Documentation

Take a look at Navigating RSVPMaker: Event Posts, Options, Messages and Forms for a summary of the screens for setting options and customizing confirmation messages, reminder messages, and the RSVP Form. Some of these directions are specific to using RSVPMaker with the Gutenberg editor.

NOTE: Some of the screenshots in the older documentation linked to below are outdated. As part of a series of changes related to WordPress 5.0 and the new WordPress “Gutenberg” editor, many options that were previously displayed below the content editing area are now on a separate Event Options screen. The functionality hasn’t necessarily changed, just where you’ll find it. New functionality includes a form editor based on Gutenberg.

I’ve been adding documentation a little at a time, through the blog. Let me know what still needs to be explained better.

NEW VIDEO: Events and Event Templates. How to create single events or multiple events with the same basic schedule and boilerplate details. (updated for 2019)

Send Email Invitations or Other Messages with MailChimp. Email website members or event attendees, regardless of whether they join your MailChimp list.

RSVPMaker Shortcodes – coding for events headlines listing, calendar, or listing of upcoming events

Note: if you’re using the Gutenberg editor, visual components replace these shortcodes.

How to Set Up PayPal with RSVPMaker (simplified for 2016)

Advanced Customization (code-level tweaks)

Please post questions to the support forum on WordPress.org.

288 thoughts on “Documentation”

    1. That’s the way it works (or at least the way it’s supposed to work).

      If you use the [rsvpmaker_upcoming] shortcode, it displays only the future dates by default. If you display the calendar, it’s possible to click back to see events from an earlier month. The [event_listings format=”headlines”] shortcode and the sidebar widget only show future dates.

  2. Hi there,

    This is a great plugin, and I’ve managed to get it configured to do exactly what I want/need without much effort.

    The last problem I need to solve is that once users click the Submit button, they reach a 404 error page rather than the thank you page. This is due to the URL being constructed incorrectly:

    http://my-site/?rsvpmaker=my-event?rsvp=9&e=my-email

    If I change the second “?” to an “&” it works perfectly. Any tips on where to fix this bit of code?

    Thanks
    Alex

    1. The short answer is it would work better if you had permalinks turned on. It looks like you’re in the setup where regular posts would be ?p=123 — am I right.

      Now, I thought I had some code in there to deal with this situation where permalinks aren’t turned on. I’ll have to go back and check, but meanwhile make sure you have the latest release from the repository. If you downloaded it within the last week, the answer is yes.

  3. I think I found it. I’ve changed rsvpmaker-pluggable.php:286

    from

    header(‘Location: ‘.$_SERVER[‘REQUEST_URI’].’?rsvp=’.$rsvp_id.’&e=’.$rsvp[“email”]);

    to

    header(‘Location: ‘.$_SERVER[‘REQUEST_URI’].’&rsvp=’.$rsvp_id.’&e=’.$rsvp[“email”]);

    This is pending testing within my site. Got some file permission issues which I’m waiting on the hosting support team to help out with.

  4. Hi David,
    just went thru the code because my setup requires proper “< ?php" openings, and replaced every "< ?=" by "< ?php echo " and every other "< ?" by "< ?php". Let me know if I should send you the files or you would like to change it yourself.
    –Joachim

        1. Terrific. I posted a version with the coding issue you identified corrected yesterday. If you can send me just the additional identifiers you coded for translation, plus the translation file to add, that would be great. If I try to avoid mucking around in the code for a few days, do you think you could retrofit your changes onto the existing files?

          Are you trying the ChimpBlast plugin, BTW? I’m getting a bunch of little email notices from .de emails because I had stupidly hard coded my email address into some debugging code in the prototype version I’d posted to the website. The updated version available for download on rsvpmaker.com fixes that and makes some improvements. The official release to the WordPress repository will probably be this weekend.

        2. Hello,
          I’m looking for a way to translate the event date as it is displayed at the top of the RSVP form. I have no idea how to do it… Thanks for your help!

          1. You’re pointing out a flaw in the design of the plugin that I hadn’t been aware of. The dates are currently formatted using the php date() function, and users can set the date format string on the RSVPMaker settings page. However, I see now that the documentation for php date states “To format dates in other languages, you should use the setlocale() and strftime() functions instead of date().”

            So this is something I am going to have to address in the design of the plugin. I’ll try to do so fairly soon, so you should finish up your work independently, and we will try to get in synch.

          2. Thank you very much for your concern! I have to admit that I made the translation without using the files you provided, because Poedit wouldn’t let me open it (non UTF8 compatible).
            However, I have fulfilled most of the blanks left for translation, while editing the text manually in the phps. If you are interested, I can send it to you (for French)

          3. I wish you had let me know about the Poedit issue – will try to figure out how to correct that. Then we can try to figure out how to integrate the work you have done.

          4. As far as I can tell, it’s now set for UTF-8 if it wasn’t all along. Can you take another look?

    1. First of all, sorry to be slow to reply. Busy week.

      Unfortunately, I can’t really figure out what is going on from looking at the public site. You should probably turn on permalinks, but I doubt that is the problem. It looks like you have the [rsvpmaker_upcoming] shortcode on a page but it’s not being recognized. Looks like the plugin is deactivated — do you see the event editing menu and the the settings screen when you log in?

  6. WHen downloading an RSVP event, I get this message:

    Warning: require_once(OLE/PPS/Root.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/dennis/public_html/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/rsvpmaker/excel/Workbook.php on line 39

    am I missing something? I am running 1.9.2

    1. Haven’t seen that error message, but I’ll try to check on that. The spreadsheet generator is a 3rd party library I just started bundling in with the plugin (a PEAR library that’s no longer maintained but works well for my purposes).

      1. I do have those files in that directory and the case of the files does match. The attributes were 644, so I thought was it, so I changed it to 755 and just tried again but got the same message. Here is the complete message:

        Warning: require_once(OLE/PPS/Root.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/dennis/public_html/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/rsvpmaker/excel/Workbook.php on line 39

        Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening required ‘OLE/PPS/Root.php’ (include_path=’.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php’) in /home/dennis/public_html/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/rsvpmaker/excel/Workbook.php on line 39

        1. Please try downloading one more time – version 1.9.4

          I made a mistake synchronizing with the wordpress.org plugin directory and the files I added weren’t included. I double checked that they made it in this time.

