Show different events to different user groups

Question

I have users in different groups; depending on the group they are in, when they see the events listing, I'd like them to only see events that are relevant for them based on the group(s) they are in.

For example, let's say I have users in 3 groups: Employee, Manager, Contractor. Manager gets to see events for all groups. Contractor only gets to see Contractor events. Employee gets to see events for Employee and Contractor.

Right now I am just using the basic CiviEvent listing: https://mysiteurl/civicrm/event/ical?reset=1&list=1&html=1.

One option I have thought of is to use the "Event Type" as a filtering mechanism because you can then use URLs like https://mysiteurl/civicrm/event/ical?reset=1&list=1&html=1&type=XXX. So then for event display I would create my own event listing page and embed iframes. I would still need to find a way to identify programmatically what group the user is in and only display the iframe for that user. The problem with this option is that it does not show the events in date order: it would show the Employee events in date order, then in a separate section the Manager events in date order, and in a third section the Contractor events in date order. I feel this would become confusing for people. I'd rather show them just one single event list that is in date order and only shows events that are relevant to them.

I guess it might be possible to use views? But I don't know much about views.

So I'm looking for advice or help. I haven't been able to find any plugins or sample code that might do this but it seems like it would be a super common use case?

THanks!

PS: I am on Drupal 7 and Civi 4.6.X.

Answer 1

I solved this by:

• Enabling the PHP module that comes as part of Drupal 7 core but is disabled by default. Enabling this module creates a new text format called "PHP Code"
• Creating a new page and setting the text format of that page to "PHP Code". I called the page "Calendar of Events".

• Putting the following code in the body of that new page:

  <?php $role = user_role_load_by_name('My Role'); if (user_has_role($role->rid)) { header("Location: https://mysite/civicrm/event/ical? reset=1&list=1&html=1&type=7"); /* Redirect browser */ exit(); } ?>

This solution requires you to have a separate Drupal role for each group of users you want to show different events to. It also requires that you have defined different event types. So for example, users in the group Managers would see events that have event types such as "Manager Meeting", "Employee Meeting", and "Very Secret Meeting". You define the event types in CiviCRM's Administer menu for CiviEvent. The &type=X is what defines what event types will be displayed; the X value comes from the event type list in CiviCRM's CiviEvent administration. You can comma separate the &type=X,Y,Z for example to show one user role multiple event types.