Events Manager 6.1 and Pro 3.0

Posted on August 11, 2022

We’re happy to announce EM 6.1, and also Events MAnager Pro 3.0, another of our biggest updates to date! However, the change will not appear as dramatic to many.

This time, we’ve focused on data architecture and made one fundamental change; ticketing and storage of booking/ticket data.

Technical Summary of the Change

Previously, we stored all booking-related data in the booking_meta field, this has proven over time to be inefficient and made the possibility of adding new features difficult or near-impossible without an unnecessary level of extra work (resulting in more inefficient code).

Events Manager 6.1 solves this problem by storing all meta in the new wp_em_bookings_meta table.

Additionally, as of EM 6.1, all booked tickets/spaces created in the wp_em_tickets_bookings will represent a single space. Previously each row represented one or more spaces of a specific ticket in a single booking, you could have one row or multiple rows if you had booked multiple ticket types in a booking. Now, you could have 2 rows representing 2 spaces for the same ticket type in a single booking, every row related to a booking now represents one space.

EM Pro 3.0 goes further by storing attendee-related data in the new wp_em_tickets_bookings_meta table.

New Features, New Possibilities!

This new update opens up the doors to new possibilities, and we’ve kicked it off by adding some of the most heavily requested features into Pro 3.0 which we could not have easily achieved without EM 6.1;

• Printable PDF Invoices & Tickets (included in emails)
• Scannable QR codes (including a web-based interface for phones)
• Attendance Records (Check In/Out)

Here’s some screenshots of the new features in action!

Backwards Compatibility for Pro 2.x

This update is mostly compatible with Pro 2.x. The new features above aren’t included, but Pro will still work with Events Manager 6.1, and booking meta related to attendance will now be stored in the new wp_em_bookings_meta instead.

However, it is necessary to make one tweak to your code. This is located in events-manager-pro/add-ons/attendees-form.php around line 318:

if( $EM_Form->get_post(false, $EM_Ticket_Booking->ticket_id, $i) ){

Change this to:

if( $EM_Form->get_post(false, $EM_Ticket_Booking->ticket_id, $EM_Ticket_Booking->ticket_uuid) ){

And you’re done!

Moving On!

As mentioned, this update and 6.0 opened the door to new possibilities. You’re going to see quite a few changes coming fast!

We do now hope that these changes will be more incremental and modular, because they’re now building on fundamental foundational changes made in the last two updates. The remaining ‘noticable’ changes for all will be surrounding the administration of bookings and events, as we intend to improve the UIs of these sections to allow for easier admining and also open up even more possibilities for new features.

You can expect to see some interesting new features in the very near future, which we hope to surprise you with :)