Managed Planners

This is an announcement of the availability of Managed Planners.

Invisible website updates

First things first, after the recent modernisation to how parts of the website are built, I felt like taking a look at some of the older code that qplanner uses.
I've touched a lot of files, and refactored some parts. None of this is visible to users.
The most important change is that qplanner should now be able to handle larger amounts of traffic without breaking too much of a sweat.

Managed Planners

I have a new set of qplanner features, but only a few people will find them useful.
The key feature is the ability to hide a planner entirely from other users, or set it so other people can only view the planner - no history or creator access.
Technically this feature has existed for a decade, but it was abandoned.
Another abandoned idea was allowing users to decide if anybody else could edit a planner that they created.
Now those are both good ideas in specific situations, but in general, it they don't foster a healthy, collaborative, community.

So I've taken those ideas, and widen the umbrella a little by adding a few additional things.

Here are some of the use cases I can think of so far:

  • Actually planning an event, in private, allowing more than 1 pc to access it (AKA not just saving locally)
  • An official event kindly wishes to add their stage times here
  • An accredited professional would like to use qplanner to view stage times they have access to, which are currently embargoed
  • Emergency protection of a planner, with assigned editors (In the case of repeated vandalism and such)
  • You want to host a private event, or contest. Such a fantasy festival competition, or your college schedule.

Either way this is, like the rest of the website, available for free.

Interested?

Please get in touch, via the magic of email, or social media.
Let me know what your use case is! There's no harm in asking.

Why aren’t these features available to everybody?

Most of these features would only be abused, one way or another, and prevent healthy cooperation in an open community.

Features

Official accuracy

The highest seal approval I can offer a planner, accuracy-wise.
They're shown with a blue line on the website, instead of the usual best, green, for accurate.
This should only be used by representatives of actual events.

Planner protection

Newly created managed planners will not show up anywhere, until you make them viewable.
This gives you time to plan your event without in peace, making sure things are just right.
Once visible visitors will only be able to view the planner. It will not be accessible to them in the creator, and the edit history will be hidden.

This setting is also perfect for using qplanner to simply plan your event, without ever having to make it accessible. That's fine, too!

Hide from search

Hiding a planner from search, and general visibility, is already available for all planners, from the Options window in the creator.
However, anybody can still access those planners if they have the planner ID. (Which can be guessed)

Vanity url

Normal planners have a link that looks like qplanner.co.uk/p/3074, with a vanity url it can be qplanner.co.uk/v/My-Event-2026

Assigned editors access

Editing planners is a core feature of qplanner, and you'll be able to whitelist creator access to user accounts of your choosing.
This means you won't be locked down to only one person in the office being able to tweak things.
And whilst you will need to reload the planner to view somebody else's changes, you and your editors can work from anywhere.

Links for viewing protected planners

Should you wish to let a 3rd party view the planner whilst it's still inaccessible to the public then you'll be able to generate a special links! You can label them, set an expiry, and check how many views that link has received.

The following features are planned, but not implemented at the time of writing

Scheduled updates

Timed release of staged updates for a planner.
Scheduled updates can be edited independently of any currently live version of the planner.
This version of the planner will automatically replace the current version, and make your event visible, once the date/time is reached.
For example, visitors might only see the current stub planner, whilst you edit and revise the stage splits.
Or you want your stage times, and event visibility on qplanner, to go live at the same time as other social media posts.

3d Models

This is a novelty to most, but I have the code for this already, so why not let others generate them as well?