CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

thanks  lobo!  We had tried to recruit local talent but didn't get any takers, so my next step was to try to find someone from the civi professional group.

Do you have a guestimate of what it would take (cost/time) to

 * make the functionality of the current member_pricesets module less hand-ons so that upgrades are easier
 * allow the creation of membership records with multiple membership signups so that all of the standard civi functions are intact
 * create individual donation/contribution records for each field linked to one transaction.

* not necessary, but useful, membership signup with events but with rules that allow membership discounts on registration

While building off of the current membership pricesets model might be faster, is that the best strategy to take if this is to benefit the community? 

Is there enough interest to have this a MIH project (particularly if the cost exceeds what my organization is ok with contributing)
I would rather see this functionality get into core rather than have a one-off solution that is not necessarily robust to upgrades.

cheers,
m

Thanks for the feed back!

creation of multiple memberships  one a single page is our top priority. So buy one of list A with different levels, and optionally buy  one of list B with various levels,  one of list C with several levels, etc.  This would lead to > 1 membership blocks on a page, and we would like to have all  core civi/drupal functionality applied to memberships in sections.      One  aggregate contribution record linked to  each membership would be fine in our case at this time.   Since prices are linked to memberships types we can always disagregate 
contributions later for accounting purposes.

Renewal notices for section memberships are perhaps a bit trickier.  Ideally all section memberships are tied to the "parent" membership in the main organization  so that when "parent" dues are renewed one renews section membership.  The problem is with lifetime memberships -- currently we have lifetime memberships in the main organization, but not sections, so lifetime members  would still have to purchase section memberships on an annual basis.  (I am trying to change the bylaws on this issue :-)   Section memberships need to be "linked" to primary memberships (like contribution records and membership records are linked), but perhaps this should be optional. 

Having a donation block with prices sets on the membership page would be ideal as members are more likely to contribute when they already have their credit cards out :-)   For accounting purposes we would need to track contribution amounts for each field as these are variable amounts.

So ultimately multiple memberships + pricesets > 100 hours

Let me check with my board -- I'm pretty sure that we can seed at the level of 2000-2500, perhaps more.  We are still investigating the ubercart_civicrm_products module as in theory that would provide most of our needs.  it is almost working ;-)

cheers,
m   

                 

Hi Eileen,

I am still following!      I've been digging into ubercart to provide this functionality and now have code that works (well once the renewMembership function is patched) which may provide a short term solution for my organization.  I took a short cut of piggybacking off the renewMembership function in CRM/Member/BAO/Membership for proof of prinicple, but this is not optimal as it requires updating the module everytime the civi membership code is updated to avoid creating a form.  (I'm rewriting now using api calls,  put may put in a request for the renew membership functionality in the api)  (I really do not want to maintain a module :-)

With the  updated ubercart_civicrm_products, I can purchase  membership(s) and donations (as with the membership+pricesets module. but I can create a separate contribution record for each item purchased (memberships purchases are linked to their contribution) and if the membership purchase is a renewal, the membership record is updated.   Each contribution record invoice is based on the ubercart order number  and line item (order-item #) so I can trace back to the total invoice in ubercart  (I had to do this in order to avoid key collisions).  (ideally the individual contribution records would link to the total order, but my programming skills in php aren't at that level!).  This way I can get a contribution report by different membership types and all donation types.  With the pricesets implementation, there was just one contribution record so I could not get the line item detail I need.  I can't remember from my test whether membership records were always added, rather than updating an existing membership -- I think the former -- in which case renewals would not be handled properly.

The ubercart code allows each product to have feature(s), in this case  civi contributions,  civi memberships, or  civi events .    If pricesets could have something similar,  with appropriate actions to create/update memberships, add contributions for each item that would be great!   
For symmetry, having all multiple  memberships in the pricesets (with appropriate code to display)  might be preferable as then actions would be applied to each element in the priceset array/object.    (i.e. apply the renewMembership function to each  item if it is a membership passing in the appropriate membershipTypeID,  changedate for the contact.

I am happy to provide more details of what we need if that helps to get a refined quote/timeline.  If all the funds can be made available how long would it take to get this implemented?   

Let me know how I can help  --  I'll continue to work on the ubercart module as I think I can have a version that I can use by  June.  It may be useful in the long run to have the functionality available in both as some sites may want to sell products other than donations with a membership sign up.

cheers,
Merlise

Personally I would like to see all of this in civi rather than relying on the  uc_civicrm_products module  -- I have rewritten the  membership part of the code to use mainly api calls and not the BAO renewMembership function, so it seems to work in my test cases so far.  (I'll see how to add it to the Drupal site for the module)

I'll probably go with the ubercart solution for the short run as we need to have the section memberships available in June. I'm the organization's executive secretary (3 year term ends Dec 2012), and sort of got sucked into this when the organization decided to allow sections last June.   We had custom code that handled "upsell" written for civicrm 2.2.9 in such a way we could not add sections or upgrade (argh) --   the db was woefully out of date  because of this and took a tremendous effort to upgrade (I'm only now going to try the upgrade on the production site this week!).   Given the time/headaches that has caused me I think I can persuade the board to support  the civi initiatives as I don't have the time to keep up with contributing/maintaining  a module.

I agree that using the CiviAccounts initiative makes sense -- do you have a feel for when that will happen?

Should there be two initiatives:  1) multiple membership blocks  and 2) membership + pricesets
or one larger combined?  (I would argue for the latter and   I think I can raise the money through a very modest dues increase, but that needs board approval.  And if I am going to go into fund  raising mode, it would be fantastic to get membership signup with event signup for new members under one transaction.

Did you get any traction on this? Another customer is making a case to their treasurer for $1000 which I think would leave about $1000- $1400 short-fall between our existing customers & the $3750 target

Hi Eileen and Dave -- I have confirmation for $5500 to support  multiple membership sign up on one page, price sets with membership signup and perhpas  the civi accounting initiative to support line item contribution records with price sets.

I'll be away for 2 weeks (back on the 24th of June) but hope this can kick start the project....

best,
Merlise

In terms of project costs / funding - reading back through this thread we estimated 50 hrs for each of the two features highlighted by Merlise:

1. multiple membership sign up on one page
2. price sets with membership signup

... which means total for both is approximate $7,500.

Sarah - Can you clarify what you think needs to be included in this MIH (i.e. is it Membership Pricesets + Multiple Membership Blocks per online contribuiton page? or ....)