The Event Feature is perhaps a very helpful tool. Originally the LoCo Directory as conceived to better keep information of LoCo teams. In the same way, The LoCo Event Directory promises to bring the same organization of data but related to Events in the LoCo team project.
Background
Originally this was developed as an idea for launchpad, the need for LoCo Teams to have a way of keepig track of events and participation for members led to the creation of some bugs. After the realization that these were not really launchpad specific feature requests and that the LoCo Directory has lifted off as a platform to keep LoCo Team Data, It was simply a matter of time before this got here.
To organize teams into events a key member of the Ubuntu community usually sets up a wiki page and lets people write their names down. It is is a global event, Manager of the LoCo project makes the announcement and sets up a wiki page for LoCo team contacts to add their teams. this leads to the same problem that brought the idea of the LoCo Directory. Keeping record of data regarding events all in one place and organized.
Detailed Outline
The Ubuntu LoCo teams are looking a way to follow up on an event promotion; tracking attendance, gathering support for the event, keeping track of past events, meetings etc.
Currently this is all done in a wiki and does not follow any specific way of organizing the attendees as every team has a different way of doing this and this can be a way or inhibiting new comers. Also, there is no way of letting all the team members know about the event, as not all members are on mailing lists.
Issues
Laura is organising a meet up to celebrate a release party. She does not know how many people are coming so she can chose a suitable venue. Currently it is by mailing list or wiki post, making it very difficult for her to track who is coming.
Efrain wants to attend the event laura is promoting but there is a list of attendees on the wiki but Efrain does not know wiki mark up, so he cannot edit the wiki entry and add his name.
Jono wants to know what each LoCo has organized at any given point, this is currently easy to track at fixed event times, but not for individual events at any given point.
Laura would like to have an efficient way of email notification. She depends on mailing lists to ensure the email arrives to all inteand members. Each members options may slow down reception of the information for the event.
Use Cases
Efrain runs a BugJam he has registered an event, and he has already let his LoCo team know about the event by associating the BugJam to his LoCo team.
Laura has received an email from Launchpad with a suggestion on an event she would like t attend based on LoCo team affiliations.
Laura has created an event and wants to know how many people are attending or not.
Michael is hosting a potluck dinner and needs to know who is bringing what dishes
Michael is having a build day and needs people to bring X monitors, Y keyboards and Z network cables
Technical Specs
Workflow
Creating and Event
1) Team admins go to the team's LoCo-Directory entry and click on create event 2) Team admins fill a form with the Event Data. 3) The LoCo Directory Events emails the mailing list with the information of the event (optional).
Listing attendees
The list of attendees should sort by teams so demographics on participation can be visible.
Browsing for an Event
1) Check the teams LoCo Directory Entry.
- You can see 10 upcoming events and 10 previous events of that team.
2) Check the LoCo Directory Main site.
- You can see 10 upcoming events and 10 previous events of asorted teams.
go to the team site and it you are admin... have the button create event Attendance list is sorted by teams.
the loco team should have previous and upcoming events listed in the team site.
the meta events are created and people can check if their events are part of a bigger event happening.
Event Data
- Title
- Description
- When
- Starts
- Ends
- Primary contact/organizer(s) of the event
- List of people participating / attending
- List of supplies needing / people bringing them
- URL to a website/wiki with more details about the event
- URL to a map and directions to the event
Global Event Data
- Title
- Description
- When
- Starts
- Ends
- List of events related to this event.
Ideas from the Crowd
Please make your idea with @SIG@ at the end.
This should get done
(EfrainValles) I think we need user stories for all features of the Event tracking. Like "Daniel wants to create a new event, he clicks on X, does Y, then page Z opens asking him to ABC, etc." or maybe (or additionally) some mockups of how the UI would look. -- dholbach 2009-10-01 10:36:10
Will there be RSS? Email? -- dholbach 2009-10-01 10:36:10
+1 RSS -- dantrevino 2009-10-09 18:43:41
and iCal -- mhall119 2009-12-11 18:29:30
"Where" data -- dantrevino 2009-10-09 18:45:05
Where data with link to Google Map location -- xdatap1 2009-11-16 16:29:01
Optional "URL" data -- dantrevino 2009-10-09 18:45:05
"Contact" data -- dantrevino 2009-10-09 18:45:05
Going back through this, I dont see "RSVP" functionality. Use Case: After hearing about the Bug Jam that Effrain is organizing Dan decided that he wants to attend. He logs into the LD app, locates the event, and registers his intention to attend. -- dantrevino 2009-10-30 13:57:00
Not all LoCo's are using Launchpad. In Vancouver BC for example, approx 80% of the team is non-technical (and non-developer) and not on Launchpad. We use Meetup.com which already has an excellent RSVP and event management engine. Can we (the people discussing this idea) leverage best-of-breed tools and perhaps duplicate Meetup's functionality without the pre-requisite to join Launchpad? This would keep the 'everyday' Ubuntu user more interested. Randall Ross
Can we get a web services API for the LoCo directory? JSON, XML, plain text, CSV would be preferable (in that order). -- Tiemonster 2009-12-11 17:45:00
+1 JSON. A JSON interface would allow us to be cleaner and separate the RSS and Email features (if they were implemented) from the core code. Actually all of the data in loco-dir should be mashable. -- dantrevino 2009-12-11 18:06:36
L'Agenda Du Libre is a web application used to aggregate all the events related to Free Software in Quebec that has some interesting features. It has been coded in django and release under GNU Affero General Public License. Maybe it is worth checking out the source code to see what could be reused. -- luis.lopez 2010-01-26 15:00:00