          Sorry for the hassle.

          1. The line numbers changed…

            Warning: require_once(OLE/PPS.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/dennis/public_html/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/rsvpmaker/excel/OLE/PPS/Root.php on line 23

            Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening required ‘OLE/PPS.php’ (include_path=’.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php’) in /home/dennis/public_html/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/rsvpmaker/excel/OLE/PPS/Root.php on line 23

          2. I may have to break down and use a different Excel writer library. Not as easy to redistribute this code as I had hoped.

          3. Just to add to this, I’m having the same issue with the report system, in case you needed to know about more folks with this issue.

          4. I just noticed it is now in Root.php and before it was in workbook.php….maybe it is just one more change?

  7. I am using the plugin for a big party and would like to translate it for those who would rather have the invitations in their own language. The English .po file is already provided, which I have partly translated by now. However, I cannot get WordPress to use my localised version for the plugin.

    In rsvpmaker.php it is written:

    if(($_GET[“post_type”] == ‘rsvpmaker’) || ($post->post_type == ‘rsvpmaker’) || ($pagenow == ‘plugins.php’) )
    {
    //if we’re on the admin page for adding a new event, or are editing or viewing an event, or are on the plugins activation page
    $locale = get_locale();
    $mofile = WP_PLUGIN_DIR . ‘/rsvpmaker/translation/rsvpmaker-‘ . $locale . ‘.mo’;
    load_textdomain(‘rsvpmaker’,$mofile);
    }

    I therefore have put the translated file (called rsvpmaker-de_DE.mo) in the specified folder (../wordpress/wp-content/plugins/rsvpmaker/translation/), which – sadly – does not work.

    My locale is defined in wp-config.php:

    define (‘WPLANG’, ‘de_DE’);

    So everything should be okay in theory, but I seem to be a little stumped.

    Did anyone get a translation to work? I have read some things here about localisation, how did you do it? Maybe my .mo file is broken?

    1. Ok, after several hours of trial and error, I have narrowed it down to one main reason: the conditional loading of the .mo file at the beginning of rsvpmaker.php. Somehow not all necessary posts are recognised and when I comment the section out where the plugin decides to load the .mo file, it works at least partly.

      There are still numerous untranslated string left – if you need help with the translation into German, I am more than willing to aid you. 🙂

      1. Sorry for the delayed response. I’ve been tied up at work.

        A few people have volunteered to create translations, but none have yet been completed. I’ve never been through this process before. I’ve tried to follow the best directions I could find, but since I’m not multilingual it’s hard for me to test the translation capability.

        You said something about the conditional statement not firing in all the circumstances where this should be loaded, and I’ll try to check on that.

        Also, you’re the second person to report that the download to Excel feature is not working. I need to figure out what the issue is there.

    2. Oh, one more thing: When trying to download to Excel, nothing happens. Any idea, why? I tried installing the PEAR library manually, did not change anything.

  8. Thanks for the great plugin David.

    I think that I might have found a little bug with the “Show Attendees” button. The code for the button on line 1011 of rsvpmaker-plugabble.php uses site_url() to get the base url and I think it should be using home_url() instead?

    I my case, my “WordPress address (URL) is in a sub-directory of the actual “Site address (URL)” (WP URL: http://www.example.com/new SITE URL: http://www.example.com) So the ajax call is using the WordPress url (site_url()) which generates http://www.example.com/new/?ajax_guest_lookup=## which fails, and it should be doing the call to the Site url (home_url()) which would generate http://www.example.com/?ajax_guest_lookup=##

    I am thinking it is just because WP has poorly named these functions compared to the labels in the admin settings panel…

  9. I really like your plugin and wanted to use it on a new site I’m building. However, it causes problems with the SimplePress theme I’m using. This is a theme we bought. When the plugin is activated, it causes information not to be displayed on the front page in the 3 columns under the feature slider area. When we deactivate it, all displays fine. The site is at http://timebankmedia.org if you want to see what I’m talking about.

    1. I’ll try to check on that. If I load SimplePress onto one of my sites, is yours a standard configuration of the theme? Any clues would be appreciated.

      I’m a bit overloaded at work lately, so less time to devote to this non-paying work, but I’ll try to track it down.

  10. Help
    I can’t get an Event to keep unchecked: “Display attendee names and content of note field publicly Check to activate” I uncheck it, but when I save the page it refreshes checked.
    I’ve also gone to the “Calendar Options” page and unchecked it there also. (I did check it for a while)
    So when people go to the rsvp page it says: “Names of attendees will be displayed publicly, along with the contents of the notes field.” which I don’t want.

  12. I aslo cannot get events to keep unchecked “display attendee names and content of not field publicly check to activate”

    every time i uncheck it and publish the post it rechecks itself

    1. I know it’s not helpful for me to say it works when I try it, but it works when I try it – meaning it works when I try it on my sites. I tried to rsvp on your site, and I did see that the confirmation message didn’t appear. Some conflict with your theme or other plugin? I can’t tell. Also not sure why you’re having trouble deleting entries. Works when I try it.

      I can answer one question: you check the RSVP On checkbox on the settings page if you want to request RSVPs always or most of the time. The system also supports publishing events for which no RSVP is required. You can turn this on or off for each event, but if you turn it on in the settings, it will be checked by default when you create a new event.

    2. Took me a little while, but you can now do something like this in version 2.1

      [event_listing past="1" format="headline" date_format="F jS, Y"]

      Explained in a little more detail in my blog post on today’s release. 

  15. Feature Request: Specified list of people whom have to RSVP using a code or a Captcha on the form. I opened this up on my wedding site and got flooded with bots. I especially love the idea of allowing a user to specify their own list of users which reply to the RSVP by entering a code found on their invitation.

