BUG: A contact can be registered twice in the same event

[xavier]

Hi,

Had a long chat about what I consider a bug: The same contact can register twice (or more) to the same event.

In my case, it's free event with profiles on the registration and I allow multiple registrations from the same contact, but I believe it applies no matter what. If you see any use case where laws of physics should be ignored and that it'd make sense to register the same contact twice to the same event, now is the time to speak up.

This is the issue I filled:
http://issues.civicrm.org/jira/browse/CRM-6996

Step to reproduce (as anonymous)
Create an event with a first name+lastname profile and online registration
Open a browser in private browsing mode
Register to the event as John Doe jon@doe.com
civi create a new contact+participant

Open a new browser in private browsing mode
Register to the event as John Doe jon@doe.com
civi rightly see that's the same contact, but wrongly create a new participant on the same contact for the same event

Expected result:
error message: We couldn't process your registration, you were already registered.+display contact infos as set on the event



And the log of our chat:


(08:09:55) deepaks: xavier_d: but it does give you error, ur expected result /w "multiple reg from same email" is switched off.
(08:11:10) xavier_d: There isn't a single case that make sense to have twice the same contact registered to the same event, no matter multiple reg from same email or not
(08:13:05) deepaks: xavier_d: and thats why there is flag called "multiple reg from same email" exist IMO
(08:13:58) xavier_d: You can have different contacts that have the same email and it still doesn't make sense to have the same contact registered twice
(08:14:44) xavier_d: If you have the same contact that participate twice, it's wrong, doesn't make sense
(08:15:14) xavier_d: hey, got 30 participants, but actually that's the same person that registered 30 time
(08:15:20) xavier_d: Go explain that's not a bug
[...]
(08:21:53) deepaks: xavier_d: i would discuss /w someone who introduced "multiple reg from same email" feature to know the idea behind it
(08:22:19) deepaks: xavier_d: who introduced / spec'ed out
(08:23:10) xavier_d: multiple reg from same email is irrelevant: you can't have the same person twice at the same event!
(08:23:15) deepaks: xavier_d: i think behavior u requesting already exist as long as u don't set the flag. And there might be cases which i can't think of right now
(08:23:22) xavier_d: (on my physical world at least)
(08:23:24) deepaks: could be use case for this
(08:24:00) deepaks: xavier_d: and thats why this should be discussed separately / filed
(08:24:02) xavier_d: The behaviour I request doesn't exist: having two people registering with the same email, but the same person can't register twice
(08:24:33) xavier_d: That's the only issue I have, there isn't a separate one
(08:25:30) xavier_d: Do you know who did spec the register from same email feat ?
(08:26:06) xavier_d: (if it was created to avoid the same person registering twice, that's IMO a wrong answer to a real issue)
(08:26:20) deepaks: xavier_d: if u want same email to considered as new contact, then dedupe rule should be made more strict
(08:26:50) xavier_d: let's rewind:
(08:27:36) deepaks: xavier_d: the issue is when do u consider two contacts as same OR different
(08:27:37) xavier_d: The only thing I want is that you register twice (with the same contact details), it takes your first registration, and display an error msg ("already registered") on the second registration
(08:27:43) deepaks: xavier_d: which is decided by dedupe
(08:28:11) xavier_d: No, the issue is that when you decide they are the same, you shouldn't register the same person more than once
(08:29:06) xavier_d: (sorry if I wasn't clear in the issue, but that's the only problem I describe)
(08:30:25) jonGold left the room (quit: Quit: Leaving.).
(08:30:44) jkiran: xavier_d: If I'm not wrong .. same email for multiple registration comes in picture when we did implement 'Additional Participant' registration in a go .. and consider I'd like to register my family and my children does not have email id's .. how civi allow .. there fore there is case .. lets allow w/ same email and lets get additional data from profile might be first name and last name
(08:31:27) xavier_d: Fine, that's how we used it.
(08:31:32) dgtlmoon [~dgtlmoon@203-214-65-121.perm.iinet.net.au] entered the room.
(08:31:41) xavier_d: But it has nothing to do with the error I describe
(08:31:52) Cybertinus [~Cybertinu@tunnel3304.ipv6.xs4all.nl] entered the room.
(08:32:29) jkiran: xavier_d: so here to point out same persons when there is setting Allow Same email for multiple registration .. user has to set profile fields to collect some other data and lest tweak Strict contact matching rule to respect those data.
(08:32:50) jkiran: lest == lets*
(08:33:03) xavier_d: 1) If you decide to register your family and that you put your contact details both at the main contact and ALSO as one in additional contacts, you should display an error saying "already registered"
(08:33:26) xavier_d: 2) If you register once, and come later and register again, it should display an error saying 'already registered'
(08:33:55) xavier_d: This isn't possible to tweak the rules and get that error message
(08:34:57) jkiran: xavier_d: for your first point : you are walking wizard so we could have all data in hand and we easily detect this is same person .. in this case also .. when there is only email as contact field civi not telling u duplicate registration.
(08:35:03) xavier_d: (I don't want to create two "duplicate" contacts, I don't want to create two participants for the same contact, just want an error message "already registred"
(08:35:38) xavier_d: jkiran: well never underestimate the "creativity" of users, it happened. More than once
(08:36:43) xavier_d: (and in my case, had more fields than simply the email), but again, irrelevant, CAN'T have the same contact twice as a participant to the same event
(08:36:48) jkiran: xavier_d: ok lets clarify again when u do have setting 'Allow Same Email' .. u has to have some other fields to distinguish different contacts.
(08:37:14) xavier_d: Yeap (that's how I use it)
(08:37:33) jkiran: ideally we should not allow same contact for same event.
(08:37:53) xavier_d: Yeap,
(08:37:56) xavier_d: exactly
(08:38:17) jkiran: i think when u have only email and u using same email for multiple registration civi will going to create those many contacts and assign registration to each
(08:39:00) jkiran: so in either case .. there should not be case where civi create multiple registration w/ same contact.
(08:39:25) deepaks: xavier_d: again, can we take this discussion on forum. I do think that you have a valid point but it conflicts with an existing feature & therefore would like input from other team members as well
(08:41:03) xavier_d: Sure for forum, but I don't understand where this is conflicting. Saying you can't have the same contact register max one per event
(08:41:29) deepaks: xavier_d: CRM-6996 originally opened made sense (as a bug) because it was creating multiple contacts and dedupe wasn't able to detect if its the existing contact anyway
(08:41:58) jkiran: When we have setting .. Allow Multiple Registration w/ Same Email
(08:41:58) jkiran: 1. If profile is configured and Strict contact matching rule is tweaked civi detect contact properly and here also there should be one -- one mapping between each contact and each registration.
(08:41:58) jkiran: 2. when profile is absent  or Strict contact matching rule is not tweaked .. in this case civi going to create multiple contacts w/ same data and here also there should be  one to one ..mapping between registration and contact.
(08:42:13) jkiran: xavier_d: hope it clarify more
(08:44:02) xavier_d: jkirian: so we are saying the same case thing: the same contact can't be a participant twice in the same event, Correct ?
(08:44:10) jkiran: xavier_d: so I'd like to jump in forum thread where there is case when we are creating multiple registration w/ same contact in either case and w/ whatever setting says .. lets have thread of forum as deepak say;s
(08:44:20) xavier_d: ok

