New Forum

A few weeks ago, we re-designed our Discussion Board module and renamed it "Forum". You can now configure CampusGroups to have a school-wide forum, as well as individual forums for each group.

Online Forums have been used for a very long time but we think that they are still one of the best ways to communicate within your community.  

With the CampusGroups Forum you can:

• Post Articles, Question or Requests
• Comment and like posts
• Receive notifications via email or on your Mobile Device
• Follow the entire forum or just a few topics
• Restrict access to certain topics/categories, to certain people only

If you have any questions about our Forum module, please contact our Support Team.

The Store

This is an important new feature which is very useful for students organization who need to sell merchandising.

Inside the Surveys module, you can now create a new type of question called "Store". The Store allows you to enter a list of products with prices, descriptions, photos and stock availability. Payments can be processed through your school's integrated payment gateway (the same way it is done for event tickets and group membership fees).

If you have any questions about the new Store feature please contact our Support Team. 

Improvements to our Waiting List feature

Today we brought a great improvement to our Event Registration process.

When an event goes into Waiting List mode, sometimes, remaining tickets are still available for sales.  This happens when the students who are on the Main List don't actually complete their payment online.

Thanks to today's improvement:  

• The students who had started to register before the Waiting List activation will still be able to buy their tickets by just going back to the event registration page (in the past, they would only be offered to enter the Waiting List).
• While allowing more tickets to be bought by these students, the registration cap will still be respected. 

In addition: 

• When students start a registration, they have 15 minutes to complete it. If they ever lose access to the registration page and come back to it later, they are now offered to complete their initial registration thanks to a "Pay" button (only during the number of minutes that they have left).
• We have improved the way attendees and ticket details are listed on the Manage Event page.

We hope this will be very useful!  Please let us know if you have any questions/feedback.

Thanks!

The CG Team

Card Swiping System available on CampusGroups

Tracking attendance at events (or for classes) is a key aspect of student involvement tracking.  To help our campuses, we have developed and launched a new Card Swiping System! 

Card Swiping is available for all schools as part of our core offering.  To get this new feature activated at your school, please email us.

iPhone and Android Apps now available for download

After 6 months of development, we are excited to announce the launch of our new Android App! 

CampusGroups now offers native apps for both iPhone/iPad and for Android phones.

CampusGroups iPhone and Android Apps

With the CampusGroups App, students and administrators can:

• Browse their list of groups and see the most recent updates
  
• Join more groups
  
• Check all ongoing and upcoming events on campus
• Register to events and buy tickets on the go
  
• Post updates and photos on the school and group feeds
• Search people, events, groups 

Additionally, group officers can: 

• Check-in attendees at the door of an event, with simple name lookup, or via QR code scanning
  

We are constantly working on our apps and pushing updates monthly.   We look forward to your feedback!

Friday June 28th Updates

Below, we have listed the improvements made to CampusGroups during the month of May.

1) Members

• We implemented a new "profile extension" type of Form, which will allow groups to collect unique information from their members. Once this information has been collected, it can be shared with other members of the group on the group's Website. The profile extension survey will be presented to all new members when they join the group. It also has an optional expiry date, to push members to update their profiles more frequently. From the Members page of the Website, other members can click on "Advanced" and select additional search parameters.

• Under "Members", we used to display school users only, broken down into the various Account Types. However, some of the groups also have non-school users (i.e. registered at other schools on CampusGroups) which did not appear in the list. To allow officers to view these non-school users, we added a "Non-School Members" account type in the Members selector.

2) Events

• School administrators can now decide to set the "Allow RSVP" option to Yes or No by default for the entire school.
• This month, we continued to improve our Waiting List feature based on user feedback. We now allow group officers to promote students to the Main List for paid events (this option used to only be available for free events). An email notification is sent to the student with a link to a payment page. We also implemented a payment time limit, which gives a newly promoted student a certain amount of time to purchase his/her tickets.
• We added more attendees filtering options for officers who manage an event. We now separate attendees who have completed their payment and attendees who have not.
• When you create an event, we now display all conflicting events not just 3. This feature has been particularily well received as it prevents you from creating an event at the same time as another major event on campus.

3) Profile

• We implemented the Facebook and LinkedIn Connect buttons to allow users to synchronize their CampusGroups account with their favorite social networking accounts. Students can download their LinkedIn resume into CampusGroups (under "My Profile"). We are currently building features to allow students and group officers to post on Facebook and LinkedIn when they post on CampusGroups. Students will be able to post on their Facebook profile, group officers will be able to post on their Facebook groups or pages. Finally, we created a way for group officers to create an event on their Facebook group or page when creating an event in CampusGroups.
• We added a more visible "Privacy" link on student profiles. The privacy page allows any user to configure their privacy and notification settings, for their personal profile as well as for all the groups they are a member/officer of.

