Seeking input for camp registration site

Question

I am looking for some advice for a kids camp looking to take online registrations.

It will require:

1. parents creating a member account
2. Parents adding kids (as channel entries I suspect)
3. Adding Camps (products)
4. Checkout/payment processing
5. Invoice/receipt
6. Tracking kids registered in different camps
7. Parents can use same info next year when registering kids again with the option to edit their kids details.

My first thought was CartThrob but would love some advice if other modules are out there I am not aware of.

Answer 1

I build essentially this exact site earlier this year (http://schoolhouseofwonder.org). I followed the structure you laid out - Parents as members, children & camps as channel entries. I used Zoo Visitor to handle member registration, which I find to be the best of the many modules that have recently popped up for that purpose. For the e-commerce aspect, I used Exp:resso Store, although CartThrob would have worked just as well. I wrote my own extension to display camp rosters on the entry edit page, which I have released as VZ Buyers. Otherwise, CartThrob includes similar functionality by way of saving order line-items as channel entries and creating a custom template.

You might also look into the moreEvents module, which sits on top of CartThrob and adds additional registration functionality. I haven't used it yet, but it looks promising.

Feel free to message me if you want to discuss any of this directly.

Answer 2

I did something pretty similar awhile ago, and managed to do it all with EE Simple Commerce. Most of what you are looking to do can easily be managed using the Member module (parents) and normal Channels (camps and children).

Two limitations of using Simple Commerce - it is PayPal only, and you do not get options on the product. If you need more than that, you may well need to go with a full blown cart app.

Good luck!

Roi