    1. If you update to version 2.2.1, it includes a CAPTCHA option. I can see where the other scenario you mentioned could be useful, and it’s something you could set up as a customization if you want. But maybe the CAPTCHA will help you fend off those bots, even though it’s a pretty simple one.

      1. I’m using Version 2.2.1 and cannot seem to un-toggle the CAPTCHA option on a post once I’ve set it. Tried to find it in the DB too, but not digging deep enough.

        Love the new tweaks…

  16. With the version 2.0 release I put out today, the function for downloading RSVP reports to Excel should be fixed, finally. I got rid of the PEAR module I had been trying to bundle in and instead added a more up to date library, PHPExcel.

    Please give it a try and confirm that it works for you.

  18. if somebody use nationa character, I get i report:
    Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /autoinstalator/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/rsvpmaker/rsvpmaker-plugabble.php on line 1210
    posted: 31.05.2011

        1. Try the release I put out today, 2.3.2. I fixed a database encoding issue (Latin instead of UTF8). Worked with your name after I made that change.

          3. national character working, but i fount this is in report:

            YES Jarek Żeliński j.zelinski@it-consulting.pla:5:{s:5:”first”;s:5:”Jarek”;s:4:”last”;s:10:”Żeliński”;s:5:”email”;s:27:”j.zelinski@it-consulting.pl”;s:5:”phone”;s:0:””;s:9:”phonetype”;s:0:””;}Array ( [first] => Jarek [last] => Żeliński [email] => j.zelinski@it-consulting.pl [phone] => [phonetype] => ) first: Jareklast: Żelińskiemail: j.zelinski@it-consulting.plposted: July 10th

          5. Can you forward me the email? When I was testing, I saw that the email had the right characters but the database record didn’t, which is part of how I figured out it was a database issue. But there may be other problems I haven’t caught yet

          6. I put out yet another update that changes the email encoding on the emails to UTF-8. Let me know if that makes a difference.

          7. Stupid of me, I forgot to remove some lines of debug code. I put out a fix, version 2.3.3

          8. suggestion for a new feature :): action to  ask all participants for confirmation without using newsletter module, simple action: write a message and send it to each participant for confirmation with one link to click… maybe better is to make this automatically few days before the event (number of days  to configure for each event could be set by the owner).

    1. It might have been David (no middle initial) Carr of the New York Times. We sometimes get confused because he covers media, and I cover technology, and the two tend to overlap these days.

  20. Could you please tell me how to remove the comma from between the month and year in the calendar display? I apologize, I am new to HTML and WP, just starting out. But I do know something about punctuation and was horrified to find that comma there. Help!

  22. I’m having an issue with the captcha.
    The captcha url is ending up using the physical disk part way thru the path:

    Any suggestions on where to adjust/fix/hack/alter anything?
    thanks
    -j

    1. I’ve never seen that before, so not sure why it’s happening. Looks like you’re running on a Windows-based web server? Possibly that’s tripping the script up somehow. I’m traveling on business, so may not be able to take a close look at this until the weekend.

  23. I need to create a menu for a bat mitzvah  site.
    It will have two catagories for adults and other for kids.The adult catagory will have RSVP will or will not attend, name address, phone number, Email,
    then will choo(16 and under) will have RSVP, name addreess and age.
    And finally needs to be colated and printed out.
    can this be done and how?
    please let me know 

    Thank you

    1. Unless you’re willing to do some programming-level customization, you’d probably have to ask people to put their menu choices in the notes field.

      I do provide a way of customizing the form, but currently it changes the way the form works for all events. It might be good to have a way of specifying a custom form for an event, but making that a standard feature for the plugin would take some work. Not anything I’ll get to soon.

  25. Hello David. I am trying about 3 evenings now to get the translation into dutch to work. Can I mail you my username password so you can login to take a look in rsvpmaker.php?

  26. I noticed today (after using the plugin for a few weeks) that after the date passes the events disappear from the calendar (grid) view.  I’d like them to stay…  can you point me in the right direction?

  27. Hi David,
    I’m trying your plugin right now as I’m planning to send out invitations for my granddaughter’s birthday.  Everything looks fine, except that my theme doesn’t display the First/Last name of the additional guests correctly, and I have no option (or at least I don’t know how) to change the width of the theme itself.  Besides, I would rather not ask for first/last names of the additional guests, but instead just ask the guest to indicate how many will come and how many are children.  Would that be a big challenge to add both options in the create event page? I mean, chose to ask for first/last name, yes or no and/or indicate how many are coming to the party and age or just children or not… Your response will be mostly appreciated as I will not try another plugin until I hear from you.  thank you.  BTW, if you want to see the problem of the width in my theme, just point to this temporary link: http://annabelleedwards.com/festa.  

    1. I’ve looked at the RSVP form in several browsers, and it looks ok to me. I don’t really understand what the issue is you’re seeing.

      There is a field on the RSVPMaker editor where you can enter instructions like “Please just enter the number of children and their first names in the note field” but I don’t have an easy way for you to hide the Guest blanks. Maybe that should be a checkbox option.

      There are some instructions on this site for modifying the RSVP form, but it does require some coding. Sounds like it might be more than you’re up for.

        1. Funny, doesn’t look like that when I view it. Might be a particular OS/browser combination I haven’t taken into account.

          You can neaten up the display a little by adding this to the style.css file for your theme or to the css file for rsvpmaker. This will make the input fields display on a separate line.div.guest_blank input {
          display: block;
          }

  30. Maybe someone can help me, the add guest function doesn’t seem to look right and it also does not seem to function properly. Check out http://www.josephandcharity.com/rsvpmaker/our-wedding-day?e=*|EMAIL|*#guest_section 

    My thanks! 
    Joseph

    1. Joseph, I have the same problem and David already answered (see my post below).
      The only problem is that I don’t know and I’m afraid to mess with the codes as suggested, so I’m still thinking about it.  Maybe I’ll try another plugin.

