The latest updates address some known bugs that have prevented facets of the Bookings process from proceeding. Alongside this, we’ve introduced some lovely new features in both EM and Pro! Here’s a quick breakdown:

• Events Manager 6.4.5
  • RSVP statuses
  • Un-Cancel a booking!
  • Prettier action links on ‘My Bookings’ page.
• Events Manager Pro 3.2.7
  • RSVP Extra Features
    • RSVP Cancellation Policies
    • Per-Event Policy settings
    • RSVP Endpoint URL/UI
  • Gateway Testing Modes

Now we’ll go into more detail;

RSVP – Back but not the same!

Previously, in earlier versions of Events Manager, many years ago, we referred to Bookings as RSVP. We changed most of these references to ‘Bookings’ as it made more sense, save a few errant EM setting or database column names. Now, we’ve re-introduced RSVP to Events Manager again, but now as intended, as a confirmation of attendance to a booking!

Events Manager now supports RSVP functionality which allows users to confirm, decline or (optionally) ‘Maybe’ their booking. This information is all exportable to spreadsheets as usual and show up as a sortable column on the bookings admin table too:

As you can see, there is some great flexibility included in the main/free plugin, which allows you to sync your booking status with the RSVP, so if a user declines their booking, it cancel the booking entirely; if you enable approval syncing you can make it so that an RSVP self-approves their booking. Moreover, you can allow users to change their minds and re-confirm their booking, which also folds into the ability to “uncancel” a booking using our other new feature from this update!

Here’s a few more screenshots from our settings page and ‘My Bookings’ page for your visitors.

RSVP Pro

But wait… there’s more! Events Manager Pro 3.2.7 turbo-charges this new feature by providing a variety of powerful features to leverage the power of RSVP.

Frontend UI

Our front-end UI creates an endpoint confirmation page with a minimalistic design that looks great on phones and allows your guests to quickly and easily RVSP the booking via a shortened link that can be emailed with the new #_BOOKING_RSVP_URL placeholder.

RSVP Policies

Adding to RSVP, Pro will also introduce the ability to set RSVP policies. An RSVP policy requires users to confirm their booking a certain amount of time before the event to guarantee their booking. This can include canceling bookings outright by the deadline (Strict Policy), or leaving bookings as approved but subject to cancellation if the event is fully booked and another guest books a space (Flexible Policy).

RSVP Policies can be enabled globally or also as a per-event setting.

“Uncancel” a Booking

Users can now uncancel a booking via RSVP. If the event is not fully booked and the equivalent booked spot remains available, a user can ‘Uncancel’ their booking and restore it to the previous state. If confirmation syncing is enabled with RSVP, users can RSVP ‘Yes’ and the booking re-approves itself.

Prettier ‘My Bookings’ Page Action Links

As often is the case, updates in Events Manager are foundational, or stepping stones to more updates. This minor change is one step towards revamping the ‘My Bookings’ page UI. Previously, action links to cancel a booking or resume payments were plain links, now, you’ll see a beautiful dropdown button which will keep the table tidy:

Additionally, as seen above, this folds into RSVP functionality so that users can RSVP directly on this page. Additionally, if you enable cancellation syncing on your settings, users will be shown a single ‘Not attending’ link to avoid confusion between cancelling and RSVP’ing ‘No’.

Pro Feature : Gateway Testing Modes

This is the first of many features planned that make the best of our recently-added Gateway API revamp;

Creating live or test events with different settings is a common thing, so is testing or debugging gateways in live environments. In any case, switching between test or live mode for a gateway required switching API keys entirely and this would apply to the whole site and all events. Now, it’s possible to have both Live and Test/Sandbox modes for a single event and limit its availability to specific events, users or event IP addresses!

Besides being tremendously useful for us to help customers with Gateway-related issues, it also enables site administrators to concurrently run live events whilst testing payment flows on specific events or even a live event by limiting a single gateway into Test Mode.

Changelogs

As usual, here’s a specific list of changes in these updates:

Events Manager 6.4.5.1

Events Manager Pro 3.2.7