Adding Fields in Agenda View

bradcurnow

Greetings!!

Wonderful software... it's just amazing!

Now, please forgive my ignorance as I'm quite new to web programming. I've been a graphic designer for a number of years but with limited experience in backend work.

I have some (hopefully simple) questions:

I need to add and remove some fields in the agenda view. From left to right I need the fields to read - Actions, Date/Time, State, Time, Customer, Product, Source, Taken By, Consultant, Status, Retail, Price, Comments

Where the data type/method for each would be

Date/Time, (from usual calendar method)
State, (Dropdown)
Customer, (from customer list)
Product, (dropdown)
Source, (dropdown)
Taken By, (dropdown)
Consultant, (usual 'Employees' device)
Status, (usual 'Status' device, but with more options)
Retail, (currency)
Price, (currency)
Comments, (text)

In the 'edit event' page, I'd like to remove the options/controls for "timeless" and "sharing", as well as "priority" and "colour". These would be replaced with some of the fields mentioned above.

I've attached screenshots of how I imagine it will look. If someone could guid me in the right direction I'd be very much obliged!

Many thanks and regards,

ethnar

Welcome,

I'm glad you like epesi. 🙂

The feature you would like to introduce isn't, unfortunately, as easy as it may sound. Events in the Calendar are mostly hard-coded, with limited extendability (not like modules based on our CRUD engine). There are two ways in which we can achieve what you need:

1) We can hide fields by editing smarty template file (*.tpl) and add those you need with a very simple module. However, the event module code would require some changes to adjust agenda view - thus requiring from you some awareness next time you are to update epesi.

It's by far the fastest solution (not so clean though) and it wouldn't be a big problem for me to write that module for you and make those adjustments.

2) Write your own Event module. The Calendar (year/month/day/week views, Drag'n'Dop, tooltips) is actually a generic module on which you can build your own event module. This is much cleaner solution, makes your installation perfectly upgradeable and keeps your database clean (in solution no. 1 we have to leave some unused fields in DB).
This solution, however, is not a quick or simple task and I'm afraid I can't offer you making such module for free.

Either solution you pick, we are here to offer further support. 🙂

Kind regards,
Arek

bradcurnow

Well I must say that option one sounds fantastic!

I would, ideally, like to write everything myself, however I don't feel confident enough with my current coding ability to execute everything in the timeframe that I have.

It would be great if you could go ahead with option 1, and I can then study how it was achieved as I'm sure I'll have to make similar changes in the future! I always find learning by example the easiest 🙂

Is there any information you need from me in order to proceed? User login etc?

Many thanks!!!

ethnar

Very well,

Few thing I need yo to clarify before I can prepare the solution:

- What is the "State" field? I see VIC as an example value, but that doesn't ring a bell to me. Shall I just link it to CommonData table (those are editable via Administrator menu)?
- What is this "Taken by" field? Again - you write it is supposed to be a dropdown, but I can only see vague "Name" as example values. CommonData again or perhaps just Contacts/Employees select?
- I assume both "Product" and "Source" must link to CommonData tables... unless you need whole RecordSet to manage products, but that makes the task much bigger. (we do have Warehouse module ready, but it's in Premium part of our software)

Waiting for reply,
Arek

bradcurnow

Hi Arek,

Okay, some details as follows:

"State" has these options - WA, VIC, TAS, QLD, NT, NSW, SA, ACT - Australian States
"Taken by" - refers to the phone operator responsible for getting the sales lead. This will sometimes be updated
"Product" - here is a fairly loose usage, like 'garage door' or 'roller shutter' - needs to be flexible
"Source" has these options - cso cold call, cso follow up, shopping centre, ring in, self gen

So I guess "Source" and "State" could be hard coded in, whilst "Taken by" and "Product" could reference common data so we can add options later on? That way I can see how to do both types should I need to add anything else.

