By John Leake on Tuesday, 08 April 2014
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I'm planning the possibility of migration to EasySocial for a community site that uses events and would like to know whether the following features will be included in upcoming releases and, if not, I'd like to request them.

1. In my community, some events are created and held under groups while some are independent events apart from any groups. Will this functionality be included in ES 1.3?

2. Will ES allow to assign groups and events to sub-categories of each? And with option to specify which group/event category level to display on the font-end sidebar?

3. Is there a way to upload our own badges and assign them to users from the backend?

4. I'd like to request points rules that can set a level of points to sync with a Joomla User Group (JUG) so that point ranges can serve as membership/access levels on the site. I need to be able to sync seven point ranges with seven JUG's so that when a user's points go in and out of certain point ranges, it reassigned their JUG to the one assigned in the point rule.

For example, I might have a point range from 20-49 where user should be in a JUG called "Professional" and when he reaches between 50-99 he gets placed in a JUG called "Expert." The user should be taken out of the JUG "Professional" and placed in "Expert." You might give the option in the point rule to add to a group(s) or reassign to a different one upon crossing the specified point threshold. Also, an option to add or subtract points upon change in points range. Furthermore, if user goes down in point range from spending points or losing points, rule sould take user out of "Expert" and place him back in "Professional" group. This way, you can build a membership site based on the ES points system complete with access and profile types appropriate for those membership levels. This is what I need.
Hello John,

Please find the answers to your inquiries below:


1. In my community, some events are created and held under groups while some are independent events apart from any groups. Will this functionality be included in ES 1.3?

Yes, we'll be adding events and videos for EasySocial 1.3 but we have not really decided yet if events would be part of a group yet in 1.3. Perhaps in the upcoming releases we could plug this in.


2. Will ES allow to assign groups and events to sub-categories of each? And with option to specify which group/event category level to display on the font-end sidebar?



3. Is there a way to upload our own badges and assign them to users from the backend?

You can create your own badge rules if you want by following the guideline here, http://docs.stackideas.com/developers/achievements/achievements . Once the rule file is created, run a discover to discover these new badge rules.


4. I'd like to request points rules that can set a level of points to sync with a Joomla User Group (JUG) so that point ranges can serve as membership/access levels on the site. I need to be able to sync seven point ranges with seven JUG's so that when a user's points go in and out of certain point ranges, it reassigned their JUG to the one assigned in the point rule.

For example, I might have a point range from 20-49 where user should be in a JUG called "Professional" and when he reaches between 50-99 he gets placed in a JUG called "Expert." The user should be taken out of the JUG "Professional" and placed in "Expert." You might give the option in the point rule to add to a group(s) or reassign to a different one upon crossing the specified point threshold. Also, an option to add or subtract points upon change in points range. Furthermore, if user goes down in point range from spending points or losing points, rule sould take user out of "Expert" and place him back in "Professional" group. This way, you can build a membership site based on the ES points system complete with access and profile types appropriate for those membership levels. This is what I need.

Unfortunately this is not possible right now but it does seem like a pretty cool idea though.
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Tuesday, 08 April 2014 10:55
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Hi Mark, thanks for your reply.

I wrote the requests in order of importance for my needs so I'm hoping you all are able to at least squeeze item 1 into the next version. Main reason being is, I need folks to be able to create multiple events under the same group so they can keep unity inside the same group as events come and go. I'd imagine you could also give ability to create unattached events if not created within a group page. I know item 4 is asking a lot but thought I would throw the idea out there because it's something I will need at some point in the future. I will take a look at the badge documentation.

And how about item 2?
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Tuesday, 08 April 2014 12:49
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Hello John,

Events will be coming in EasySocial 1.3 as we are in the midst of working on it but as of now, I can't really give you any ETA for this yet As for item #2, unfortunately we are not supporting multi level categories yet but this is probably coming in later revisions once we get in the main stuffs in
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Tuesday, 08 April 2014 16:36
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Hi again Mark,

Thanks for your timely feedback as I'm in the midst of planning a relaunch of a community site. It's very helpful to know what features I will be working with in the next months. I have come up with a couple more questions for you.

5. Will events have event types open, closed and invite only restrictions like the groups have?

6. If you are incorporating events creation within groups, will the group page have an events filter for its stream? And an events filter for the user's activity stream?
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Wednesday, 09 April 2014 10:52
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Hello John,

Yep, it will have these "types" as well but to be honest, we don't have the explicit specifications yet as right now we are just hammering updates for 1.2.x and we're still trying to juggle between all these feature requests.

When there are events within groups, there will be a new event filter within the group and regardless if the event is available in the group or not, there would be an events filter just like the groups for user's dashboard
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Wednesday, 09 April 2014 12:31
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Awesome! That's all I needed to know about events anyway. Thanks Mark.

Lastly, does StackIdeas offer any custom development services if I end up needing points rules for item 4 above? or would you be able to recommend any?

I was browsing the forums here and came across this thread about E-Learning management. Well, what better way to incorporate a students community than with point ranges students can earn points from completing lessons then assign users to certain JUGs based on their points levels? Then administrators can setup different profile types and access levels based on their lesson completion (through points). If ES is going the E-Learning route, I think my rule idea would be something to include. Just my thoughts.
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Thursday, 10 April 2014 02:51
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Hello John,

Yes, we do provide customizations and our customizations rate varies depending on the complexity of the job. By the way, you should be able to access http://stackideas.com/forums/lms-learning-management-system-elearning-for-es since you have an active subscription of EasySocial.
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Thursday, 10 April 2014 11:12
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Thanks for all your help, Mark! So far, I'm thoroughly impressed with EasySocial. You and the team should be very proud. Looking forward to the next version with events. Good luck with it and take care!
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Thursday, 10 April 2014 11:21
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Hi John,

You are welcome and thanks for your compliment Please stay tuned to our updates on EasySocial.
Have a nice day
Sam
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Thursday, 10 April 2014 12:10
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Hi Mark/StackIdeas, just following up on item 1 from this thread. Can you confirm yet if this critical item related to events will be included in upcoming version of ES 1.3?

1. In my community, some events are created and held under groups while some are independent events apart from any groups. Will both assignment types (under group, independent) be included in events for ES 1.3?
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Tuesday, 29 April 2014 06:20
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Hello John,

Our first initiative for EasySocial 1.3 is to introduce Events and we will not have any relations between Groups and Events yet but this will definitely come later perhaps in one of the minor updates on 1.3.x or 1.4.x (Can't really give an exact answer to this yet)
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Tuesday, 29 April 2014 11:23
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hi Mark, much thanks for the update. Just needed to make sure both are planned for a future release this summer.
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Wednesday, 30 April 2014 02:11
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No problem John
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Wednesday, 30 April 2014 03:09
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