Summer camp event registration with Drupal 7

Question

I'm building a site for a summer camp using Drupal 7, and I'd like for it to allow parents to register their kid(s) for week(s) at camp and then pay for it.

Creating an "event" for purchase in Ubercart, and using the pay per node module is the best way i can find to make this happen, a la the great tutorial series done by Pete Yaworski. Unfortunately, this means that parents have to fill out the fields for each week of camp purchased for each kid making this a multi-step process as many parents have 2 or more kids that they register for 2 or more weeks of camp.

I tried thinking about this in in terms of the Organic Groups and Profile 2 modules, where parents can create "kids" as nodes or sub-users, and I also tried the Field Attributes module to incorporate fields as product options, but I failed to come up with any useful implementation.

I think the best option is to allow Parents enter information about their kids (ie. name, age), possibly by entering each kid as a node. Ultimately, I'd like them to be able to purchase individual camp weeks and check a checkbox to indicate which kids are associated with each week, and have it all go into one cart for one purchase.

I'm just brainstorming at this point because I've just hit upon a lot of dead ends. Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

Well, it's been a while and i thought i might share what i've learned. Just to note, i switched to Drupal Commerce, which i think is much better equipped to handle this type of business.

The site is more focused on one user registering multiple people (kids) for multiple events, so having to fill out a registration form for each person specifically for each event that person is being registered for is a bit annoying, and bad UX. Instead, i allow registered users to complete a form (name, address, contact, etc..). Upon completion of the form, they are given a new user role via Rules which allow them to create content of type "kid". This is really sort of an extra step for the specific summer camp site; we expect the kids to have the same address/phone/etc.. as their parents. The parents can create "kid" nodes filling in field like "allergies" "health concerns" "age" and "name". These nodes are passed through a View with a Contextual Filter based on the User viewing the View; the View shows only content created by the User, and only shows field "name". This is then given as an entity reference to a Line Item Type using a checkbox/radio widget. Events can then be created as Products and given that Line Item Type. When a User is viewing the products he/she will see the "Name"s of the "Kids" they have created as choice next to the "add to cart" button. Conveniently, everything in Drupal Commerce from Products to Orders can be interpreted though views, so as long as the "kid" is attached as a line item, it's easy to organize the info about who registered who for what event when, and retrieve further details about all of that.

So, Parents are able to register with the site, fill out basic information, enter in information for each kid they want to register, then select which kid they want to register for which event. More useful, on the backend, the admin can see which kids are registered for which event, as well as who their parents are, how to contact them, and any important info specific to that kid.

Hope this helps anyone doing a similar project. :-)