Stephen Sherrard

Just in case someone else looks at this thread in the future, after some private emails and the refreshing of my memory on my code, this is not a bug of the current plugin, but rather a feature that doesn’t exist yet and some confusing on how the current email template tags can be used.

As of right now, the email template tags for signup info can only be used for triggers that related to a specific signup, such as when someone signups for a task or clears their signup from a task. In those cases, we have a specific signup we are dealing with, and info from that signup can be used to replace the template tags. Otherwise, if we are doing something like a weekly summary of upcoming events, we can only work with sheet and task template tags as there is currently no “signup loop template” for my code to loop through all the existing signups and display all that info. Something like that would only work within the the task template loop, or possibly the sheet template loop, so that we know which sheet or task to get all the signups for (consider you have 10 different sheets/events in a week, all with many signups).

I’m putting a note to myself for this to be a feature request for a potential future update. This is the newest extension, and has a very small number of users at this point, so I’m open to suggestions for new features to make it more appealing to other users.

Hi Vicki,

That date is the date the plugin was originally published, not the last update date. It’s still a relatively new extension, but I have updated it twice since its release, and it’s working just fine with the latest versions of WordPress and PHP 8.2.10.

Note that the plugin itself does NOT do the actual sending of emails. Just like the main plugin, this plugin uses the WordPress wp_mail function to actually send the emails. If you are using a plugin that replaces the wp_mail function to connect with a better email SMTP service (highly recommended), then it should still work fine as long as that plugin uses the same parameters and header formats that the wp_mail function uses. I haven’t test specifically with Brevo, but if it’s working fine with the free volunteer sign up sheets plugin, then it should work just fine with this extension.

This content is restricted to buyers of:

• Volunteer Sign Up Sheets Customizer
• Volunteer Sign Up Sheets – Original Extension Bundle
• Volunteer Sign Up Sheets – Extended Bundle
• Volunteer Sign Up Sheets Complete Bundle

I will look into this.

However, I find it very unlikely that multiple people are trying to sign up for the same spot at the exact same time.

You may want to investigate any caching plugins you have active on your site, and make sure that caching is DISABLED for the pages with the volunteer sheets. I think there may be a chance that the page is getting cached with the info showing spots still open, even though they have been filled already.

Otherwise, how often does this actually happen? The only way I can see it happening is that a bunch of people somehow have the volunteer page open in a tab for a long time, and walk away or come back to it later and then try to sign up without first reloading/refreshing the page.

I can certainly add another check and change the error message that is displayed. However any link they click, such as any of the “back” links, already refreshes the page. But, if you have caching enabled on that page, the info it shows may not be up to date, so make sure you don’t have any caching plugins set to cache that page.

Mark,

You can do that already, but you have to have the options set correctly.

Scroll down in the general options for these settings (copied from the docs page):

Show Expired Tasks? — If you want to save signup info even after the dates have expired, check this box. This ONLY affects the signup lists on the ADMIN side. The public sign up sheets will never show tasks/signups that have expired.

Automatically clear expired signups? — Enables the hourly CRON function that checks for and deletes expired signups from the database. If you want to save your signup data after a task date has passed be sure to uncheck this and then check the above option to be able to view the expired tasks/signups on the admin side. If later on you want to manually delete all your expired signups, use the button on the CRON Functions page. For example, it is useful to clear all signups so that you can alter the dates on a sheet and reuse it for the following school year.

You need to make sure the first one is checked and the second one is NOT checked. Checking the first option above will allow you to view expired sheets & signup info. However, if you had the second box checked, then you are out of luck as it will automatically purge signups from the database once the events have passed.

This content is restricted to buyers of:

• Woocommerce Wholesale Ordering
• WooCommerce Wholesale Ordering and User Role Pricing bundle
• WooCommerce Wholesale and User Role extensions bundle

This would probably be better as a custom programming project, where I could code a custom extension that fits your needs exactly.

Otherwise, what I might suggest was that you create a separate “wait list” task for each task/item that you want to have a waitlist for. Put the wait list one right after the main one, and then people can simply sign up to be on the waitlist. Not perfect, since they could sign up for the wait list before the main list is filled (but, maybe that’s a positive, if people don’t necessarily want to do it unless the main list doesn’t get filled).

But, if you wish to discuss a custom developed extension just for you, feel free to contact me privately. Note that my rate for custom programming is $100 per hour.

This content is restricted to buyers of:

• Volunteer Sign Up Sheets Calendar Display
• Volunteer Sign Up Sheets – Original Extension Bundle
• Volunteer Sign Up Sheets Complete Bundle
• Volunteer Sign Up Sheets – Extended Bundle