Case Study: Quickly Create An Online Booking System For Complex Events

Case Study Summary

This fast and simple online solution using WordPress, PayPal, Gravity Forms, Gravity View and GFChart saved a State based Swim Club.

Client Situation

Every year application forms were emailed to members. The completed forms were handed in at events and practice, and information transposed onto a spreadsheet. Everything was slow, nothing was up to date, it took a lot of effort to manage.

This is still a typical scenario for many clubs and community groups. A lot of businesses too.

The problem with existing online solutions

There are some fantastic online event booking systems (Eventbrite, TryBooking, etc) but none are entirely satisfactory. They all appear to be designed for seat bookings at venues on specified dates, maybe with tiered pricing, and some optional extras.

Club events are different in that they run over several weeks, with competitors scheduling events, not seating, and whilst the difference seems subtle, it's not.

The Solution

Gravity Forms ability to collect complex information through forms and make it available for download via a simple csv file for spreadsheet viewing was key. It's payment gateway add-ons gave us a way to collect money.

So, we hired some cheap hosting, installed WordPress and a Genesis theme, and a really basic website containing photos of previous club events, and information about future events. We opened a standard PayPal account, loaded Gravity Forms and the PayPal add-on, and our new booking system went live. We used the free 'members' plugin to provide basic access control and the free 'Gravity Forms Directories and add-ons' plugin to display a simple list of bookings to selected people with access.

Then We Added A Dashboard

The system worked a treat for customers, and the administrators loved the speed and ease of downloading all booking details into a spreadsheet. What was missing was a simple dashboard giving an overview of bookings.

GFChart (https://gfchart.com/) provided the missing dashboard capability. Available as a plugin which extends Gravity Forms to display live data in charts, it is used to display a dashboard that tells administrators which events are selling well and where there is an opportunity to invest extra sales effort.

Continued System Enhancements

Since this Case Study, the core event booking capability has been rolled out with other clients and modified for taking club membership payments, that will provide an even better solution for your bookings needs.

• Gravity Forms booking overview (https://gfchart.com/gravity-forms-booking/).

• Survey Customiser (https://gfchart.com/2019/05/survey-customiser/)

• Display Charts in Emails and PDF's (https://gfchart.com/2018/10/charts-calculations-emails-pdfs/)

Buy GFChart Now at www.gfchart.com