Dienstplan vs Event Koi Lite – Events Calendar, Event Management, RSVP, and Tickets

Dienstplan turns your WordPress site into a shift and duty roster that runs without a full-time coordinator. It is built for teams that rely on volunteers — fire departments, emergency medical services, first-responder and crisis-response groups, sports clubs and associations. Members open a calendar page and sign up for open shifts themselves. Coordinators see at a glance which shifts are still open, who already volunteered, and who has not yet contributed this period. Every change is recorded, so “who removed me from Saturday?” always has an answer. Everything runs on your own WordPress install. Member data, schedules and assignments stay in your database — no SaaS account, no recurring fee for the free version. Optional outbound connections (public-holiday lookup via openholidaysapi.org, product notices from wp-dienstplan.de) are documented under External services; the holiday lookup is disabled by default. What you can do Define shift types (early/late/night, driver/paramedic — whatever your team uses) and build week or month rosters Drop the roster onto any page with the [dienstplan] shortcode Show public aggregate statistics (completed shifts, hours, active helpers) with [dienstplan_statistik] — no login required, names never exposed Let members sign up for shifts and remove themselves again — coordinators see every change live, no email ping-pong Plan events like training nights, fundraisers or on-call duties with categories (per-event signup lists come with Basis) Show each member their own upcoming shifts in a dashboard widget Let members download their shifts as an ICS calendar file Why WordPress Most volunteer organisations already run a WordPress site for news and member communication. Adding the roster there means members use the account they already have, your data stays in your own database, and there is no external SaaS to vet for data protection. Free, Basis and Pro The version on WordPress.org is Free and stays free forever: one shift schedule, unlimited members, shift types and events — no artificial caps. Two optional add-ons extend the same plugin in place, with your data carrying over automatically: Basis — multiple rosters, recurring events, per-event signups and tasks, shift trading, group and weekday restrictions, automated email notifications, and a community feedback channel. For established teams that need self-service workflows. Pro — everything in Basis plus attendance statistics, a tamper-evident audit log and waiting-list promotion on full events. For organisations with reporting or audit obligations. Pricing and the full comparison are at wp-dienstplan.de. Languages Ships with English, German, Spanish, French and Italian. Source strings are English; further languages can be added via standard .po/.mo files in languages/. External services Product notices (wp-dienstplan.de) In the WordPress admin, on Dienstplan’s own screens only, the plugin may request https://www.wp-dienstplan.de/plugin/notices.json to show time-limited product information (for example a promotion). The request is a plain HTTP GET with no query parameters and no cookies from your site; no personal data, member data, license keys or site-identifying payload is transmitted. The response is cached locally (WordPress transient) for up to 12 hours. Notices are dismissible per administrator and never appear on other admin pages. This call is part of the free plugin distributed via WordPress.org. Public holidays (openholidaysapi.org) This plugin connects to the public OpenHolidays API (https://openholidaysapi.org) to retrieve official public-holiday dates for the country and (optional) region configured under Dienstplan → Settings → Holidays. The dates are stored in your own WordPress options and shown as background highlights on the calendar so members can see at a glance which days are public holidays. The feature is fully optional — clearing the holiday country in settings disables every outbound call to that API. It sends a request to https://openholidaysapi.org in three situations: GET /Countries — once, when the admin opens the holiday-settings page and the country list has not been cached yet. No payload, only an HTTP request. GET /Subdivisions?countryIsoCode=XX — once per country, when the admin selects a country in the settings UI to populate the region dropdown. The configured country code is transmitted as a query parameter. GET /PublicHolidays?countryIsoCode=XX&languageIsoCode=YY&validFrom=YYYY-01-01&validTo=YYYY-12-31[&subdivisionCode=ZZZZ] — once per year via WordPress cron, plus on demand when the admin triggers a manual refresh from the settings page. The configured country code, region code (if any), language code and requested year are sent as query parameters. In every case, only configuration values entered by the administrator are transmitted (country / region / language / year). No member names, email addresses, shift data or audit-log entries are sent. This service is provided by STÜBER SYSTEMS GmbH as an Open Data project: terms of use, privacy policy. Project documentation and the data-source overview are available at https://www.openholidaysapi.org. Privacy Dienstplan is built so that all member-related data — names, email addresses (from the WordPress user account), shift assignments, signup history, audit-log entries — stays exclusively in your own WordPress database. The free plugin’s only outbound HTTP requests are the calls documented in External services above (product notices from wp-dienstplan.de and, if enabled, OpenHolidays). Neither call transmits member or personal data. If you use the optional Basis or Pro add-on The commercial add-on contacts a separate license server at lizenz.wp-dienstplan.de for license activation and a daily license-status check. The data transmitted is limited to the license key, your site URL, and a status flag — no member data, no shift data and no email addresses are sent. License-server activity is logged with industry-standard webserver logs (IP, timestamp, user agent) for fraud prevention; the privacy policy at wp-dienstplan.de documents this in detail. The license server is not active in the free plugin distributed via WordPress.org. Cookies and trackers Dienstplan sets no cookies of its own and uses no third-party trackers. The plugin relies on WordPress’s standard authentication cookies for member login and on localStorage for remembering the last selected roster on multi-roster pages.

