Mackey

Journal

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Building a non-profit website with WordPress + The Events Calendar + Woocommerce

We recently just completed a non-profit website for the National Society of Professional Engineers, Albuquerque (NMSPE Albuquerque), that with the use of WordPress + Woocommerce + The Events Calendar plugin, produced a powerful tool for NMSPE Albuquerque to not only showcase their non-profit, but create events and allow users to purchase tickets.  Event management and selling/ managing ticket sales is functionality that can help any non-profit grow and take the headache out of managing sales and content via multiple sites and avenues.  Often times in the past clients would need to broadcast events via their website, but then sell the tickets via something such as Eventbrite, but with the addition of Tickets: Woocommerce clients can not only broadcast their events, but easily sell tickets online as well and at an affordable price.

Events - New Mexico Society of Professional Engineers Albuquerque

 

Engineers Week 2015

 

Beyond the setup of Woocommerce + The Events Calendar, we customized a theme using the Genesis Framework to better serve the user’s needs and along brand guidelines.

The essential setup needs are:

In addition we also included:

  • Gravity Forms for forms and email newsletter sign up
  • Yoast SEO for Search Engine Optimization
  • Genesis Responsive Slider for the Homepage Slider
  • Advanced Custom Fields for additional field options for the Homepage Slider and generally just a really handy plugin

Although a novice could definitely integrate and build out this site, we had to make a good amount of modifications and customizations not only to the theme, but to integrate Woocommerce + Tickets + The Events Calendar, specifically in regards to layout and aesthetic, but also with regard to functionality.  But for someone with coding knowledge and WordPress background, this setup can cut costs and labor and create an affordable option for non-profits, but with plenty of power under the trunk.

Beyond the plugin install and customization, the only other need is choosing a payment gateway.  In our case they opted for PayPal Standard which runs payments off site at PayPal and has no monthly fees plus doesn’t require a SSL certificate — again keeping fixed costs low for non-profits.

We’re not going to into explicit details in regards to implementation, but if you stumble upon this and have questions either about your own setup and install or would like to find out more information about how we can help to implement for your non-profit or organization, drop us a note.

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Good taste.

This is a bit old. It resonates so well, with not only the overall struggle of being a creative, but also to many aspects of life. A bit of inspiration to hang in there and stay with it… as long as you have good taste.

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

– Ira Glass

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Custom App? Sure, why not?

We’ve done a lot of work with various groups at Pasadena City College, including the eSTEM grant, which focuses on providing better support and increasing student diversity in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. One of the many projects under this grant has been the creation and opening of the STEM Center, where selected students enrolled in PCC science courses go to study independently, receive support from mentors, study with peers, and attend various events and workshops.

Each semester, the students invited to attend the STEM Center commit to spending a certain amount of time in the center. After almost a year of students hand-writing how much time they spent in the center and mentors manually entering it into an Excel sheet, we all decided that there HAS to be a better way. We spent many hours searching through the exhaustive list of time-tracking apps that already existed, and quickly realized that none of them would work. The STEM Center was looking to not only capture the time students spent in the center, but also the activities they were participating in while there. None of these pre-existing apps were the perfect match for what they needed.

A common mantra at Mackey is “sure, why not”. Had we developed an app like this before? Definitely not. Could we figure out a way to get it done? Sure, why not. Together, we set out with the STEM Center to think up the perfect app— How would it work? What would it track? What would it look like? What information would it give to students and those running the center?. We combined some big thinking, creative designs, and developer help to create a custom web app that would meet this vision and the data that was needed.

The finished product has a front end that allows students to check in and out, log their activities and % of time spent on type of activity, and view their progress. It has a backend that allows admins to view the students, track the hours students are logging and run MANY different types of reports to assist in analyzing all of this data.  We have just finished the first roll-out and students have started to use it. As we work through the remainder of this semester and as well as future ones, we know that there will be tweaks, additions, and deletions. But, for now, we have the beginning of a web app customized to their branding and their needs. Perhaps, you could say, we are one step closer to “the perfect match”.

home photo3 photo2 photo4 dashboard photo1-(1)  photo1-(2)

 

Screen Shot 2014-11-13 at 7.59.27 PM Screen Shot 2014-11-13 at 7.57.19 PM

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Tools of the Trade — Web Design and Development Agency Tools

I think, especially with technology, it is interesting the tools that we use to help get the job done.  There are tools that we use just for project management and business management and there are tools we use for development and design.  It’s always interesting to compile a list of the tools we use as it is ever changing.  One year a certain product is killing it, then the next another company comes around and does it even better.

So here is a compiled list of the tools we use to help us design and develop.

  1. Google Apps
    We’ll start with Google Apps because it really is our communication hub. From Gmail to Google Drive to Google Calendar, we use them all. The most value we get out of Google Apps is Gmail and Drive.  Gmail has been a great email client as long as we’ve used it and it makes it very simple for us to share and maintain communication.  Drive has been our Microsoft Office — we don’t even own a copy of Microsoft Office anymore, haven’t for years.
  2. Freshbooks
    For a small business or sole proprietor this has been the way to go for accounting, time tracking and invoicing.  Yes there is a monthly fee, but since we started using Freshbooks, the services has more than made up for that fee.
  3. Basecamp
    We used Basecamp a number of years ago for project management then the app just kind of sat stagnant and was not keeping up with our needs. But the new Basecamp is awesome.  We only recently tried using it again and it has been a godsend for maintaining projects and clients.  It really provides a solid structure to work within, but also gives you flexiblity.
  4. Apple
    Much like Google Apps, we wouldn’t be doing any of this if it weren’t for Apple — consistently solid machines.
  5. Adobe Creative Cloud
    In the last year we switched to Adobe Creative Cloud.  All that really means is that you have access to cloud storage and get software updates as they become available.  It can be expensive with a monthly cost of $29+ but well worth having all the tools at our dispense.
  6. Slick Plan
    For more complicated websites, this has been our go to for IA (information architecture).  A clean simple tool that is very easy to navigate and organize layer upon layer of content.
  7. Moqups
    Prior to any development or design we create wireframes.  This tool allows us to create, share and actually have the end user click through the different pages.
  8. Bitbucket
    Bitbucket is a revision control system that we utilize for most web sites.  It makes it easy to have a backup and version control as well as allowing others to collaborate.
  9. MailChimp
    We don’t just use MailChimp for email for our clients, but for Mackey it is our go to.  The interface is intuitive and very easy to use, as well as simple to design and create email campaigns.
  10. Trello
    Trello can be used to basically organize anything.  It is great for ideation and can even be used for project management.  We find it a good tool though primarily for concept and ideation and use Basecamp for the heavy lifting of project management.