Using RSVPMaker on Membership Websites

Version 3.9.7 adds better functionality for membership websites, where the people entering RSVPs have user accounts and log in prior to responding.

• The system will now automatically look up any previous RSVPs associated with the same account (which for unauthenticated users only happens if they click the update link in a confirmation email).
• Form fields will be filled in based on user metadata, provided that the form field names match the usermeta fields. Example: a membership site records the user’s work number as work_phone, and the form field is also labeled work_phone, so the work phone number on the user’s profile is filled in by default on the RSVP form.

Here is an illustration of that last point:

The RSVPMaker form generator is a simple utility that does not address all possible variations. One that would require manual coding is to make a field containing profile data a hidden field rather than a user editable one. For example, a hockey league that contacted me with the request for this feature has a custom profile label for “Team,” which is a value they might not want users to be able to alter on an event-by-event basis. Or you simply might not want to display information including name and email address that is already in the user profile table.

To make the form fields hidden instead of editable, we would manually change the form code “textfield” to “hidden” as in this example:

<p class=”work_phone”><label>Work Phone</label> [rsvpfield textfield=”work_phone” ]</p>

Becomes:

[rsvpfield hidden=”work_phone” ]

Whether this will work with your membership plugin of choice depends on how it handles custom profile data. So far, I’ve tested it with my own RSVPMaker for Toastmasters plugin as well as the Ultimate Member plugin (which is used by the hockey league I mentioned). You can also program your own user profile fields by creating your own plugin or custom theme (with the code added to functions.php). For RSVPMaker to retrieve custom profile data, it must be recorded as standard WordPress user metadata, which is recorded in the database table typically named wp_usermeta (some sites may change the prefix to something other to wp_). The user metadata field names must also follow the convention of being all in lowercase with an underscore in the place of any letters or punctuation, which is the same way the RSVPMaker form generator formats field names based on the label text.