Apologies if this is the wrong section.

Using CMSMS 1.10.3

I have a site with several regions - each region page contains a timetable of meetings in that particular region that I have just presented as a table.

The client now wants to combine all meetings into a database that can be accessed via date (day of the week) and region. For example, new page called Meetings - Days which contains links to Monday, Tuesday and so on. The Monday page will list all meetings on Mondays throughout the year. Another new page called Meetings - Regions which will contain links to each region and each region page will show only those meetings for that region.

Do I set up a database say in Access and add it to the website or can it be done within CMSMS?

Thanks

Consider using CGCalendar. You can add categories to events. In your case categories = regions.

You can display events only in specific categories. You can probably also do the Monday, Tuesday thing with some smarty tags. (Failing that it might be easier to have a category for each day and tick the day for each event, in which case it would be easy to select them.)

Thanks paulbaker - yes, I have used CGCalendar on several sites but mainly for monthly meetings and the like.

The problem here is that it will need to be maintained by editors (elderly editors!) so I need to have it in a very simple format. Although they asked to have it all in a database, I really have no idea if any of them can manage a database. I'm dealing with a committee - say no more!

Been there, done that. I feel your pain!

I would say CGCalendar would be easier than Access, both for you and your committee. All they have to do is enter the event date, details and select the right category(ies). Mind you, I've seen people mess even that task up.

Doing it with Access opens up a whole world of new problems - where do you keep the Access file, how do they access it, how do you stop other people accessing it, how to integrate the Access data into CMSMS, how often, how to prevent event duplications, etc......... I wouldn't go there.

The website is only about a year old but the committee has just changed. Currently each region has a table containing their meetings, very simple to fill in.

The new guard are pulling in different directions, it seems. The sensible ones take the view: its not broken - why fix it.Others are never happy. They have seen another similar site (looks to me like it was done in the 90's, obviously one of those DIY jobs) and it has these buttons (!) with the days of the week which bring up a table containing all the Mondays and so on. The committee on that site lists a webmaster and a separate database person.

So that is where the idea came from. Yesterday I sent them an email asking who was going to design the database, me or them, who was going to maintain it and who was going to do the queries to extract each group of meetings for the days and regions. I will now add the issues you have mentioned!

Going back to CGCalendar, I have used it as a Calendar ie, having the actual calendar on the page but am certainly no expert. I can't see how it would work with this site For example, on another site that has a meeting say first Tuesday of the month, the calendar appears and in that date space, there is the word Meeting as a link which leads to another page containing full meeting details. Very minimal use of CGCalendar I am sure but all that is needed on that site.

In this case, there are 9 regions so on any given day there would be at least 9 meetings on the one day - for each semester. I can see that on a calendar for say June, there could be ONE link on each day leading to a page showing all meetings on that day, if that is possible. Would it also be possible to show ALL the meetings for each semester usually 2-3 months worth? It also needs to show the meetings in each region as a list.

I would rather this all be done within CMSMS of course. I will need to be very persuasive to talk them out of the database idea.

[Later] At the end of a long day: I think this can be done by using "yearlist" -just one big list of everything, then using the Search template: they can select any day or any region by using the Category dropdown and or even any topic or any speaker by typing it in the text box. Just have to work out the best way to display the info but it looks like being a lot simpler than I thought.

CGCalendar is very flexible (as you later implied yourself). Take a look here where I used it to list events for a month. On the right is an upcoming list which is essentially a list of events; you can filter this by category - this is how you can show the meetings for each region.

The regular events shown in my example are added as repeating weekly events - saves effort for the site administrators, another nice feature of CGCalendar.

Thanks paulbaker - yes, I've done much the same myself on other sites. The issue here is that there are virtually 9 clubs within one club, if you get what I mean, so an actual calendar would look dreadful with at least 9 different meetings on most days of the week!

What I need is to arrange the items horizontally ie each meeting on a different line instead of being in a calendar block. I'm lucky in that I won't need them as links as I don't need details of the meetings. I also won't need an Upcoming list.

Haven't got around to checking on alternate layouts yet - was waiting to see if they are going to accept my ideas and heard late yesterday that they are. So I supppose increase the width of the current date space in the "calendar" to full div width and remove the border lines? Something along those lines?

Will need to experiment.

Thanks! Your site look very efficient!

Ugh! OK I see what you mean, tricky!


Don't forget the standard monthly calendar is rendered as a table.

Good luck!

I'll need it! If I have any problems I'll start a new more specific thread!