[Suggestion] Better Event Management

[+texasgrillchef]

My suggestion for Better Event Management is NOT in regards to management of the actual event by the Cache owner.

 

It is for the web site, and how Events are managed on the web site, in regards to PQ's, & mapping, as well as to the event cache page itself, & even includeing management of the events on your smartphone. In my case on the iOS devices (iPhone/iPad).

 

1. When you download a PQ for events. You can include the area that you wish to search, as well as when the cache was published. What you CAN NOT do, is search for events in a PQ that take place between two different dates, or on a specific day, or in a specific month.

 

2. The other thing, is when you do a PQ for Events, you can NOT tell the PQ, to elminate (not include) events that have allready taken place. So the PQ includes those events which have not been disabled, or archived yet, but have allready taken place.

 

3. We need another "status" for Events that we can place events in after they occurr. Most CO's after a specified period of time will "archive" the event. However, we are NOT allowed or able to search for archived caches. (For obvious reasons) The thing is, unlike true regular caches (Virtual or otherwise) There isn't any real legal reason that we shouldn't be able to search for previous events cache pages. Yes, there are times when a event is archived PRIOR to the event takeing place. This happens because for many reasons the event has been cancelled. So archiving events should still be avaiable. Just there is no reason that we should archive Events (When the event has allready ocurred). A new status for Events after they have occurred should be available. This will allow caches to search for those events, to check out the photo's, Video links, & Logs that people have posted. This will also allow us to do PQ searchs for Events that have either allready happend, or allow us to elminate those events from PQ's as well. Maybe we could call the status "Ocurred" or "Over".

 

4. In our smartphone (iOS) apps, when we download a PQ, we can sort on various aspects. Sort by "Date" should be available for sorting the Events by date.

 

5. When we are viewing the MAP, on our iOS devices, and we see the icons for events. When the little "Popup" comes up for that cache. It should include the Event date as well. When viewing the popup online on the web page. Date hidden should be changed to "Event Date".

 

6. We need a calender view (online & in iOS app) that shows us events for a given area, in a Calender view. Such as when viewing by the month. It will show all of those events to take place in that month, for the distance from your home coordinates that you pre-set.

 

7. Export of the Calender view to various different calender programs & apps available to smartphone calender apps, as well as online calenders and Microsoft Outlook.

 

The reason I am making this suggestion. Is that here in the DFW metroplex. Between the months of Jan 2012, & March 2012, In a 50 mile radius. (Which many many DFW cachers do drive to go to an event) there are/have been/will be over 25 events taking place, with even more to come that have yet to be published. Manually typing &/or cut-n-pasting this information in to my iCloud &/or Microsoft outlook has been a royal PITA. And trying to figure out which events I can make and which I can't because of when/where they are located/taking place.

 

Honestly, I have to admit, I do NOT know what the best solution would be, or what methods, we can use to make management of Events easier to handle. I just know that we need something. One thing I do know for certain. Things could be made much better with improvements to the PQ system in regards to using a PQ to find & download Events in regards to when those events will be taking place, or have taken place.

 

TGC

Edited January 17, 2012 by texasgrillchef

[+The A-Team]

My suggestion for Better Event Management is NOT in regards to management of the actual event by the Cache owner.

 

It is for the web site, and how Events are managed on the web site, in regards to PQ's, & mapping, as well as to the event cache page itself, & even includeing management of the events on your smartphone. In my case on the iOS devices (iPhone/iPad).

 

1. When you download a PQ for events. You can include the area that you wish to search, as well as when the cache was published. What you CAN NOT do, is search for events in a PQ that take place between two different dates, or on a specific day, or in a specific month.

 

2. The other thing, is when you do a PQ for Events, you can NOT tell the PQ, to elminate (not include) events that have allready taken place. So the PQ includes those events which have not been disabled, or archived yet, but have allready taken place.

 

6. We need a calender view (online & in iOS app) that shows us events for a given area, in a Calender view. Such as when viewing by the month. It will show all of those events to take place in that month, for the distance from your home coordinates that you pre-set.

 

7. Export of the Calender view to various different calender programs & apps available to smartphone calender apps, as well as online calenders and Microsoft Outlook.

 

TGC

A few things that already exist:

1. You can certainly do exactly what you describe. On the PQ form, there's a section called "Placed During". This contains several date functions, including a date range. You can use the range to specify a range, a specific day, or an entire month. I just tried it, and it does work for future events, since the "Placed date" for events is the actual event date. I was able to find that there are 5 events within 100 miles of my home location on Feb 29, 2012.

 

2. You can use the above specified date range to start at today, and set the end to some distant date in the future. It will then only return events that happen after or including today.

 

6. There isn't a pretty calendar view, but if you go to this search page, you can do a search for events by various criteria, including from a centre point or for a state. Once you get the list of events, you can sort it by the event date, and even bookmark it so it's easy to access.

 

7. Event pages already have this function. If you look at an event page, there's a link directly to the right of the event date that says "Add To Calendar".

[+texasgrillchef]

A few things that already exist:

1. You can certainly do exactly what you describe. On the PQ form, there's a section called "Placed During". This contains several date functions, including a date range. You can use the range to specify a range, a specific day, or an entire month. I just tried it, and it does work for future events, since the "Placed date" for events is the actual event date. I was able to find that there are 5 events within 100 miles of my home location on Feb 29, 2012.

 

2. You can use the above specified date range to start at today, and set the end to some distant date in the future. It will then only return events that happen after or including today.

 

Cool I just tried that as well. If you want it to do from "today to 90 days in the future" it works well if you run it manually. It doesn't do to well though if you have it set to autorun weekly. Maybe as one of the selections that they can add to the time function where it lists "last week", "Last month", "Last year", they can add to that list... "Next week", "Next Month" and "Next 90days" (As events as a general rule are never published more than 90 days in advance.)

 

6. There isn't a pretty calendar view, but if you go to this search page, you can do a search for events by various criteria, including from a centre point or for a state. Once you get the list of events, you can sort it by the event date, and even bookmark it so it's easy to access.

 

This isn't bad if your doing it on the computer. It however though isn't part of the iOS app. Nor does it work very well in Safari on the iPad.

 

7. Event pages already have this function. If you look at an event page, there's a link directly to the right of the event date that says "Add To Calendar".

 

Hmmm never noticed that before. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. They have all the major players except for APPLE's iCloud/iOS devices. So I guess maybe I should suggest adding iOS/iCloud to that list of "Add to Calendar". I can get it to my iOS devices default apps, by importing into one of the supported calendars, then exporting and importing into the iOS devices. Still kind of a PITA though.

 

Thanks for your suggestions of work arounds. They are step forward in the right direction. However, there are still the other parts of that, and I bet you can't deny that they could still use some more work on making it easier to manage event caches. Especially within the iOS app.

 

I do use GSAK, and that helps some in some areas. But at this point in time you can't import GPX files into the iOS app, and as far as I know (I admit I could be wrong) I don't think GSAK has a way of importing Event info into any calendar format that I am aware of. I do admit though I could be wrong here as well.

 

TGC

Edited January 18, 2012 by texasgrillchef

[+Delta68]

I suggested an improvement to the Events page back in November and is sank like a lead balloon

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=285160

 

I don't care anymore

I use my GreaseMoneky Script and it does what I want (usually)

 

Very few suggestions get implemented or 'enhancements' reversed so I have have given up suggesting any and I use a load GM Script, Adblock filters and Stylish thingys to make the site usable

 

Mark