  31. Hi. Thanks for the plugin. I must say I tried a few and, though yours’ is not the most full featured, it’s use is rather simple. I like that.

    I have one question (to start with): how do you manage the date format, for instance, for non-English contries? I see it’s not in the .po language file. I know I can change the date display, but I can’t seem to be able to change things like month name, which is displayed in English (though my WP is powered in Portuguese). 

      1. I let you customize the date format using PHP date format codes, which you can change on the settings screen. That allows you to change the order between month, day, year and day, month, year, for example. My understanding is that PHP should handle the localization for month names etc. if you have your server configured correctly. Possibly, I understand wrong, in which case I may need someone else to enlighten me on the right way to set this up for internationalization.

  34. Great plugin David!Is there anyway to combine shortcut codes? I need a event listing for a specified event type. Something like….[event_listing format="headline" type="featured"]as a hack I modified the output of [rsvpmaker_upcoming type="featured"] in rsvpmaker-display.php to only display the post title but I cant figure out how to add the event dates to the end.  This is what I have…http://masondixonclaybusters.com/members/ and this is what I would like it to look like except I would like to select by Event Typehttp://masondixonclaybusters.com/calendarevents/printable-schedule/ 

    1. I hacked the date using <?php echo substr(get_the_excerpt(), 0, strpos(get_the_excerpt(), '’)-1);  ?> Not the correct way so I’m still looking for suggestions.

      1. apparently the code example was change when posted… Also, I would like to change the number of events displayed before we get the “More Events” I believe the number is set to 10, I would like to change it to 20

  36. Hi David.  Great plug-in!  I am a den leader/web developer for our local cub scout pack and was encouraged to see your example for scouting.  Had a couple questions that I couldn’t resolve on my own. 

    1) Can you post a single event on the homepage by altering the short-code, rather than creating a list of upcoming events on the event page?

    2) Is there a way to have the date of an event span days rather than a duration of 24 hrs?

    1. This is exactly the scenario I was thinking of, since I use RSVPMaker for my son’s cub scout group, and you often want to get a single RSVP response for a multi-day event such as a weekend campout.

      Here’s what you do:

      First, set the start date. Then click on the link that says “Add More Dates” — this displays several more rows of date selection drop-down choices. Put in the additional dates you want to include.

      For a campout, I would also turn off the display of the time of day in the event listing. You do this by changing duration to “All day / do not show time in headline.”

      Then in the body of the event, you put in the schedule details

      Friday 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. check-in
      Friday 9 p.m. baked beans and bad jokes
      Friday 10 p.m. lights out
      …
      Sunday noon – Clean-up, Scouts Own, departure

      Or something like that

  38. Hi – I find this plugin SO useful – but I’m having trouble with the last name field. As I’m logged in, the field is auto-populated with my last name, in all caps (it’s entered that way in my profile.) If I just click “submit” without modifying anything, I get an “invalid input” error. If I change it so that only the first letter is capitalized, it usually takes the submission – but sometimes crashes the page (“HTTP Error 500 (Internal Server Error): An unexpected condition was encountered while the server was attempting to fulfill the request.) Anything to be done about this? I really, really need this plugin (what I was looking for is something like Doodle for WordPress, and this is a fair start.)

    Thanks!

    1. I think the issue you’re running into is something to do with your browser retaining form input field data.

      I could be wrong. RSVPMaker does try to do a lookup based on your prior RSVPs to events, keyed to email address. But that normally only kicks in if you follow a link that’s encoded with a query string that includes your email address.

      I haven’t seen anything like the glitch you’re reporting.

  42. Hello,
    I absolutely love this plugin, but am having trouble removing the “guest sectin” and “note section” on my rsvp form.  Is there a simple way to do this?  Thanks!

  45. It’s it possible to not allow people to RSVP if they don’t physically pay through paypal? And is there some type of way for your system to verify when a paypal payment has gone through in some type of type in the wordpress platform?

    1.  The RSVP Report, which you get through your WordPress dashboard, shows which RSVPs have a PayPal payment associated with them. This is a record of a successful PayPal transaction – in some cases, such as eChecks, you will get a follow up notification when the check clears (otherwise, it’s like someone wrote you a bad check).

      There’s no built-in way of making the RSVP conditional on a payment. The original scenario this tool was designed for is one where event attendees are encouraged to pay online but also have the option of paying at the door, or mailing a check. So the online payment is offered as a convenience, but is not mandatory.

      I would like to retool RSVPMaker to handle a few more business scenarios than it does today, but that depends on me finding the time to do so. It is possible to add your own customizations with PHP code, in which case you might consider offering your customizations as code to be included in a future release.

  46. I find this plugin very useful, but I have some problem with a get_posts() on the site footer, in the rsvp maker page (with the shortcode). I have a get_posts() on the footer after the rsvp loop that just doesn’t work. It works on other pages, but with the loop from rsvp, my loop fails =/

    Anyone had some similar problem? Any ideas?

    1. This may be fixed in the latest release, if I understand the issue right. I ran into a similar problem on one of my own sites and realized I needed to clean up after myself by removing some custom filters on the query that are used by the rsvpmaker_upcoming shortcode.

  47. I am displaying the shortcode
    [event_listing format="headline"] on my homepage. I was hoping to add the first part of content from the event to each event listing. Is there any way to do this? Shortcode or php is fine.

      1. I’m sorry, my memory is playing tricks on me. I’m remembering something from a different plugin, Facebook Tab Manager. There’s no excerpt option here, although maybe there should be. I’ll follow up with a PHP code sample and consider adding this to a future release.

  48. Can I assign my “events” category to an rsvp event? or can I create a new “rsvp event” category? I have a newsletter plugin that requires a category name for an item to be selected for inclusion in the newsletter

    1. events show up with the button when viewed in a summary listing, as on the events listing on this website. You can display an events listing on a page using the [rsvpmaker_upcoming] shortcode.

