[SOLVED] Is "Requires Participant Approval" still a thing?

[JonGold]

The book refers to a "Requires Participant Approval" on the "Online Registration" configuration tab of an event: http://book.civicrm.org/user/current/events/everyday-tasks/

However, I don't see it - and can findly barely any other references to it.  Is this still a feature?  There are event statuses that seem to support it.

[davyivins]

When you configure your event you can select the "Require participant approval?" tickbox on the Online Registration tab to implement the function.

The help text states:

Check this box to require administrative approval for all the participants who self-register, prior to being able to complete the registration process. Participants will be placed in 'Awaiting Approval' status. You can review and approve participants from 'Find Participants' - select the 'Change Participant Status' task. Approved participants will move to 'Pending from approval' status, and will be sent an email with a link to complete their registration (including paying event fees - if any).

Cheers
Davy

[Michael McAndrew]

Hey Jon,

Could you file a documentation issue that covers what you are describing? We are currently updating documentation for the events section of the book so now seems like a good time to make the improvements to the area you are suggesting.  Suggested text for that section would also be welcome, if you have time.

[JonGold]

Hi Davy,

I didn't have that checkbox, but your response convinced me that I should.  So I decided to invest the time to read the source code.

Since I'm sure I'm not going to be the only person with this problem, here's the solution:  The "Requires Approval?" checkbox doesn't appear unless you have all three of the following Event Statuses enabled: "Awaiting Approval", "Pending from approval", and "Rejected".  By default (at least on a 4.5.0 install), these statuses are disabled, so no "Requires Approval" checkbox for me. 

My guess is that somewhere during the 4.5 dev cycle, someone thought it'd be a good idea to disable little-used event statuses by default, but this made this feature almost impossible to find.

Michael - it's a tough call as to whether this is a problem that should be solved via documentation, via a change in the defaults, or patching the code.  Because of that, I'm not even clear where to follow up with this.  However, if this is resolved via documentation, I'd add this text to the "Approving Registrants" section on http://book.civicrm.org/user/current/events/everyday-tasks/:

You can only require approval on events if you enable the following Event Status types under Administer menu > CiviEvent > Participant Statuses: "Awaiting Approval", "Pending from approval", and "Rejected".

[davyivins]

Thanks for the heads-up. Useful to remember for when I upgrade to Drupal 7.

[Michael McAndrew]

Jon - we'll update the docs. Agree that from a usability standpoint, it does suck and makes the feature v. hard to find.