CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

I don't see any way. In theory, you could use a price set with an option of zero dollars as the default and then participants could choose a different option to donate, but CiviCRM doesn't allow zero dollar options. And even if it did, the user is then required still to enter his credit card details, which for a free event will be a deterrent.

There is a way to hack, I mean solve, this problem. Using hook_civicrm_buildAmount one can set an option in a price set to zero dollars. Then using jQuery, one can also hide the credit card section (i.e. if the user has not elected to make a donation by selecting a non-zero option) and also fill in fake values, using 411111111111111 for the card number. Thus the page will submit and CiviCRM will see a valid credit card. It won't actually process any charge because the amount is zero.

Thus the user can register for the event and not pay any money and not be required to enter his credit card details.

This system works--I actually did it (in a different context) on a different site.

how about using a contribution page for this and using # of tickets as a custom field. Include an other amount which is a donation which is optional and can be zero

And then using hook_civicrm_postProcess to create the participation records?

The only problem is that the user is then forced to enter his credit card details, which will inevitably confuse (if not upset) users who want to register for a free event.

Lobo,

Hershel and I have been batting this one about and I'm going back to think through all of issues before we do any custom mods, however, I am wondering about passing login details to a donation page after the event page has been processed?

Currently, I am using the thank you page to ask them to make a donation by going to the donation page.  When I'm logged in, my details auto-fill in both the event and contrib form, however, when I am brand new to the system, it does not auto-fill the donation page.

Is there any way to do this?  We're trying to make it easy for them to give.

Thanks,
Annalee

how about using a contribution page for this and using # of tickets as a custom field. Include an other amount which is a donation which is optional and can be zero

thanx

lobo

We're actually looking to do something very similar.  Using a contribution page and a # of tickets as a custom field would work, but we would much prefer to use the event-style additional participants that we used for a recent paid event.  I'm interested in looking into  custom coding this, or using a decent workaround.  I haven't done much yet by way of customizing civi, so I'm interested to check the docs to see how to fit the pieces together.

Hershel or Annalee, have you had any further thoughts on the topic?

- Aaron