EventKoi Lite is a modern WordPress events calendar plugin built for site owners who want an unbloated and intuitive event management plugin. Create and manage in-person and virtual events, display a beautiful events calendar or event list, sell tickets, event bookings, manage RSVPs and attendees, all from a clean, intuitive admin. ✓ Events calendar & event list — Display events in a calendar, list, or grid view using blocks, shortcodes, Elementor, or Beaver Builder ✓ Event registration & RSVP — Let attendees register for events, manage capacity, and check in with check-in codes ✓ Sell event tickets with WooCommerce — Create multiple ticket types per event, set capacity and pricing, and sell tickets using any WooCommerce payment gateway including Stripe and PayPal ✓ Attendee management — Export your attendee list and manage check-ins from your WordPress admin ✓ In-person and virtual events — Supports Google Maps for venues and auto-detects visitor timezone for virtual and international events ✓ Google Calendar, iCal & Outlook sync — Let attendees add events to their own calendar with one click ✓ Accessible & responsive — Keyboard navigation, ARIA labels, and a fully mobile-friendly events calendar ✓ Event SEO — Automatic JSON-LD structured data markup so your events appear in Google search results and rich snippets ✓ Blocks, shortcodes & page builders — Works with Gutenberg, Elementor, and Beaver Builder out of the box ✓ Secure, well-built code that follows WordPress coding standards ✓ Active development, responsive support, and thorough documentation Need recurring events, unlimited calendars, and custom fields? Upgrade to EventKoi Pro → Event management Add multiple event days, each with its own start and end time Create multiple venue events. Combine in-person and virtual event locations Create in-person events with Google Maps venue embedding Create virtual events with automatic visitor timezone detection Use your WordPress site’s date, time, and timezone settings Customize event page templates in the block editor Localization-ready Events Calendar & Event Listing Embed an events calendar using a block, shortcode, Elementor widget, or Beaver Builder module Display an event listing as a list or grid view Filter events by date range or calendar Accessible calendar views with full keyboard navigation and ARIA labels Fully responsive and mobile-friendly for all screen sizes Set the calendar’s starting day of the week Choose 12 or 24-hour time display Organize all your events under your events calendar. Upgrade to Pro for multiple calendars to segment events by category, location, or type Event Registration & RSVP Management Set event capacity and display remaining spots to encourage signups Let attendees submit and update their event registration (RSVP) Send automated confirmation emails with check-in codes Manage attendee registration and check-ins from WordPress admin Export your full attendee list Sell Event Tickets & Event Booking with WooCommerce Use any WooCommerce payment gateway (Stripe, PayPal, and more) to sell tickets directly from your WordPress site Create multiple ticket types per event (e.g. General Admission, VIP, Early Bird) Set individual pricing, capacity, and availability for each ticket type Offer free tickets or paid tickets Set ticket sale windows — open and close ticket sales on specific dates Set a maximum number of tickets per order Show or hide remaining ticket quantities to create urgency Add terms and conditions per ticket type Require buyers to have a WordPress account, or auto-create one at checkout Automated ticket confirmation email with check-in code sent on purchase Automated refund confirmation emails Manage all ticket orders and attendees from your WordPress admin Track tickets sold and total earnings with built-in reporting Export your full attendee list Calendar Sync & Sharing Let visitors add events to Google Calendar, iCalendar, Outlook 365, or Outlook Live Auto-detect visitor timezone for virtual and international events Social sharing built in Event SEO & Structured Data EventKoi Lite automatically outputs JSON-LD structured data for every event, helping your events appear in Google Search rich results and event snippets. Structured data is built in, no configuration needed. Page Builder Integrations Elementor: Embed an events calendar or event data using native Elementor widgets Beaver Builder: Embed an events calendar or event data using native Beaver Builder modules Block editor and shortcode support Shortcode builder: Build shortcodes with multiple queries to display a calendar or list of events Block Editor: Add an events calendar, event query loop block or event data block directly in the WordPress editor Import events from The Events Calendar Switching from The Events Calendar? Import your events in minutes with our built-in migration tool Event titles, descriptions, dates, times, and timezones All-day and multi-day event settings Venue and location data Organizer information Event categories Recurrence rules (converted to EventKoi’s recurring event format) Google Maps embed settings Featured images Duplicate events detector. Re-running the importer won’t create duplicates. Get advanced features with EventKoi Pro Recurring events Create advanced rules for events that repeat daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, Edit individual event instances (custom name, location, description, and more) Automatically create a dedicated event series page Custom fields Add custom fields and field groups to any event Import custom fields from The Events Calendar Multiple event calendars Lite includes one calendar. Pro unlocks unlimited calendars so you can segment events by type, department, location, or audience Advanced Elementor and Beaver Builder integrations Build custom templates and use Loop features to build queryable event lists. Priority support 30-day money-back guarantee Get EventKoi Pro → Helpful links EventKoi documentation EventKoi blog Support Forum (please check existing threads before starting a new one) Contact us (for non-support related questions) External services This plugin can connect to the Google Maps JavaScript API in order to display interactive maps inside event and calendar views. It sends your configured Google Maps API key (if provided) along with requests made by the visitor’s browser when viewing a page that contains an embedded map. No personal data is sent by the plugin itself, but Google may collect usage data in accordance with their policies. This connection only happens if maps are enabled in the plugin settings and a page with an event location map is viewed. This service is provided by Google LLC: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy.