As mentioned in the introduction: don't expect a generalized conference extension at this state of development - due to the complexity of the extension the available version is limited at some aspects to the basic conditions of the originating conferences and it is lacking some TYPO3 integration issues (e.g. hard coded texts, no multilingual capabilities). Step by step we want to improve this one to a generally usable conference extension – if we'll find time and sponsors... :-)
Some of the conditions of the originating system which are still implemented in the current version are:
product types and frontend user groups and their respective database UIDs are fixed – they are referenced in hardcoded extension code
an accepted speaker becomes a conference attendee automatically (free admission to the conference)
for the correct operation of “Conference visitors area/Conference Registration” plugin it's necessary to have some tutorials in the papers database table, that are marked as accepted tutorials (see details in chapter “Handling of Speakers, Papers, Talks and Tutorials” below)
a user can order additional items for himself (extra social events and tutorials) and he can register additional attendees including associated products
the billing data is linked to the user data of the orderer (this means it is not bound to the order yet - this may be changed in one of the next versions)
Before installing the extension make sure you meet all system requirements described in the chapter Configuration.
After installing the extension you have to create a basic working environment and customize some stuff before - please refer to chapter Administration to do so. When you finished all this you're able to start using/checking the extension.
Fig. 9 shows an example basic page tree for the Conference Management Extension. To use all components you need to create the TYPO3 pages you see in the page tree example on the right (naming of your pages is arbitrary, but the names given in the example will be used for further instructions) and integrate the different plugin types of the extension as content elements. After inserting a plugin into a page and saving this you'll get a additional selectorbox to choose the plugin type (save this again).
In order to limit access to certain pages to members of special frontend user groups you should restrict page access at some points (see table below). In order to do that you can use the selectorbox found in 'Edit page header' -> 'General options' -> 'Access'. (Notice: This requires the preceded PID adjustment of the fe_groups database table, see Configuration'->'Database adjustments'->'Database table fe_groups').
The following table shows a brief overview of the available plugins and points out what is possible and what is needed considering the page tree example above as the underlying example (pages names in bold font mark top menu entries for the website's navigation):
Page (see page tree example above) | Plugins used for appropriate page | Description | Restrict access to fe_group |
|---|---|---|---|
Default User Registration | Frontend User Administration (plugin provided along with pt_conference Ext. - use in combination with the static template ”Conference Default Registration”) | Default frontend user registration form using feAdmin library elements (the required code has been copied to the conference extension). After adding the “Frontend User Administration” plugin as a content element for the page you have to create an extension template including the static template ”Conference Default Registration (pt_conference)” at “Include static (from extensions)”. Users registered here are members of the frontend usergroup 'default'. The page type could have the “Hide in menu” checkbox checked (if the page should not be displayed in any kind of navigation menu or sitemap). | |
FE-USERS | [None: TYPO3 sysfolder] | Create a deault TYPO3 sysfolder here for the conference websites frontend users. Enter the PID (no alias here!) of this sysfolder at the Conference System's Constant Editor settings [plugin.tx_ptconference.feusersSysfolderPid]. | |
SPEAKERS AREA | [None: default TYPO3 page] | [Regular page content - this page is just a top level navigation menu item in this example. Arbitrary content to welcome/inform speakers.] | - |
Speakers Registration | Frontend User Administration (plugin provided along with pt_conference Ext. - use in combination with the static template “Conference Speakers Registration”) | Speaker registration form using feAdmin library elements (the required code has been copied to the conference extension). After adding the “Frontend User Administration” plugin as a content element for the page you have to create an extension template including the static template ”Conference Speakers Registration (pt_conference)” at “Include static (from extensions)”. Users registered here are preliminary members of the frontend usergroup 'speakers'. | - |
Submit/Edit Paper | Conference Speakers Area: Paper Registration (Speaker) | This plugin generates a paper submission page for registered speakers. Speakers may submit and edit paper proposals and an author's description here. Furthermore the upload of papers and author's picture can be done here. Details see chapter “Handling of Speakers, Papers, Talks and Tutorials”. | speakers |
Committee Overview (part 1) | Conference Speakers Area: Paper Overview (Program Committee) | Set the starting point of this plugin type to the page where you've integrated the “Paper Registration (Speaker)” type of the “Conference Speakers Area” plugin (the page “Submit/Edit Paper” in this example). This plugin displays all submitted paper proposals for registered programm committee members. They get a list view with links to detailed paper views including abstracts and the possibility to rate the paper proposals. Members of the fe_group 'admin' get additional form columns to accept papers as talks or tutorials. Paper are accepted by a checkbox, tutorials are accepted by assigning a consecutive tutorial number (as they are used for the visitors registration/order form). Details see chapter 'Handling of Speakers, Papers, Talks and Tutorials'>'Accepting and rejecting talks and tutorials' | committee (partial display restricted to fe_group 'admin' by plugin code) |
Committee Overview (part 2) | Conference Speakers Area: Finalize speaker selection (Admin) | This plugin should be integrated in the “Committee Overview” page above the plugin “Paper Overview (Program Committee)”. The content of this plugin is viewable for members of the 'admin' group only. This plugin displays a button to “finalize” the current accepted paper /speaker selection done by an admin group member. This has serious consequences for many things, so be sure you know what you do. Details see chapter 'Handling of Speakers, Papers, Talks and Tutorials'>'Accepting and rejecting talks and tutorials'. | admin |
Accepted Talks | Conference Speakers Area: Accepted Talks | Set the starting point of this plugin type to the page where you've integrated the “Paper Registration (Speaker)” type of the “Conference Speakers Area” plugin. This plugin displays all accepted talks to interested website visitors. The conference admin has to “finalize” the current accepted paper /speaker selection before this page is going public. Details see chapter “Handling of Speakers, Papers, Talks and Tutorials”. | - |
Accepted Tutorials | Conference Speakers Area: Accepted Tutorials | Set the starting point of this plugin type to the page where you've integrated the “Paper Registration (Speaker)” type of the “Conference Speakers Area” plugin. This plugin displays all accepted tutorials to interested website visitors. The conference admin has to “finalize” the current accepted paper /speaker selection before this page is going public. Details see chapter “Handling of Speakers, Papers, Talks and Tutorials”. | - |
VISITORS AREA | [None: default TYPO3 page] | [Regular page content - this page is just a top level navigation menu item in this example. Arbitrary content to welcome/inform visitors.] | - |
Registration/Order | Conference Visitors Area: Conference Registration | This plugin generates the registration and ordering pages (4 different screens: order form, order overview, billing data form, billing data check). It uses different form buttons to send information from page to page. Enter the PID/alias of this page at the Conference System's Constant Editor settings [plugin.tx_ptconference.registrationPage]. To enable the credit card payment option you have to install and configure the “Cardia ePayment” extension (pt_payment) and configure the interfaces between both extensions (for pt_conference set “Cardia ePayment page” in Constant editor, see chapter “Administration”/”Extension settings in Constant Editor“, for pt_payment please refer to that extensions' manual). The registration page should not go public before the “Paper Registration” has been closed and the program committees' decisions are made. Details see chapter “Handling of Speakers, Papers, Talks and Tutorials”. | - |
Browser Back Notice | [None: default TYPO3 page] | Place a text here for users who tried to manipulate a finished order by using the browsers “Back” button. Example: “Sorry - Changing your order by returning to the ordering pages with your browsers back button does not work. ...If you had problems with the ePayment process or if you want to cancel your order please contact us.” The page type should have the “Hide in menu” checkbox checked (since this page should not be displayed in any kind of navigation menu or sitemap). Enter the PID/alias of this page at the Conference System's Constant Editor settings [plugin.tx_ptconference.browserbackPage]. | - |
Cardia ePayment | Cardia ePayment (from pt_payment extension) | To offer a working credit card payment, you have to insert the “Cardia ePayment” frontend plugin (pt_payment extension) here. You may use an appropriate page headline, e.g. “Payment in progress...”. The page type should have the “Hide in menu” checkbox checked (since this page should not be displayed in any kind of navigation menu or sitemap). Enter the PID/alias of this page at the Conference System's Constant Editor settings [plugin.tx_ptconference.paymentPage]. | - |
Accounting Status | Conference Visitors Area: Accounting Status | This plugin generates an accounting overview for registered users who have orderered something. It also offers the possibility to pay unpaid balances via credit card. Enter the PID (no alias here!) of this page at the Conference System's Constant Editor settings [plugin.tx_ptconference.accstatPid]. | orderers |
Attendee Status | Conference Visitors Area: Attendee Status | This plugin generates an overview page for registered attendees. This page displays the registered attendee data, ordered products and a talks wishlist. It also offers a form to change product specifications and the talks votings. | attendees |
STATISTICS [Admin] | [None: default TYPO3 page] | [Regular page content - this page is just a top level navigation menu item in this example. Arbitrary content to welcome/inform admins/statistics users.] | admin (include subpages) |
Stats <statsname> | Conference Statistics: Stats <statsname> | All “Stats ...” plugins display appropriate statistics tables for the conference admins/organizers (don't forget to restrict page access!). You can use one page per table or insert multiple statistic plugin types on one page (see Fig. 7). | admin (inherited from parent page) |
ACCOUNTING [Admin] | Conference Accounting (no types available) | This plugin generates the accounting area for the conference admins/organizers (don't forget to restrict page access!). Using this plugin the conference organizer is able to check all invoices created by users who registered for the conference. Incoming and outgoing payments can be entered here and credit notes or cancellations for an invoice can be created. Details see “Using the 'Conference Accounting' plugin” below. | admin |
Contact | [None: default TYPO3 page] | [Regular page content - this page just displays contact information. Arbitrary content , e.g. a TYPO3 mail form.] Enter the PID/alias of this page at the Conference System's Constant Editor settings [plugin.tx_ptconference.contactPage] since the contact page is linked at many points of the conference extension. | - |
[Usage of plugins]
Speakers who registered themselves at the “Speakers registration” page are able to submit and edit paper proposals and author's descriptions.
The submission of papers (including the final decision of the program committee, which papers are accepted as talks and tutorials) is supposed to be handled before publishing the accepted talks/tutorials pages and before opening the conference visitors registration. This means pages including the plugins “Conference visitors area” (all types of this plugin), “Conference speakers area/Accepted talks” or “Conference speakers area/Accepted tutorials” should not go public before this process has been finished.
To get an overview of submitted papers and author's descriptions, choose 'Web'->'List' in TYPO3's backend and mark the page where you've integrated the “Conference Speakers Area/Paper Registration (Speaker)” plugin. Paper records can edited here by the conference organizers, e.g. to assign a session track or to annotate some session information for a presentation.
Call for papers: Speaker registration, paper submission and uploads
Registered (preliminary) speakers may submit and edit paper proposals and an author's description at the page where you've integrated the “Conference speakers area/Paper Registration” plugin. A submitted paper is supposed to be a talk, if the author didn't mark the “Tutorial“ checkbox.
Speakers are allowed to upload an author's picture and the finished paper. The upload configuration for this files (e.g. allowed mime types, max. file size etc.) is done at Constant Editor's “PT_CONFERENCE_PI4” page. All user files are uploaded in a directory named with the login name of the user which itself is a subdirectory of the upload directory configured in Constant editor (see 'Administration'-> 'Extension settings in Constant Editor'->[plugin.tx_ptconference.uploadParentDir]). The uploaded autor picture is scaled for web display and named “authorpic<fe_user UID>_scaled.<filext>”, the original pic is named “authorpic<fe_user UID>.<filext>”. The uploaded papers are named “<conferencePrefix>_paper<paper UID>.<filext>” (conferencePrefix see 'Administration'-> 'Extension settings in Constant Editor').
The conference organizer should set an end date for the “call for papers” period. This date can be configured at Constant Editor's “PT_CONFERENCE_PI4” page at “New paper abstract submission end”. After this date the extension will not allow the submission of new paper abstracts. Additionally, the page with the plugin “Conference Speakers Area/Paper Overview (Program Committee)” should be opened (see below).
Notice: After “finalization” of the speakers selection (see 'Accepting and rejecting talks and tutorials' below), speakers cannot edit their paper abstracts anymore.
Committee overview / Paper rating
Members of the program committee (responsible for selection of talks and tutorials) are registered by conference organizers in the BE (or this group is added to their existing user record).
After closing the “call for papers” committee members get an overview of submitted papers on the page with the plugin “Conference Speakers Area/Paper Overview (Program Committee)”. Using the “Edit paper ratings” button, they can rate all papers in a rating form The static data of 'paper rating values' is used for this rating (the default is“not stated yet”), see 'Backend handling of database records'->'Edit static data at site root'. The conference organizer should set an end date for the “committee rating” period.
Accepting and rejecting talks and tutorials
After closing the “committee rating” period the conference admin (the admin user has to be member in the usergroups “committee” and “admin”) can decide which papers are going to be accepted based on the total ratings displayed by the plugin “Conference Speakers Area/Paper Overview (Program Committee)”. He gets additional admin colums (“Accepted as...”) with form elements to accept talks (by checking the appropriate checkbox) and tutorials (by setting an consecutive 'tutorial number', starting from 1). Depending on the current acceptance status, the admin gets information about the total used time units (first line below table header).
To fix the final decision which papers should be accepted, the admin has to use the “Finalize speaker selection” button(plugin 'Conference Speakers Area/Finalize speaker selection (Admin)'). Pressing this button checks all current speakers if the speaker has at least one accepted paper left (depending on the current paper acceptance selection). If yes, he keeps the usergroup “speaker” and additionally becomes member of the usergroup “attendees” (free admission to the conference). If not, his frontend usergroup is changed from "speaker" to "rejected_speaker". All speakers gets a 'finalized' flag in the database, so they cannot edit their paper abstracts anymore (paper uploads are still possible).