      The link you provided is to an individual event listing. When you view an individual event, it’s displayed with the RSVP form (assuming RSVPs are enabled for the event)

  50. Hi David,
    I need to display the rsvp form on a button click. So i used the [rsvpmaker_upcoming] short code. I simply created the event and put the short code in one of the pages. But when i click the button i get a page not found error.Could you please guide me.
    Regards
    Siddharth

    1. Do you have neat permalinks enabled for your site? In other words, is the address for your event formatted as /rsvpmaker/my-event/ or as a query string ?rsvpmaker=my-event

      I’ve seen some glitches with the later format, which is the default when you first set up your site.

      If that’s not the issue, send me a link to the page you’ve set up to test this

  51. I’m using your plugin on two different websites that both host on GoDaddy. Unfortunately I can’t get above their root folders to put the PayPal API file where you suggest.
    What are your suggestions for where to put the PayPal API file in this case? They are both on Linux hosting.
    Thank you! 🙂

    1. In the current release, you would have to hack the function date_title in rsvpmaker-display.php – unfortunately, it’s not one of the functions that I make easy for you to customize / override. I might change that in the next release, but won’t get to that immediately.

  54. Do I need to worry about the database size? I deleted all my old RSVPEVENTS, but noticed they are still physically in the database. I ask this as I am trying to add a new entry, but I am just not able to publish it to the server.

    1. Database size isn’t usually a big issue; I have sites with hundreds of old events recorded that I haven’t gone back and removed. I suppose it’s possible your host limits DB size, but more likely the issue is something else.

      What happens when you try to post?

  56. The plugin is amazing! However, when someone RSVPs, instead of a confirmation screen, I am getting an error message ‘Function ereg() is deprecated in […] /rsvpmaker/rsvpmaker-plugabble.php on line 312. The RSVP is coming through, but is there any way to fix this?

    1. I will fix that in the next release, but meanwhile you should turn off debugging if this is a production website as it will make these minor glitches more of a nuisance. in wp-config.php change the debugging line to

      define(‘WP_DEBUG’, false);

  57. I had a attendee sign up himself and three guests using his email address. He later emailed me that one of the guests would not attend so I deleted the one guest. At a later date he signed up another individual using his email address. It deleted his original sign up (his other two guests were still in). this was for the same event. Any idea why it would have deleted his original entry because he used the same email address? Thanks.

    1. RSVPMaker will look up previous RSVPs by email address if they come in with a url like https://rsvpmaker.com/rsvpmaker/choose-a-roommate/?e=my@email.com

      The confirmation message they receive when they sign up should include a coded link in that format. Without that, the system failed to retrieve the existing guest list and processed the user’s entry as a new record.

      Open to suggestions on a better way to handle this, but that’s the way it works now.

      1. The latest release includes the option to specify an email account that can be used for delivery of notification messages via SMTP, rather than relying on the php mail() function. I suspect you’re running into an issue related to spam filters or anti-spam measures taken by your web host. That’s less likely to be an issue if the email is coming from an authenticated account. You can either use an account on your domain or one on a service such as GMail or SendGrid. With GMail, you’re limited to 500 recipients per day, but for a modest sized event that shouldn’t be a problem.

  59. I just installed RSVP maker on a new site and tried to create an event. When I tried to preview, I got this error:

    Catchable fatal error: Object of class WP_Error could not be converted to string in /home/milwauke/public_html/wp-content/themes/basicpress/functions.php on line 20

    Obviously there’s problem with my theme, but it appears to be more in the way the error is reported.

    1. Hunting around, I suggestions that this is because of a missing catagory, due ro the way my theme’s functions.php is written. And here there a reference to taxonomy, but I’m not sure that’s relevant.

      Here’s a snippet from the functions.php (line 20 is the first line beginning with echo):

      elseif(is_single()) {
      echo get_category_parents($category[0]->cat_ID, TRUE, ‘ » ‘);
      echo get_the_title();
      }

        1. If the call to the problem function is in one of the theme template files, create a single-rsvpmaker.php file that you add to your template (basing it on single.php if there is one or index.php) and omit the function call that adds the breadcrumbs.

    2. Apparently the problem is in the theme’s breadcrumb code — it wants a category, and there isn’t one. (I tried adding one with the “Category” custom field, but no joy.)

      Fortunately, by creating an “Upcoming Events” page with [rsvpmaker_upcoming] I can see the page.

      Let me know if there’s a more elegant solution. 🙂

      1. Sorry for the slow reply. I’d suggest creating a single-rsvpmaker.php file that you add to your theme and design it to omit the breadcrumb function. This assumes that the call causing the problem is in the theme template file.

  61. I love this plugin but having a minor issue, when using the captcha it keeps telling me it is incorrect. I have tried multiple times and I am 100% positive that it is correct. I’ve modified the form the remove the phone number section but that is all. Is there certain modules that need enabled Server side? I am using nginx with php-fpm.

    1. I see you’re requiring a login for RSVPs, which is a relatively recent feature of RSVPMaker that I haven’t tested with ChimpBlast. I’m guessing that may have something to do with it. Can you toggle off the login required feature and tell me if you get a different result?

          1. Well, I create a new doc, and turned of the login requirement and it took. Seems it’s the updating that misses it.

            By the way, the alt tag for the captcha image is malformed.

  65. Permalink: ?post_type=rsvpmaker&p=148&preview=true

    the Page Links To in Edit Event Page from RSVP Event, is pointing to ?post_type=rsvpmaker&p=148&preview=true
    Also, I get “Page Not Found” when someone RSVPs and when the link is clicked fromt he Email sent from the website.
    Please help

  66. Hi I’ve been using the plugin for a couple of years now ( occasional events,) and it has been great. But I now have v2.7.4.2 and after submit, the 404 error comes up. I’ve tried with and without the permanlinks Tweak, with firefox v20.0.1, and IE6. Hope you can help details below.