Eventually, we will be activating the warehouse module, but this first step with the agenda is for documenting and managing appointments with potential customers. What we might do later on is to link successful appointments with an "Order", which would contain a list of products and presumably tie in nicely with the Warehouse module.

Thanks for your help! I'd gladly offer some graphic design in return if you're interested 🙂

I should also mention that "Status" should have the following options:
open, tbr, sold, quote, not quoted, follow up, cancelled, sold stf

They don't have to do anything automatically, just sit there as an indicator 🙂

ethnar

Ok, here's the little mod I promised. Changes in Calendar and Event module files were necessary to modify agenda view. It's not the modest solution, but it works (at least for me 😉). It was written based on not yet released 1.0 version, however it should work on rc6 as well. If that fails - you can find almost the same version I'm using on sourceforge svn.

Now what you need to do is:
1) Download the attachment
2) Overwrite files (I kept file structure so you don't need more detailed description on what put where)
3) Login as admin, go to modules Administration, check for new modules and install Custom/EventModified
4) Assuming epesi is located in http://your.address.here/ go to http://your.address.here/admin/themeup.php

This should get you close enough to your goal to polish the rest yourself. 😉 There are few things left that you might want to do:
1) edit /data/Base_Lang/en.php and edit entries under 'CRM/Calendar/Event', such as Description, Emplyees, etc. to fit what you need there. It's the best way since it should be automatically applied everywhere in the system (tooltips, labels, headers)
2) edit CRM/Calendar/Event/theme/default.tpl - you can reorder all the fields the way you like. To do that remove

                            {foreach item=f from=$custom_fields}

	                            <tr>

	                                <td class="label" align="left">{$form_data.$f.label}</td>

	                                <td class="data" align="left">

	                                    {$form_data.$f.html}

	                                </td>

	                            </tr>

	                         {/foreach}

and replace it with bunch of

                            <tr>

                                <td class="label" align="left">{$form_data.state.label}</td>

                                <td class="data status" align="left">{$form_data.state.html}</td>

                            </tr>

One of such entries is needed for each custom field. You can see the list of custom fields with their names in Install_0.php file of EventModified module. (above example is for state field)
If you make such changes - remember to launch themeup.php script again.

All select elements options are stored in CommonData tables. I added Australian states, the rest is up to you. All tables are under CustomEvents CommonData table.

Good luck. 🙂
Arek

defrag

Very nice post: But I try to install on 1.0.9 version. And for me some error:

Type: 2

Message: file_put_contents(modules/Custom/EventModified/EventModified_0.php) [<a href='function.file-put-contents'>function.file-put-contents</a>]: failed to open stream: Permission denied

File: /modules/Develop/ModuleCreator/ModuleCreator_0.php

Line=497

error backtrace:

[PHP core called function]

    function called: handle_epesi_error

File: /modules/Develop/ModuleCreator/ModuleCreator_0.php

    line 497

    function called: file_put_contents

[PHP core called function]

    function called: create_module

File: /modules/Utils/Wizard/Wizard_0.php

    line 228

    function called: call_user_func_array

[PHP core called function]

    function called: body

File: /include/module.php

    line 788

    function called: call_user_func_array

File: /include/module.php

    line 708

    function called: get_html_of_module

File: /modules/Develop/ModuleCreator/ModuleCreator_0.php

    line 48

    function called: display_module

[PHP core called function]

    function called: body

File: /include/module.php

    line 788

    function called: call_user_func_array

File: /include/module.php

    line 708

    function called: get_html_of_module

File: /modules/Base/Box/Box_0.php

    line 143

    function called: display_module

File: /include/epesi.php

    line 200

    function called: body

File: /include/epesi.php

    line 243

    function called: go

File: /process.php

    line 33

    function called: process

I think that something wrong with permission:

Message: file_put_contents(modules/Custom/EventModified/EventModified_0.php) [<a href='function.file-put-contents'>function.file-put-contents</a>]: failed to open stream: Permission denied

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