wp-SwimTeam

I have posted an update to the wp-SwimTeam plugin.  This version addresses a few bugs, one of which was fairly critical as related to optional fields for users and swimmers.  This version also adds infrastructure to provide Contextual Help for all of the forms although only the Jobs forms have detailed help so far.  Help will be updated for other forms as time permits in upcoming releases.

This version also adds a new choice when defining a Job’s location.  Previously the location was limited to Home, Away, or Both.  A new choice, N/A, has been added to account for some jobs not being tied to a swim meet.  An example of this would be a job such as ‘End of Season Banquet Coordinator’.

There are a couple bugs in the jobs module that I became aware of today.  I have fixed them in my development tree and plan to post a new release tomorrow after some additional testing.

I just uploaded a minor  update to wp-SwimTeam.  This release adds enhancements to the reporting for jobs and the opt-in/opt-out system.  A new field called “Notes” was added to the Jobs definition.  This field is reported when viewing the Job Assignments for a swim meet.

The time stamp for opt-in/opt-out is now included when generating a swim meet report.  The time stamp can also be displayed via the short code by adding “timestamp=’y'” to the short code.  Reporting the time stamp will allow you to easily see exactly when users submitted their request.

A new version of wp-SwimTeam has been posted.  This releases fixes a couple minor bugs which prevented display of swim meet information in certain situations when scratching or registering from a swim meet.  This version also introduces two new features:

1. Open or Close the registration system. When the registration system is open, users can register their swimmers for the current season.  When the registration system is closed, only an Admin or Editor can register swimmers.  This setting appears on the Registration tab from the Options sub-menu.
2. Enable or disable user sign ups for jobs. When the job system is set for user sign ups, a user can sign up for any open job.  When the job system is set for admin sign up, users with either Admin or Editor roles can sign users up for jobs.  This second mode is good for teams where a paper or Excel list is used for job sign ups.  This setting appears on the Swim Team tab from the Options sub-menu.

This afternoon I uploaded v0.2.482 of wp-SwimTeam.  This release introduces the new Jobs module (aka Volunteers).  Please back up your database before upgrading as this version changes the structure of one of the tables and introduces two others.

Please let me know if you have any problems with this version.  I’ve done a fair amount of testing and I have it up and running on the MacDolphins web site.

The jobs module introduces two new short codes:

• wpst_job_descriptions
• wpst_meet_job_assignments

Example usage of these two new short codes can be found on the wp-SwimTeam demo site here and here.

There is also a new release of the phpHtmlLib plugin which wp-SwimTeam requires available.  This build addresses a minor issue exposed in WordPress 3.0 beta testing.

Hopefully the new Jobs module will be helpful for your team, I know it will be helpful for mine!

I have update the wp-SwimTeam demo site with a preliminary version which includes the new jobs module.  I expect I will release it over the weekend at some point.   You can see what a sample page or post would look like for a swim meet.  From the Administrative perspective, a similar report is available but includes more details (e.g. phone numbers).

I had a chance to show this to the woman who coordinates volunteers for the MacDolphins and she was pretty excited about it.  It should make her job much easier and it will also make it much easier for parents to know when they have signed up to volunteer.

I want to do a little more testing on it before I release it but I am pretty confident it is working pretty well.

This past week I have made quite a bit of progress on the jobs module.  Everything seems to be working, I just have some polish and testing to finish up before I will release it.  The basic job work flow works like this:

1. Define a job – title, description, duration, etc.
2. Allocate a job to a season or to one or more swim meets.  This action connects a job to a specific season or meet and defines the number of positions required.
3. Assign job ownership.  This can be done by either the administrator or by end users themselves.  End users cannot assign themselves jobs which are already assigned to another user.  An administrator can change the assignment of a job from one person to another.  Job assignment can be performed in couple different ways:
• Full or Partial Season long jobs can be assigned from the Seasons tab.
• Full or Partial Meet long jobs can be assigned from the Swim Meets tab.
• A specific job can be assigned from the Jobs tab.

The Swim Meet Report has been enhanced to include a Job Assignment section and a new short code has been defined to allow a meet specific job report to be added to a page or post easily.  The wp-SwimTeam demo site will be updated shortly to show some of the new features.