3 replies to this topic

[broccoli]

Hey Folks.

Looking for a replacement for a web calendar ("event spud" in Trumba-ese) that is part of a CMS-based web site we are retiring.

(You can see it here: http://www.farin.com The left column of events is the part I am looking to replace.)

We use our calendar extensively to register and advertise to end users on our web site by typing them individually into the web interface, which then would modify itself based on the server date to decide what events to display on our web site. So basically, it's a web tool used to broadcast events from a database starting from "today" and filling up until the 5 or whatever events fill the area of the page. The key for us is not to need to touch the thing for months at a time after loading a whole year's worth of events into it, letting it change the HTML output of our site as days go by, as well as letting users browse all events if they are looking for one farther in the future than happens to be displayed today.

While it's clear the free version of Trumba wouldn't suit us, it's unclear what other account category this would fit in. We certainly have no problem assigning one person to be the Trumba account person, but that might not accurately reflect the customization we want to do, nor the web traffic we may produce. What does "Limited" branding mean exactly? Can I change colors? Can it use an RSS feed or iFrame to appear to be within our site? Would there still be Trumba branding on it? Are there examples of the "Limited" customized version vs. the "extensive" customized version?

Essential Criteria;

- customizable display, font color, font, etc.

- event type categories; training, demo, workshop, etc. (10 of these)

- spud display type categories; one web page displays spud with training events, different web page displays spud with demo events, home page does both. etc. These would not have any user control on them, they visit the page, it displays the set of 5 events in that category(s). That's it.

- spud displays based on current date and "X weeks from now" or "10 events from now" or similar. We are using 8 events on the home page, and 5 events on a few internal pages.

- ability for end users to browse entire calendar

- ability for users to look at individual events (by clicking a heading link in the event spud) and see; some text description, time, date, a link to a general registration page (always the same) and a link to a "description" page for the event

- ability to hide or mask calls from another server; it looks like some Trumba users are using a hostname "calendar.theirsite.com" which goes to a Trumba server. iFrame or better yet an RSS type feed would be ideal, a frame set would be OK. Linking directly to someone else's site... no chance we would do that.

Optional Criteria;

- "boxes" calendar with conventional display, we might use it but are more concerned about replacing existing functionality.

Not Interested in;

- outside parties adding events

- importing from other calendars

- email reminders or email of any kind (we want this to display part of a site, not to help organize and plan things)

- letting users interact with it beyond "read-only", nor do we particularly want users messing around with their "own calendar", nor do we want them setting their own preferences or anything like that

Basically, what you see in our site now, is what we want to do with some other software. The only question is can we do so with Trumba in a cost-effective way.

Comments appreciated.

[Jill]

Hi broccoli,
Thanks for asking about Trumba! And for posting the link to your site. Based on your questions and your site, it looks like the Trumba Professional version would be able to fit many of the requirements well, and some not as well. It looks and behaves very similarly to what you're already using.

Our Upcoming Events spud is also very similar to the list you have on the page the link directs us to.

Currently, we don't have extensive customization options. There are some options, and if you look at the thread about testing spuds, you'll see Troy's posts that give some detailed customization tricks. Also, development is working on this area right now, so we expect to see a lot more flexibility very soon.

The display of the calendar starts with today, and your visitors can navigate to any date that exists on the calendar. If you use a list-based template to publish your calendar, similar to what you're using now, you can specify how many events you want to display on one "page" of the calendar.

You can add filters in the calendar publishing process so that visitors can view events by type or whatever category you want. You could also use mix-ins to let users display or hide calendars.

To clarify the issue about who's the account admin, you don't have to assign it to one person. More than one person can sign in to an accout, just not at the same time. Just in case that helps. Of course you can all get separate Pro accounts and share calendars as well.

If you subscribe to an RSS feed from a reader, by default, the events details pages include the Trumba logo. I don't think that will go away with the new customization features, but it's likely that this could be customized with the "premium" version.

