Wanting multiple submissions - how?

[jcrothers]

I have set up a membership contribution page for my organisation. At our festival, we want new members to sit down at one of a few laptops and enter their details into the Wordpress page/form so that we don't need to have volunteers do data entry from written membership cards at a later date.

When I try to test enter more than one person's details I get this error message:

Sorry but we are not able to provide this at the moment.
An error occurred during form submission. This page requires form data to be submitted for processing and no form data was submitted or processed. We are sorry for any inconvience. Please click here to visit the contribution page and re-start the contribution process.

I've looked around and it seemed like this was designed this way to prevent multiple submissions (https://issues.civicrm.org/jira/browse/CRM-13397) but what if I want multiple submissions (by different people)?

Does anyone know if what I'm trying to do is possible? And if so, is there a setting I've missed to make it happen?

Thanks.

[joanne]

Are your memberships paid or free?

I don't think  https://issues.civicrm.org/jira/browse/CRM-13397 is causing your problems.

The multiple submits referred to there are when people double rather than single click on the submit now button (or decide the whole process has stalled as it is taking longer than they like and click on the submit button again).

When I try to test enter more than one person's details I get this error message:

Can you expand a bit on that?  Were you  submitting two memberships at the exact same time? Our site has problems if two people submit memberships during the same second, but even a one second difference in the submission time is handled OK.

[jcrothers]

Thanks Joanne.

Our memberships are paid but I don't have a payment processor set up and people will pay a volunteer in cash ($2!) and then sit down to enter their details.

I set up a contribution page which included the membership section. Initially I had it set up with "Execute real-time monetary transactions" ticked and the "Pay later" box ticked but then I unticked both to see if that was causing the problem. It made no difference.

In my testing of the contribution page I do a dummy entry by filling in all the required fields and clicking Contribute, then Confirm on the confirmation page. The first one of the day always goes through (implying a break of time makes a difference?). Then I return to the "Join" page and enter different details -- always a unique email. After clicking Contribute I get the error message quoted above. That's in Chrome.

I just tested it in IE and Firefox and got this error message on the first submission:

Sorry but we are not able to provide this at the moment.
We can't load the requested web page. This page requires cookies to be enabled in your browser settings. Please check this setting and enable cookies (if they are not enabled). Then try again. If this error persists, contact the site adminstrator for assistance.

Site Administrators: This error may indicate that users are accessing this page using a domain or URL other than the configured Base URL. EXAMPLE: Base URL is http://example.org, but some users are accessing the page via http://www.example.org or a domain alias like http://myotherexample.org.

Error type: Could not find a valid session key.

My contribution page has 3 sections
- contribution section - 1 radio box pre-selected as it is the only choice + email
- personal details profile - name, address, 2 custom data fields
- membership profile - type, status, start date (I disabled the other standard fields as they weren't relevant to us)

The URL of the error messages in all browsers is:
http://organisation.ca/join-the-organisation/?page=CiviCRM&q=civicrm/contribute/transact

I hope that additional info is what you were looking for. I appreciate your time. I'm a new Civi user and find myself often stumped when things don't go according to plan. I search the Book and the forums to try to figure things out myself but they don't always help.

[joanne]

Can you confirm that when you return to the "Join" page you have logged out and have a page full of empty fields?

[jcrothers]

It's a page full of empty fields.

I'm definitely doing the testing in a browser where I am not logged into Wordpress/Civi.

Does filling in a form log you in to something? And if so, I'm unclear how to log out.

Of the two profiles I'm using on the contribution form Personal Details had "No account create option" for WordPress user account registration and Membership had nothing selected. I've just selected "No account create option" for it.

[jcrothers]

Can I just confirm with you Joanne (or anyone) -- this is actually a doable thing right?

That is, I should be able to have a contribution page published on Wordpress with two additional profiles built in where one person enters their data, then confirms their submission, then the next person returns to the original page and repeats those steps and so on.

And if that's the case then either I've got a setting/option wrong somewhere (likely!) or there's a bug (I'd think unlikely) or ?? is there some other option ??

[joanne]

I should be able to have a contribution page published on Wordpress with two additional profiles built in where one person enters their data, then confirms their submission, then the next person returns to the original page and repeats those steps and so on.

Yes, you should be able to do that.

If you are using the browser back button to return to the original page you might strike problems, so better to have it set up as a favourite you can just click on.
 
Also, I must have been skip reading your posts. You say you have  a membership profile enabled on your sign up page.  What is that for? I don't think that is common practice and am not sure what purpose it serves.  My understanding is that the membership type, status and start date will all be determined by CiviCRM when the form is submitted, so what are you putting in that profile?  Perhaps that is contributing to your problem.

[jcrothers]

I'm definitely not using the back button. I'm clicking on the link in the error message or the main navigation link at the top of my Wordpress page or closing the browser and reloading the page. All the same result.

I understand why the membership profile is not needed now. I had assumed that I needed to include the profile to capture that info. I've just re-read the membership set up section in the Book and I still come out with that assumption. (I will suggest an edit to the Book.)

I removed the profile but unfortunately, after a minor excitement where I was able to enter two new people in a row instead of just one, I'm back to getting the error message.

Thanks for your help so far. I'm think I'm going to start over and see if I can fix it that way.

[jcrothers]

Things I tried

1. Started over with a couple of different settings (no confirmation page, didn't display membership fee). Same error.

2. Then with both old and new Contribution Pages I removed all profiles. Same error.

3. Published the profile with the info I need directly to a Wordpress page. Different error message (The requested Profile (gid=) is disabled, OR there is no Profile with that ID, OR a valid 'gid=' integer value is missing from the URL. Contact the site administrator if you need assistance.)
 

[joanne]

Sorry, but I only have one idea left.  Could it be something to do with your theme?  I have almost no experience with wordpress but I do know non-standard themes can cause strange problems.

The following is the answer to a different question and I am not suggesting you need to follow these steps, but it gives comments specifically about wordpress themes from someone who knows a lot more on that subject than I do.

There are a few things to check.

1. make a backup

2. switch to a default theme like "TwentyThirteen" and see if the page works.  If so your custom theme is the problem.

3. go into WordPress settings and find Permalink structure, set it to the default

4. go in to CiviCRM > Administer > Users > Wordpress permissions and make sure that anonymous users can "make online contribution" permission.

If it is your theme, please understand that many people get creative with the themes and code them in a non-standard way.  CiviCRM is designed to work with "by the book" WP theme coding practices and your custom theme can and should be retrofit to work with CiviCRM.

With regard to the membership documentation.  We have completely re-written that section for the 4.5 release of the book.  I see you have indicated you can help with proof-reading for that.  Perhaps one of the things you could do is read through the new membership section from beginning to see if makes things clearer. (Thank you very much for your offer of help - I will respond to your comment on the blog a little later). 

[jcrothers]

Yeah, it's a stumper. Thanks for your patience!

I fiddled with the theme but that wasn't it. I think I'm going to give up now. Our festival opens tomorrow so I'll try a different process. It will probably involve a pen!

If I ever figure this out I'll reply again to close the loop.