Only accepted papers are shown to speakers now and the speakers get no more possibility to enter a new paper. Furthermore the "Finalize speaker selection" button and the "Save accepted papers" form are disabled now. These actions are not reversible using frontend interfaces - so be sure to know what you do!
Notice for developers: To reverse the consequences of errornous “finalization” you may set all entries of the 'tx_ptconference_speaker_finalized' field of the 'fe_users' database table to 0 (but the usergroup modifications are still done and have to be reversed manually!).
IMPORTANT: After opening the visitor registration (“Conference visitors area/Conference Registration” plugin) the assigned “accepted-as-tutorial”-numbers and paper acceptance flags must not be changed anymore, as they are internally used for the product order relations and talks wishlist relations.
Opening accepted presentation overviews for public
After finishing this process of accepting/rejecting talks and tutorials your overview pages for accepted presentations can go online (“Conference speakers area/Accepted talks” and “Conference speakers area/Accepted tutorials”).
Moreover the visitor registration can be started now (“Conference visitors area/Conference Registration” plugin). For the correct/full-featured operation of the “Conference Registration” plugin you should have some tutorials in the talks database table, that are marked as accepted tutorials with consecutive 'tutorial numbers' (see above). The ordering form displays these accepted tutorials automatically as a radio button list to be booked by attendees. Make sure to set the correct prices before (see 'Administration'->'Backend handling of database records').
Since version 0.3.4 of the extension there's an attendee limitation feature implemented: The “Max. number of attendee” is configurable in the Constant Editor for pi1 (see 'Administration'>'Extension settings in Constant Editor'>'Category: PT_CONFERENCE_PI1: VISITORS AREA (8)'). If the number of registered attendees exceed this amount, the conference registration will close automatically with a "Fully booked" notice (but credit card payment is for previously initiated bookings is still possible). If you do not want to limit the number of attendees, use -1 here. Furthermore, this feature can be used to stop further registration immediately by using the value '0'.
WARNING: Do not disable/hide the “Conference visitors area” plugin, even not if the conference is fully booked. Disabling this plugin has the side effect that correct ePayments started from a user's “Accounting status” will still be handled correctly by the ePayment extension, but correct payments will not be registered in the conference accounting anymore! If you want to close the visitors registration, use the appropriate Constant Editor setting described above.
IMPORTANT: After opening the visitor registration (“Conference visitors area/Conference Registration” plugin) the assigned product prices, the assigned “accepted-as-tutorial”-numbers and the paper acceptance flags must not be changed anymore, as they are internally used for different relations!
The frontend of the conference accounting plugin offers a possibility to make a selection for existing invoices. The default selection is all invoices with a balance not equal to 0. The selection can be modified by a given search word and a search array. After entering the search word, a wildcard (%) is added to the start and the end of the search word, before the SQL query is executed. If the checkbox 'paid' is selected, also invoices with balance of 0 are shown. For the 'search array' the following selections are possible:
Selection | Resulting search |
|---|---|
General Fields | search in billing data (first and last name, customer number, town, company) and first- and lastname of attendees |
Name | search in first- and lastname of attendees |
Invoice name | search in invoice first and last name, |
Address | search in invoice town, invoice company |
Invoice # | search in invoice number |
Accounting note | search in accounting notes (could be used for a search for an ePayment GUID) |
After clicking on the search box, you'll see a list of invoices. By selecting an invoice number all data of this invoice are shown. A click on payment opens a new form where an incoming payment can be entered. When you click on the name of the orderer its data will be displayed.
Invoice data
The detail page of an invoice contains five buttons, which handles the following actions for an invoice.
Cancellation
Incoming Payment
Outgoing Payment
Partial Cancellation
Credit note
Below the buttons the invoice information is displayed, followed by the order information, accounting entry information and the list of registered users. If a PDF file exists for an invoice, cancellation or credit note, there is a link to the PDF file. The layout of this page can be changed by modifying the file EXT:pt_conference/res/accounting.tmpl.
Incoming and outgoing payment
With this two forms an incoming or outgoing payment can be entered. By default the balance of this invoice is set in 'total' field and the current date is set in the 'entry date' field.
Cancellations and partial cancellations
There is a possibility to cancel the complete order or only some parts of it. When executing a cancellation a PDF file or this cancellation is created.
Credit notes
Using this form a credit note will be created. The user can choose net or gross credit notes by using the appropriate 'total' field for entering the total sum. A PDF file for the credit note will be created after clicking the “booking” button.