You can embed a spud by simply inserting the code Trumba gives at the end of the publishing process, or you can embed it via an IFrame. (I haven't seen anyone bringing in the RSS feed via IFrame to render the XML code to display in a browser, but that doesn't mean it's not possible -- I'm guessing that a web developer would say that it is possible for people who know what they're doing.)

For the essential criteria, I'll put my comments right after your item.

>>Essential Criteria;<<

- customizable display, font color, font, etc.
Not quite yet, but customization coming. I don't know exactly what the customization features will cover, but I think it'd be worth waiting for.

- event type categories; training, demo, workshop, etc. (10 of these)
You can create custom fields for your event categories. It sounds like you could use a drop-down list, where you could make each category a list item. On the published calendar, you'd use a filter to display it similarly to the way you do now.

- spud display type categories; one web page displays spud with training events, different web page displays spud with demo events, home page does both. etc. These would not have any user control on them, they visit the page, it displays the set of 5 events in that category(s). That's it.
You can create these pages and set the number of events that appear in your spuds, however, the spuds are dynamic. So even if your calendar displayed, say, 5 demo events, the user could navigate to the rest of the calendar, see event details, and do most event actions such as adding events to his/her calendar, subscribing to the calendar, viewing the RSS feed, and so on.

- spud displays based on current date and "X weeks from now" or "10 events from now" or similar. We are using 8 events on the home page, and 5 events on a few internal pages.
Actually, this is the only thing you're asking for that isn't a feature in Trumba. Again, you can set the number of events that appear, but you can't specify "over the next x weeks."

- ability for end users to browse entire calendar
Yes.

- ability for users to look at individual events (by clicking a heading link in the event spud) and see; some text description, time, date, a link to a general registration page (always the same) and a link to a "description" page for the event
It doesn't work exactly this way, but users can see individual event details. Also, although we have event invitations and RSVP, registration and payment has to be done through a third party, such as PayPal. If you're interested, we can explain this in detail.

- ability to hide or mask calls from another server; it looks like some Trumba users are using a hostname "calendar.theirsite.com" which goes to a Trumba server. iFrame or better yet an RSS type feed would be ideal, a frame set would be OK. Linking directly to someone else's site... no chance we would do that.
Right now we don't support doing something like calendar.yoursite.com. I don't know if or when this might be available. But when you embed spuds, you set the variable that is the page you want spuds to jump to, so you don't have to link to Trumba's site.

Optional Criteria;

- "boxes" calendar with conventional display, we might use it but are more concerned about replacing existing functionality.
Not sure what you mean by this.

Not Interested in;

- letting users interact with it beyond "read-only", nor do we particularly want users messing around with their "own calendar", nor do we want them setting their own preferences or anything like that
The event actions such as Add to my calendar are a part of every calendar, so users can do these things. However, none of these things affects the display or behavior of your calendar.

You can see a custom example for the New York Times on the Trumba home page. To see examples of the way others use Trumba, you can browse through the publishing and web developer forums for people who've posted their links, but here are some I can think of (some free and some Pro):

Headz Up
Visit Bristow, OK
Masswrestling.com

If you have the time, you can also see standalone calendars at www.trumba.com/calendars. Many of the calendars listed are embedded into the owners' sites, and if they don't have a link to their site in the calendar header, you could do a search for the organization to get their web site. Sorry I don't have an easier way to find examples.

Many of the features you want are available in the free version, so you can get a pretty good idea by trying it out. You can also find info about the spuds in the Help: Embed calendar spuds into your web pages. Hope this helps!

Jill / Trumba UA

[broccoli]

Jill,

Thanks for the detailed response. It looks like this will work for my purposes. (Which is mainly to get the web developer to shut up about the calendar being a roadblock and get started on the new site.)

I'll be back in a few months to purchase, and will definately check out the customization options in the testing spuds area.

Thanks a bunch.

[Jill]

Ok, broccoli, that sounds great. Thanks for letting me know.

Hope you don't mind posting your link again when you have Trumba set up, and feel free to visit us in the forums if you have questions. Good luck!

Jill / Trumba UA