4) Photos

• We used to have a recurring error when users would upload certain types of photos/images. We revamped the photo upload module and fixed this bug. We are about to release a new "Upload Photo" button at all levels on CampusGroups (i.e. Profile, Feed, Events, Forms, Website), which will allow users to upload in fewer clicks and also to select previously uploaded photos seamlessly.

5) Forms

• We released the new Forms module to all schools. A lot of improvements have been made to the Forms Builder, to make it easier and faster to add/edit questions. Please feel free to try it and send us feedback!

• You can now embed a Form directly on any page of your Website by using the [CONTENT:FORM] widget tag (see "Widgets" section under Website).

6) Feed

• We now allow group officers to easily post on their group or school feed when creating an event, creating a form or a survey, composing a newsletters. This new feature has been very well accepted by the students and we are planning on improving it by providing more interactive options within the posted content.
• This month we added statistics on top of the school and group feeds. These stats indicate how many people see the feed on a weekly and monthly basis. We also added a link to a chart with a breakdown of the number of views by user type. We are planning on adding stats and charts at all levels during the summer.

7) Navigation / User Interface

• We added mouse-over bubbles on top of menus and buttons, to provide more contextual information for users who are new to CampusGroups.
• Based on feedback, we added a Home and a My Groups link on top of all Websites, to allow faster navigation between the group Websites and the portal.
• We upgraded the look and feel of all widgets on CampusGroups. The new widgets take on the colors of the associated modules.

8) API

• We updated our APi and posted changes on the API Documentation page (i.e. [http://[YOUR_SCHOOL_URL]/api). Among other improvements, we added new RSS feeds such as group members, user membership, list of groups. Please check it out if you are interested and let us know if you have any questions on how to use the API. 
  

9) Backend

• We improved our Counters system again this month by systematically replacing old counters and resetting counters more accurately.
• We implemented a new Caching system to allow faster content loading at all levels.
• We improved our Alerts system to warn the whole team faster when any backend job is stopped or delayed.

10) Mobile

• We released our new iPhone App (v15), it is available in the App store since May 10th. Among other improvements, we made the App compatible with iPhone 5, we added a "Join Groups" section, and we improved the feed to allow users to post photos and to set privacy settings.
• We updated our Room Reservation mobile app as well.

Thanks for reading and please feel free to email us if you have any questions!

The CampusGroups Team

Thursday April 18 Updates

1) Login:

• We have changed our Login widget and implemented  greater school branding.
  Here are two examples:

• After logging out, you are now redirected to the login page.

2) Feed:

• When posting on a feed, you developed  a more user friendly "Custom" popup  to allow you to select targeted groups of people, and to confirm your selection.  
   

• When you post on a group feed, we give you the option to send Email Notifications (it's unchecked by default). Email notifications are disabled on the school feed.
• We reset the group feed notifications to "On" for all existing members and it will be set to "On" for all new members by default.  This notification can be easily turned off by going to Account > Notifications.  We also allow the recipients of the notification to turn it off in a simple click on a link at the bottom of the email.

3) Events:

• We added a "Select a Date"  dropdown on top of your list of events, to allow you to quickly visualize  the events for a given date in the future.
  

• When you create an event, we added a validation to prevent you from mistakenly creating an event with an end time inferior to the start time.
• The "Edit" link present on the calendar for each event used to be available for School Administrators only. It is now available for all officers of the group which is hosting the event.
• We re-implemented the event feedback rating. The average rating for your past events are now displayed on your list of events (for Officer only).
• Group officers can now add their own Form/Survey link to the "Feedback Request" email sent to event attendees (24 hours after the event took place).
• We now allow students to post event feedback in just one click on the email notification link (no need to log on).
• We added a customizable "Item Type" (i.e. Event Ticket, Merchandising, etc) for all Registration Options when you create your events.
• We fixed the event "Drafts" view, we are now displaying the latest drafts on top, we don't sort by date anymore.
• We created a feature which invites event organizers to take a post-event assessment survey (this feature will be released by April 15th)
• We added the "Officer Notes" field to the Excel Attendance List download

4) Emails:

• We added a "More" button at the bottom of the "Sent emails" page to allow you to see more than just the past 50 sent emails.

5) Members:

• We improved the layout and logic of the Add Members and Add Officers popups.
• We added a Members Extension feature, which allows group officers to extend the default profile of their members: group officers can now create a simple Form and invite their members to provide additional information.  This provided information will then be displayed on the profile of the member for other group members to see.

6) Money:

• We improved the Refund Request notifications to officers and school administrators in charge.  You can now decide who will receive the notifications under "Officers > Notifications".
• We added a Transaction Type and a Payment Method to all transactions in CampusGroups. These 2 fields have also been added to the Transaction Download. These fields can be customized for each school but have default values:  
  • Transaction Types are: Event Ticket Sales, Membership Fees, Refund, Expense Reimbursment, etc.
  • Payment Methods are: Online Gateway, Check, Cash, etc

7) Rooms:

• We released our Room Reservation Mobile App (this is only available to schools who have implemented the Room Reservations module).
• We will soon release an improved design (April 15th). And this Web App will be available in 1 click from pour iPhone App (no login required):

• We added a new widget on the School Feed page, for users to see and manage their  room reservations.
• Officers can now cancel a room reservation created by another officer of the same group.

