TOPIC: Matukio feature assessment

Hi there,

I am looking to start a new project around event management and I have been researching software options during the last weeks. I have to say that, at first sight, Matukio looks like a great Joomla extension and I quite like it.

To be more specific, my project deals with events brokerage and, although I understand that Matukio is not designed for this purpose, Matukio's off the shelf features are not to far away from what could get me started.

On the other hand I would like to get your input about some key points that my project requires and I am not sure where they would sit in your development cycle and how difficult/easy you think they would be to implement. So let me explain my requirements:

A) Bespoke filtering options

My site will have hundreds of events so the ability for users to filter them easily through many different criteria is critical. If I understand correctly, events in Matukio are Joomla articles so what about using tags so the administartor can define certain tags, that then organisers would be able to use or not use in their events, so users could apply complex filtering based on these tags to narrow down the Eventlist results? Is it something your are working on? ( if so, when is expected to be released?). There are some other Joomla modules who would apply tags to articles and then allow filtering based on those tags. Have you used or recommend a particular one which would be compatible with Matukio?

B ) Ticketing

I find quite limiting the fact that there is a default ticket for the event and then the additional ticket types refer back to that default ticket. I'd be interested in two enhancements:

B.1 - I would like to be able to create different independent ticket types for a single event. For example, adult ticket with price (50 USD) available between certain dates and certain amount (100 tickets), child ticket with price (25 USD) available between certain dates and certain amount (200 tickets), VIP ticket with price (100 USD) available between certain dates and certain amount (25 tickets). I think what is missing at the moment in Matukio is the ability to control the amount of tickets sold under each ticket category, correct? So if I had the capacity for 325 people for my event I could end up selling 325 child tickets and then blocking sales for adults and VIPs. It would also be great if the capacity for two or more ticket types could be combined, so for example, 100 tickets are reserved for children but the rest ( 225 places) could be consumed by either adult tickets or VIP tickets.

B.2 – I would like one single user to be able to buy different ticket types for himself and be able to define discounts for multiple buys. For example, user1 could buy pre-party ticket, party ticket and post-party ticket or any combination of those. If it buys only one party ticket would pay its advertised price. If it buys pre-party ticket and party ticket gets 3% discount of the total. If it buys party ticket and post-party ticket gets 5% discount of the total. If it buys pre-party ticket, party ticket and post-party ticket gets 10% discount of the total. I guess you guys see this scenario today as three independent events ( pre-party, party and post-party) but users would be very disappointed if they had to go through a registration process for every event that fall under the same offering from the user point of view ( maybe a parent event could be created which embraces multiple child events?) and organisers would very disappointed that they could not offer discount schemes based on multiple buy.

From the event checkin point of view two scenarios spring to mind
- More useful: To have three different tickets with three different QR codes delivered to the user ( and three different attendance lists – I know you're screaming, three different events!!, but they were bought from a single event page on a single booking process, and the user see it as a single night out)
- Less useful but could work: To have a single ticket with a single QR code which states this ticket includes, pre-party, party and post-party ( or any combination)

C) Organiser Management

I've been playing a bit with your demo site and I couldn’t figure out if it is possible to register as Organiser from the front end. Every time I had to go as admin to the backend and upgrade that user to organiser. Is there a way for the user to request to be upgraded to organiser?

In JomEvents there are membership plans that organisers can subscribe to for certain time and include different capabilities (restricted amount of events they can create/manage based on the membership) based on different pricing. Is this something you have considered? Would it be possible to integrate Matukio and JomEvents or it is a big mess?

E) Collecting money in different accounts depending on the event organiser

I think I have seen something in your forum that this is a planned feature. Any time scales?

D) Service Fee

Would it be possible to add a “Service fee” to every ticket by the super user? Do you have this in the roadmap?

F) Facebook integration

Have you thought of the ability to import/export events from Facebook. In other words, and event that has been created in Facebook can be imported into Matukio with a simple click ( even if the event has only some basic features as dates, address, description, and the organiser can later add some other matukio based details), and viceversa. An event that has been created in matukio can be exported to facebook with a simple click. I think this will enhance the usability for organisers quite a bit.

In addition I think it would be great if users who login into Matukio with their facebook credentials could see in Matukio events which are linked with a Facebook event who has answered “going/maybe going/ not going” in Facebook. This will encourage users to buy tickets if they see their friends are going. I know there is a feature in Matukio to publicly show who is registered for an event but I guess you'd agree with me nowadays people recognise their friends easier by their facebook alias rather than by their actual name and surname

So this is it. I hope you guys can comment on the points above. I have ordered them from more to less important, being the facebook integration features (F) a “nice to have” feature and the filtering (A) and ticketing (B ) requirements “must haves”.

Overall you have developed a great Joomla extension, so keep up the great work!

Many thanks!!

oh well, nevermind.. It would have been nice to get a reply

Wow sorry, just saw that your post is still open - you replied to yourself, so i haven't seen it in the No Replies section

If you are still interested i would suggest you get in touch with me on Skype, that are a lot of questions and some difficult ones too - my Skype-Id: yves.hoppe.

Sorry again for the late response,

Yves