
- COD on gdo infrastructure?
Stuff we need to fulfill said use cases:
- Events marked with a location (lat/lon) for proximity searching
- Users marked with a location (lat/lon) for proximity searching -- only possible for auth
- d.o captures this, can we pull down from there?
- IP-based location resolution?
- Interface to search by both where I am now and groups I belong to now, but also somewhere else. (my parents' city)
- Some kind of mapping module to show a map, if we want that
- Events belonging to a group for "My groups" searching (this already exists)
- Events having a start/end date to search for date ranges (this already exists)
- Events having a start/end time to schedule in calendar (this already exists?)
- The ability to repeat events multiple times (e.g. Git training sessions) but with different sign-up forms each time
- Event list filterable by:
- Date range
- Location (mine)
- Location (arbitrary)
- Groups (mine)
- Groups (arbitrary)
- Event type (online vs. camp vs. ...)
- Ability to promote or feature events e.g. DrupalCon?
My impression is that this is an excellent project, here's something I imagine might be useful as interim step while this project is underway...
Interim organizing tool for regional groups organizing an event...
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Someone should go through and look at maybe 20-30 past events and set up some pointers to key people for events categorized by size, date, etc. Send me a list of past events and I'll do that.
-
Prepare some guidelines on how various formats (scheduled onference/unconference/hybrid) work. Maybe the best practices material mentioned above has useable stuff.
-
Possibly using a quick & dirty taxonomy, create some forms pages and beat the drums for people to use them ... These could be used by some people as rudimentary event-organizing meta-project-management tool - and will give you a lot to work with for the roject above. I think the forms should include items like:
- Date(s)
- Location
- Theme (on theming, on GIS, on GIT....)
- Format (scheduled conference, unconference, hybrid)
- Ticket price(s), if...,
- Ticketing system used, if...
And a lot more about people...
Organizers broken down where possible by some kinds of roles, for example,
- Venue search person
- Venue contact person
- GDO contact person
- Event website coordinator
- Event ticketing coordinator
- Event hospitality/lodging coordinator
- Event onsite signage coordinator
- Event topic coordinator for events with scheduled sessions
- Unconference suggestion coordinator
- During-event communications planning coordinator (IRC/Twitter/Something structured)
- Event recording/streaming coordinator
- vvvvvEvent evaluation coordinator
- Event sponsor coordinator, if sponsored
- Afterparty coordinator, if....
Day of event management people
- Welcome table/signup people
- Food people
- Signage people
- People explaining during event evaluations, if....
- Roving troubleshooter coordinator
- Cleanup crew
Post event
- Thank you coordinator
- Group doing Analysis of attendee surveys, sponsor attendee surveys, etc team
- Lessons learned writeup coordinator and team
- Date & time of discussions intended to identify follow-on & other future events, with emphasis on providing opportunities for mentored succession of organizers
You'll maybe want to have people do some kind of structured self-report re experience organizing events, experience with drupal, and willingness/ability to mentor.
This leaves out the nitty-gritty of when/how the various groups actually collaborate. One coüld add that for completeness, if nothing else. The goal here is to try and come up with something that's form-driven and useful for event planning that will also generate data that can inform the larger project that's the subject of this page.