    404 errors for Event Published 2013/04/23 ( running 2.7.4.2)

    I am running current WordPress 3.5.1

    Whereas is was OK with RSVP Versions current at the time of these events:
    OK for Events Published :2013/01/16, 2012/06/11, 2011/08/29, 2011/08/11, 2011/07/07
    I am now and have always been using the PressPlay theme ( v2.1). My site is http://www.coherence.com.au

    the post submit link that gave the 404 error was this

    http://coherence.com.au/curlew/2013/04/high-density-c96-panel-report-feedback-with-councilors/?e=les.clark@blahh.net.au&rsvp=109&e=les.clark@blahh.net.au

    The confirmation email link also fails with a 404 error. the email included;
    Use this link to update:
    http://coherence.com.au/curlew/2013/04/high-density-c96-panel-report-feedback-with-councilors/?e=les.clark@blahh.net.au

    I have tried the “Tweak permalinks” both on & off – Still get 404 errors.
    Fetch a blank form comes back to the same complerted one every time ( I am a logged in user,but the Event does not require logging in.)
    I have RSVP’d while both logged in ( admin,) and logged out of the site – same issues
    I am using firefox 20.0.1, fails the same in ie6.

    Also confirmation message does not show.

    I thought the problem is the link generation
    – the actual event is http://coherence.com.au/curlew/rsvpmaker/high-density-c96-panel-report-feedback-with-councilors/
    Whereas the Post submit adds “2013/04” in the middle ( as used for my posts.)
    http://coherence.com.au/curlew/2013/04/high-density-c96-panel-report-feedback-with-councilors/?e=les.clark@blahh.net.au&rsvp=109&e=les.clark@blahh.net.au
    However even with that removed both links stil fail to 404 errors.

  67. Thank you for a great plugin. Everything works except for the 404 error instead of the confirmation page.
    The problem is that the page redirected does not include the rsvpmaker directory. That is, my event page is /rsvpmaker/my-event, but when the form is submitted, it redirects to /my-event/?e=email&rsvp=11&e=email which results in the 404 page.
    I manually added the rsvpmaker in the address and it worked.

    I tried the Tweak Permalinks option on and off, with no change in the result.

    At first I thought this was a setting issue, but seeing that others are having the same problem as well, it may be something more.

    1. I checked the files and found out that the get_permalink() function is returning the permalink without the rsvpmaker subdirectory, the same link is also included in the confirmation email, which means that even that link will not work.

        1. Getting this one myself now, and I installed it a couple of weeks ago. It shows up on the Events compilation page, not the specific event’s page itself. I have just one event and, thank you, the plugin is otherwise perfect. If you need to see it in action, let me know and I can send you a direct link. /wp-content/plugins/rsvpmaker/rsvpmaker-display.php on line 447

          1. Please update to version 2.8.3 and let me know if you’re still seeing this issue. If so, yes a pointer to a specific url where I can see the error might help.

  68. Hi This plugin is fantastic, thank you for creating it and providing it to us. I’m having an issue with CAPTCHA, the image doesn’t appear and so the submit fails. Permissions on the file seem good and it works when captcha is disabled. Any ideas?

  71. I unchecked ‘Login Required to RSVP:’, but it is still displaying the RSVP button & sending people to the WP Admin login screen. Suggestions?

  72. It’s showing the event has passed, but it hasn’t. I’m using PST but I don’t think RSVPMaker is in the same time zone. How can I change this?

  73. My RSVP total count doesn’t go up at times and varies wildly at other times – it’s stopped at 18, then jumps up to 35, then back down to 18. The Excel download (with plugin) shows only 18. Help?

    1. I will try to track down the cause for this. I’ve been writing a book for the past several months, which has been an intense process that has limited my time to follow up on issues like this. Possibly there’s a clash with specific themes or versions of wordpress. Can you provide a url to a sample event that has this issue? You can set the date to be in the past so it doesn’t show up for visitors on your site.

      1. If the date is past the CAPTCHA doesn’t show. But here is a live event. http://angierbaptistchurch.com/rsvpmaker/wednesday-night-dinner-5/ Again, when I googled this about a month ago I found many other websites that had it visible too.

        Here are two I found on Google, these are not my websites – http://www.unitedregionalchamber.org/rsvpmaker/healthcare-reform-law-seminar/

        http://www.workfortsmith.org/?rsvpmaker=rsvp-for-expo

        But if you Google it you will find two pages worth of returns, unfortunately the events have expired so the captcha isn’t visible, but you can see the code for it showing in the Google results.

        Thank you!

  76. I receive the following error on the main page of the events: Illegal string offset ‘hideauthor’. It is not on the event itself, just the main page of events. How do I get rid of it?

  77. Hi,

    I have a website with a membership part an when the members respond to an event they only have to indicate “yes” or “no” and push OK their e-mailadress is automatically filled in. But is it possibel to see wich members didn’t react?

  78. Thanks for the plug in. The only issue I’m having is when I try to go to the previous or next month on the event calendar, it goes to my website’s homepage. How can I fix this?

  79. I am using this to have people register for hourly slots on a volunteer committee, but the issue I have is that my even goes for 48 hours and when I make the event that long (noon on Friday through noon on Sunday) the hour slots do not show up completely. Any suggestions? Can we work on that for the next release? Any help or additions would be greatly appreciated!

    1. So your timeslots run right through the night and into the next day? Sorry, I never considered that sort of scenario. It would not be a quick fix to the code to make it accommodate that.

      Easiest short-term fix would be to create separate event posts for the 3 days, with timeslots set for each day. You could always include links in the body of the post for navigation from one to the next.

  80. One of my members received that mail when a member registers for an event: Van: Mail Delivery System [mailto:MAILER-DAEMON@mail-out2.b-one.net]

    Verzonden: woensdag 30 oktober 2013 8:28

    Aan: postmaster@lionswaregemascot.be

    Onderwerp: Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender

    This is the mail system at host mail-out2.b-one.net.

    I’m sorry to have to inform you that your message could not be delivered to

    one or more recipients. It’s attached below.

    For further assistance, please send mail to postmaster.

    If you do so, please include this problem report. You can delete your own

    text from the attached returned message.

    The mail system

    : host mx4.hotmail.com[65.55.92.184] said:

    550

    5.7.0 (SNT0-MC4-F6) Message could not be delivered. Please ensure the
    What is it?