[midloman]

What about a case where you want the same contact to have multiple roles? Attendee, Speaker, Volunteer?  You might have an event where registered attendees may get 'points' or 'credits' depending on what role they have in the event.  If they have more then 1 role to play in the event, you'd want to credit them with whatever 'points' those roles would receive.  As it is now, there is one role assigned to each registration.

[xavier]

Hi,

You can have several roles for the same participant (on 3.2)

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[midloman]

I lean something new 

[EdP]

I came accross this issue recently at our club supper. One person registered (and, to be fair, paid) for four tickets in her own name. One was for her. One was for her plus one, and two were paying on behalf of some friends of hers who were registered as "pay later".

I would like to have been able to force her to (a) declare the name of her plus one (no-one knew who he was, poor guy - very boring evening for him) and (b) force her to declare that her third and fourth registrations were payments for someone else (who might then look as if they were coming twice?)

[midloman]

You probably don't want to force individual identity.  sometimes, you might only care about the number of seats sold into an event, not who is in those seats.  Consider the case of football season tickets - nobody knows who is using the seats, just that they were paid for (and who paid for them). 

So, the number of seats at an event shouldn't be equal to the number of registrations.  On the other hand, there should be a separation possible between who registers for the event, and the people identified for that event, without requiring the registrant be one of those people.  We often have the financial director of a company making the registration for groups of people to attend an event when he himself is not attending.

[xavier]

Hi,

Then they are not participants if you don't know their name (every participant is created as a contact).

You might want to use the price set and let people order several "seats".  seems to be more logical to me than dummy/duplicate contacts in your db.

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[midloman]

Sometimes, you want to track attendees, and keep their contact info - not necessarily the person doing the registration.  Sometimes, you'd want to track the person who registers, and not care about the actual attendees.  Sometimes, this could be in the same event.

Let's say I want to register my wife for an event and pay for it.  I want the payment conformation to come to me.  I don't plan to attend the event.  I want my wife to get the attendance credit for the event.  One event, one attendee, one participant, two contact records should be created in this case.

Or, perhaps there is no attendance credit to be had for the event, and the actual attendee could be anyone in my family.  One event, one attendee, one participant, one contact record.

[xavier]

Let's say I want to register my wife for an event and pay for it.  I want the payment conformation to come to me.  I don't plan to attend the event.  I want my wife to get the attendance credit for the event.  One event, one attendee, one participant, two contact records should be created in this case.

This case isn't covered. Albeit it makes sense to extend the registration so the person that register isn't the person that is attending, but not sure it wouldn't confuse even more the user interface.

I do agree with you and they are a lot of edge cases, that aren't covered.

However, I'd argue that the most common case is that people double register (especially for free events). In general and according to my knowledge of physics, that's not possible to be at more than one place at any given time, nor is it possible to be at the same place several time at the same place

I think the aim is to cover the most common case, and for me, it means avoiding dupe registration much more than the other you mention (as you said it "sometimes")

This being said, was discussing with Dave and kurund about it, and it would seem that the solution is to stop requiring the email, and let people register additional participants without having to provide their email, so you can register your wife like that.

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[midloman]

That seems dangerous at first glance.  Maybe the way to do it would be a required (are you registering for someone else?) toggle.  The payee would get the payment confirmation, the registered attendee could get a confirmation.  In the case of the payee registering for multiple people, then he'd need to also be in the list he's entering if he plans to attend.  In that case, email addresses *might* be optional - but no way to contact them if the event changes (cancel, moved, etc.)

[xavier]

The idea is to let the event manager decides if he want or not to have the email as a mandatory field. You can decide that the additional participants needs to have an email address, or not, with their pros and cons.

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