8) Discussion board:

• We added a button which allows a club officer to set the "Follow Discussion Board" setting to "No" for all members, in just 1 click.
• We added a "Follow" checkbox for each Section and Category on the discussion board.

9) Budgeting tool:

• We made improvements to the Budgeting Tool by adding Sub-Totals and Grand-Totals per Fund Source, Budget Item Type and also per Event.
• We also adding Allocations and Revenues on top of each budget for club officers to see.
• We improved the overall layout as well.

10) Notifications and Privacy Settings:

• We improved the messaging system between a user who submitted a form and the officer in charge of managing the form.
• We improved the Account > Notifications/Privacy page by adding more privacy settings for groups and individual users (coming up March 29th)

11) UI changes:

• We unified the little red notification counters to alert you when something is new.
• We also implemented color coded buttons on all forms in the system.

12) School administration:

• We improved our Events Upload conflicts resolution page (this is only available to School Administrators for the time being). You can now re-upload the same events and they will be edited as long as you add your own "Event Id" in the Excel file.  You will also be able to delete events the same way.
• The Events Upload script will allow you to edit room reservations as well.
• We implemented a way for you to only allow "Same Day" events (this configuration can be used by all schools):

• On the Groups page, you can now hide the "All" tab and choose which type of group should be listed by default.

13) Mobile:

• We added a new intro page for users who browse CampusGroups from an iPhone or an iPad:

14) Bug fixes:

• We fixed the mailing list creation (the name was not always saved properly)
• We fixed the room reservation cancellation popup (it was not closing properly)
• We fixed the waiting list promotion button
• We fixed a time difference issue for schools outside of the US
• We now display 12:00am instead of 0:00am system wide
• We added formatting for money amounts: $1,232.00, instead of $1232

Did you know?

• The CampusGrous iPhone App can be downloaded for free.  The next release will be pushed by April 15th and it will include:
  • A new school feed with the ability to post photos.
  • Improvements around the UI and navigation.

What's keeping us busy?

• We are working on merging the Dashboard and Settings tabs into one unified "Dashboard" tab.
• We are creating an improved and more unified design for all widgets in the system.
• We are working on a chat feature, between two users or within a group of users. This feature will also be available on our iPhone App.
• We are working on a new left menu and feed post box.
• We will soon start posting more relevant automated news on the feed.

Thanks for reading! 

The CG Team

Friday March 1 Updates

1) Events:

• The "Event Reminder" feature has been improved (under section 7 of the event form). You can now preview your reminder message and include mail merge fields.
• We released the Waiting List feature and added a dedicated field in the attendees listing download.
• You can now add a link to a form/survey in the Feedback Request emails which get sent a day after the event.
• The new Donation feature can now be disabled by schools who do not allow donations. Please feel free to contact us for more details.
• For a paid events, the RSVP confirmation email is not sent right away. It will be sent once the payment gateway has confirmed the success of the transaction to CampusGroups.
• We have improved the Event Details page: we now display the pending registrations (people who have started to register but have not completed their registrations yet).
• We changed some of the confirmation messages to make sure people would complete their registration

2) Rooms:  

• We created a Room Reservation Web App that will be accessible in one click from the iPhone App or on Android and Windows Phone browsers. This will be released on March 15.
• The header of the Rooms grid now remains visible even as you scroll down the grid.
• When you mouse over a Room Reservation which is attached to an event, the event details will be displayed.
• We improved our Room Reservations Conflicts page (this is only available to School Administrators).

3) Admin:

• We added a sub-categorization for all Group Types in order to differentiate student-run and admin-run groups.
• We added the ability to create "Admin Only" officer positions available for admin groups only. This will allow some of the back-end tools (i.e. Budgeting Tool, Refunds, etc) to be restricted to certain users only.

School administrators can now add new users to the system from the Control panel as described here: 
http://support.campusgroups.com/customer/portal/articles/992796-adding-new-users-quickly

4) General:

• When you manage a group, we now display the "Recently Visited" pages on the Dashboard to help admins/officers get back to where they often go in just a click.
• We added a CampusGroups Features Feedback group and we will start adding "Feedback" links next to features to allow our users to post comments, feedback, suggestions or report potential bugs.

5) Budgeting Tool:

• We made improvements to the Budgeting Tool by adding Sub-Totals and Grand-Totals per Fund Source, Budget Item Type and also per Event.

6) API:

• We implemented a test URL for the event's RSS feed. Please feel free to contact us for more details.