  81. Hi,

    First, I’d like to say thank you for this great plugins, and for free. It’s very great.

    I have a problem.

    When a person register and she decides to have a Guest, in the next step, the number of tickets should be 2, or it remains 1.

    Perhaps, it’s correct for you, but is there a seeting or a customization to count the number of guests in the number of tickets ?

    Thanks a lot.

    Vincent

    1. Someday I may figure out how to make this automatic, but currently it’s not. The tickets function. Actually allows you to have several different categories of tickets at different prices, so it’s not as simple as totaling up the guests.

  82. Thanks for the plugin.. However, some of my guests are gettin an error, nothing I have been able to reproduce however.

    The error one guest sent back was “not recognized in the field”.

    Any thoughts?

  84. I created an event with RSVP maker for my church. Quite a few older people don’t have computers and email addresses so one of the volunteers entered several as her guests. She later entered another person using her own email address and it seems that made her name disappear from the list of attendees.
    Is it possible for multiple persons to RSVP using the same email address? There should be an option to update a previous RSVP response you entered if you want to add more guests or make other changes, which could resolve this issue. Please advise me of options. Thanks.

    1. The system uses email address as a unique identifier for the individual. You can add a bunch of guests, using the guests fields on the form. But if you fill out a new form from scratch using the same email address, it could overwrite the previous entry.

      I’ve had second thoughts about whether that’s the right way for it to work, but that’s the way it works right now.

      Note that one workaround would be to enter a phony email address — the system doesn’t check whether it’s a valid email account, only that it’s formatted properly as an address.

        1. If the user is recognized, the system will load their previous response and allow them to update it. The system will recognize the same user by a cookie, by the person being logged in, or by a url query parameter like /rsvpmaker/my-event/?e=joe@joe.com (which is in the email confirmation message users are supposed to get)

  85. Thanks for this great plugin. It’s been useful to some of my clients. I do have a question though – how can I make the RSVP Report available to another user with another role that is not admin?

  87. Thanks for the great plugin! But I’m having trouble deleting RSVPs… I had several test RSVPs when I was setting everything up. I could click “Show Attendees” and they would all be there. I then went into the RSVP Reports and deleted them all, but they still show up when I click the button. Am I doing something wrong to remove the unwanted entries?

  88. Hi there! This is such a great plugin! I’m just having one issue with it.. When on an individual events page, there are “Previous” and “Next” links in the upper right hand corner of the page.. However, instead of skipping to the very next event, it skips a week at a time. Was this intentional?

  89. Thank you for this amazing plugin! I have a question: when I open an event there are buttons at the bottom of the page to go to the previous or next events, but it uses the creation/modification date and note the actual event date, is there a way to change that?

    1. The issue there is that those links are built into the theme – the single.php template. I recommend creating a copy of that file named single-rsvpmaker.php and uploading it into the theme folder. You can edit out any distracting elements like the ones you mention here. The other thing I see with some themes is that the single template emphasizes the date something was posted, when we really want to emphasize the event date.

      There may be some way of modifying the behavior of those next previous links without modifying the theme file, but I haven’t found it yet.

      1. This turned out to be easier to fix than I thought it was going to be. RSVPMaker 3.2.6 modifies the next / previous links on events to match the chronological order of events rather than the date they were posted.

  90. I think this is a bug: when I use the rsvpmaker_upcoming shortcode the first event is a past event, is it possible to display the new event as soon as the start time of the previous event is past?

    1. Does this happen consistently? Is the past event within the last 24 hours? Same day events are displayed, even if the start time is past. Also, make sure your timezone is set properly (Settings -> General) in WordPress

  91. Hi there!

    This has been a great plugin for my client. Now we’re just tweaking the appearance of the individual event posts– is it possible to move the RSVP count to above the event description? So it would be under the title of the event? I’ve attached an image that might explain this better..

    Much appreciated. If this requires a lot of customization to do, we’re happy to pay for it.

    1. This requires a tweak to your theme — the creation of a single-rsvpmaker.php file that you add to the directory on your server where the files for the active themes are stored. If the theme folder contains a separate file for the full page layout you want, you can simply make a copy of it named single-rsvpmaker.php. Or you can start with page.php or single.php if those are present, and make a few edits.

      I usually remove the lines of code that add a comment form to the bottom of the post because I don’t want people to be confused between the RSVP form and the comment form (don’t want to comment and think they are now registered).

    1. I created a plugin called ChimpBlast a couple of years ago (yes, it needs to be updated) https://wordpress.org/plugins/chimpblast/

      I have some membership oriented sites that do what you describe. When people sign up, they get an invitation to join a mailchimp list. I haven’t made it part of RSVPMaker core because as far as I can tell I’m just about the only person who uses ChimpBlast. It allows you to use the WordPress editor to compose email messages, which then get posted to the MailChimp system, and those messages can include events, lists of recent posts, etc.

      If I could get someone to sponsor me for an update, that could help get me motivated.

  94. We have a client who is using RSVPMaker and the Excel Plugin. We recently updated the site to WordPress 4.2.2 and RSVPMaker Excel is only compatible to 4.1.5. The client is unable to run Excel reports. Two questions:
    1. When will the Excel plug be updated to be compatible to 4.2.2?
    2. In the meantime, is there a work around to this issue?

    Thank you for your help
    Steven B

    1. I just downloaded an RSVP list from this website, which is running 4.2.2. If you’re going by the compatibility information in the wordpress.org repository, that just means I haven’t posted a recent update. The Excel add-on doesn’t require frequent changes (it’s just packaged separately because not everyone needs it).

      Is your client getting an error message when they try to download the spreadsheet? If we can figure out something obvious, I’ll try to help you debug it. Or I can be available to help on a consulting basis if there’s some sneaky problem we have to track down.

      1. Thank you for the quick response, When I click thru RSVP Events > RSVP Report > click on DOWNLOAD TO EXCEL – nothing happens, no error message, no nothing.

