Appointment slot widget: combine multiple widgets together

  • robocup
    Asked on April 19, 2017 at 4:32 AM

    Hi there, I'm a very new user to JotForm and so far I am loving the experience!

    One thing I'm struggling to figure out is how to use multiple Appointment Slot widgets on the same form. I have created a quick test form to show the problem I'm having:

    https://form.jotform.co/71081872924864

    This form allows me to record what three different people to choose what they want for lunch (Chicken, Beef or Vegetarian). There are a total of 20 of each choice, so each appointment widget starts out looking like this:

    Appointment slot widget: combine multiple widgets together Image 1 Screenshot 20
    The crucial factor is that there are three identical copies of this widget *on the same form*.

    (this is a design necessity of the main project I'm working on - my form will have a lot of other information which I don't want users to have to complete multiple times).

    For this example, let's assume all three people tell me they want chicken. I enter their answer for them and click submit.

    Then five minutes later, three more people come along to give me their preferences and I reload the form. What I would expect to see on each of my three widgets is the following:

    Chicken 17
    Beef 20
    Vegetarian 20

    Chicken 17
    Beef 20
    Vegetarian 20

    Chicken 17
    Beef 20
    Vegetarian 20

    But instead each widget reads as follows:

    Chicken 19
    Beef 20
    Vegetarian 20

    Chicken 19
    Beef 20
    Vegetarian 20

    Chicken 19
    Beef 20
    Vegetarian 20

    In other words the availability isn't being collated across all my widgets. Instead the widgets are being treated as distinct entities with their own allocation of "20 chicken per widget".

    Is there a way to let JotForm know that I want to collate the selections from all three widgets and compare them against a single availability? Would it be possible to rewrite the widget code to do this, and if so how can I do this?

    Also, do I get any extra points for using the sentence "20 chicken per widget"?

    Many thanks in advance for your help and thank you for an excellent product. Looking forward to hearing from you!

    Tim

  • Sven
    Replied on April 19, 2017 at 5:03 AM

    Hi Tim,

    Thanks very much for your positive feedback about JotForm.

    I'm afraid it's not possible to combine multiple slot widgets to the same value, I have tried some testing with calculations and conditional logic as well, but I wasn't able to achieve the result, as each widget is tied to one "inventory" and you can't calculate its value from other fields. It is also not possible to edit the widget code, you can only add CSS code to enhance the appearance and style of the widget. 

    A workaround for this would be to fill the form for one person rather than 3 people at a time, this will work perfectly and decrease the "chicken per widget" number every time. 

     

    I hope this information is helpful, and thank you for understanding.

     

    Thanks!

  • robocup
    Replied on April 19, 2017 at 9:02 PM

    Hey Sven, thanks for your help.

    I feared this would be your answer. Unfortunately, completing the form one person at a time is very impractical for my purposes - I really need to try and find a way to make this work for multiple widgets if at all possible.

    I'd really like to try and give you some more background; are you sitting comfortably? Basically, I organize a schools robotics competition every year called RoboCup for around 50 schools and around 200 teams, nearly 1000 students in total. This is an annual competition costing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to run... it's a big operation to say the least.

    However, registration is always a nightmare, for reasons which may become clear in a sec. This makes the competition very challenging to operate (let alone expand or begin running new competitions, which we desperately need to do).

    Here's what I'm trying to achieve:

    The start of the registration form needs to collect the standard contact details of the teacher, then at the end of the form I want the teacher to be able to submit payment details for all the students they have registered.

    In between, the middle part of the form is where I'd like the teacher to register each of their teams and pick a category. There are 8 different categories that teams can enter. Each category has its own maximum capacity for teams. The remaining spaces in each category need to be advised to teachers at the time of booking and automatically cut off when full.

    In the past this has been achieved by a "dumb form" which simply collects data. Meanwhile a human has to watch the data like a hawk, checking registrations several times a day and manually closing registrations for each category when full. Then payment is done later by generating an invoice to each teacher for all of their students.

    This works, but it's very complicated, labor intensive and prone to errors. What I'm trying to do is automate all of this with a robust, one-size-fits-all registration form that solves all of my problems once and for all.

    Here's what I've got so far:

    https://form.jotform.co/71081383624858

    Everything about this is honestly perfect and exactly what I need - except for the multiple widgets issue.

    I've experimented with a wide range of online services over the past few days, and JotForm is the only service that comes remotely close to offering this sort of functionality. I feel like I'm 95% of the way to what I need... So I really hope you can help me!

    The reason I need multiple widgets is that if a teacher is registering 12 teams, I don't want them to have to complete the form 12 times. This would mean entering all their contact details and payment details 12 times, which then becomes a nightmare for teachers and brings in lots of potential for incorrect details, missing payments and frustration all round.

    In terms of alternatives to the "Application Slots" widget - I've checked other similar widgets such as "Inventory", "Gift Registry" and "Ticket Purchases", but they all behave in exactly the same way (with each widget on the form is tied to its own unique inventory, not a common inventory).

    Needless to say, a widget like the one I'm describing would be an absolute godsend and make it much easier to operate and expand this type of competition in the future.

    Is there a way to request the widget that I need via the "Request A Widget" feature? Do you think this is something that can be done? I'm developing this on behalf of an organization, not as an individual, and if necessary I'm sure there would be funds available to pay for the development of this widget.

    Is there someone at JotForm I could contact about this?

    Thanks again for your help and apologies for the length of this message!

    Tim

     

  • Sven
    Replied on April 20, 2017 at 2:18 AM

    Hi Tim,

    Thanks for putting things in context, and we apologize for any inconvenience. 

    You can go ahead and use the request widget feature if you like, we have it there so our users can request new widget ideas. I'm also submitting a feature request to our development team, and they will review it and decide wether it's something they can achieve. You will be notified with via this thread about any updates.

     

    Thank you.

  • robocup
    Replied on April 20, 2017 at 4:35 AM

    Thanks Sven. I really appreciate your support and your commitment to customer service! No need to apologise - your service is already awesome. I'm just trying to find out if there's a way to make it 5% more awesome!

    I'll look forward to hearing back from you, if there's anything else you need from me in the meantime please let me know. Thanks and have a great day.