          2. Are you sure RSVPMaker Excel is active? Is RSVPMaker itself on the current version?

            Without the Excel add-on active, the form that appears at the bottom of the report should look like this (lets you display the data as an HTML table rather than downloading it to Excel)

          3. RSVPMaker Excel is active and both plugins are the current version according to WordPress.

          5. Postscript: I wound up charging $100 for a quick consultation on this issue. Turned out that a previous web developer had customized the RSVP Report, editing out the form used to generate the spreadsheet download.

          6. I just installed the Excel plugin, and maybe I’m having the same issue as Steven Bauer… The link to trigger the Excel box is there, but I’m not sure if the Data Table/Spreadsheet box is in the DOM. Clicking the link just adds #excel to the URL without displaying the options, etc..

          8. No.. I’m on the RSVP Report page.. There’s a link to Download to Excel at the top, a list of RSVPs for the current event, and that’s it. Clicking the link just adds #excel to the URL, there’s no form as shown in the image, etc.

          9. Check to make sure the RSVPMaker Excel plugin is both installed and activated. I admit this is dumb, but I see the “Download to Excel” link appears at the top of the page even when that extension is not activated. I figured that out by deactivating it.

            The link at the top of the page is just an internal one for talking you to the form at the bottom. But the RSVPMaker Excel add-on gives you that additional button to download the spreadsheet, rather than just displaying a printable version. If the button isn’t there, you should see a message stating that an additional plugin is required to download the data.

          10. Yup, it’s installed and activated.. I toggled activation numerous times and still no love… I just updated to the latest RSVPMaker, but I see that just removed the link.. Presumably it would return if the plugin sees that Excel is available, but the link is gone now…

            I’m running WP 4.4 Multisite with a couple of custom themes based on Underscores and a handful of plugins.

          11. I just threw together a quick function to export & download a CSV based on the $rsvp[‘details’] data for an given date on the reports screen. Let me know if you would like to incorporate it in the plugin and I can email you the function.. Would circumvent the need for the Excel plugin, as CSV can be opened in any spreadsheet app.

  96. Is there a way to add RSVPMaker into a current event post? I see that it has it’s own custom post type and wanted to see if it can integrate to one thats already part of the theme.

  99. I’ve been using your Plugin on two sites now with great success. Thanks! On one of them, a confirmation email doesn’t go out when someone RSVP’s and I can’t figure out why. On the other, the confirmation email includes the date of the first event in the subject line, but there are several event dates that the user could have signed up for, which is confusing. Can you please point me in the right direction to fix both issues? Thanks, erin

    1. Re: the email issue, do you have the SMTP email settings configured on either of the two sites. If so, click the “Test” link to verify you can get a test email to work. Also try checking spam folders to distinguish whether the email isn’t being set in the first place or is being caught in a filter.

      Re: the event with several dates, it sounds like you may have created an event with several dates where it might have been better to create multiple event listings — which is better if you want to be able to track signups for individual dates separately.

      The ability to add multiple dates for a single event was intended for cases where an event spans multiple dates — say, a weekend camping trip or a multi-day seminar. We want it to show up multiple places on the calendar, but you sign up once for the whole block of dates.

      The event templates feature was intended to address periodic or recurring events that include the same basic content and can be tracked separately. Typical use would be for a group that holds weekly or monthly events for which the location information and contact info for people who have questions is always the same. You can generate a whole bunch of event listings based on that template, customize the individual event listings as necessary, and track RSVPs for them independently.

      1. David, Thanks, creating multiple events will fix my issue with the email subject line. Regarding the problem of not receiving email confirmation at all upon sign-up: I signed up myself and did not receive an email, and I have received other email from this email address through site-generated emails in the past. Is there a way to send a test email through the RSVPMaker Plugin?

  101. Hello I’m getting this error when using this shortcode [rsvpmaker_calendar]

    ” Illegal string offset ‘startday’ in…. /public_html/wp-content/plugins/rsvpmaker/rsvpmaker-display.php on line 691″

    When I Googled that I got results with the same error on other people’s websites, but no answer as to the fix. Thanks!

  102. I just installed this plugin, and need to use it with PayPal. In watching your video from March 2016, I don’t have the Pricing for Online Payments section. I have entered my PayPal info into the RSVPMaker settings. Do I need to do something else to have the PayPal options show up?

  103. I love that your plug-in works so nicely with PayPal. I”m using for my son’s Cub Scout Banquet on the cub scout website. I have set it up to have different options when RSVPing like ( Scout, Adult, sibling, Boy Scout sibling), so I can give a count to the venue for how many kids v. adults and how many cub scouts v. boy scouts). The reports don’t show
    these selections. They seem to only use them to total the cost of the event. Is there a way to get the report to show these options?

  104. Thank you for a very useful and easy to use plugin. Is there a way to add a field to the Guest list that doesn’t show up in the main fields. In our event, a parent will sign up their child as a guest. We need a school grade for the child but not for the parent. Right now the grade field will show up in both sections.

    Appreciate your help.

    1. No, but I’ll add that to the todo list. My original assumption is you might not want to collect all the same information for guests as for the host (the person filling out the form), and I hadn’t considered a scenario where the opposite would be true. I don’t think it is a hard thing to add to a near future release.

  105. Hi David,

    Your RSVP dialog allows for “Let user specify number of admissions per category”. I created 2 Member and 2 Guest entries, all with different meal options, then I Updated. Create Form shows 1 member panel and 2 Guest panels so second member cannot specify a meal choice.

    When RSVP is recorded only Member 1 and Guest 1 have meal choice shown.

    On returning to that Event Page I see at the top before my page text an invitation to change that RSVP. Why? And below my page text I see the whole RSVP dialog again. Why? Once the RSVPs (and payment if present) have been accepted I want to go the Home Page but there is no such option.

    In the RSVP report, i delete all the RSVP entries but I still see Event names that have been deleted from RSVPMaker.

    Finally, can I customize the RSVP dialog? I would like to modify the look and feel so it complies with my page (of which it is now a part).

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