- Client: Southern Assembly
- Requirements: A mini website in the same style as the client’s main website that would serve a time limited photography competition with photo uploads in 2 categories, members only voting, vote logging and automated winners page
- Software & Plugins: WordPress, Elementor, Gravity Forms, ULike Pro, WP Data Access, Custom Post Types, Advanced Custom Fields, ChatGPT
- Timescale: 1 Month
Background
Southern Assembly, a sister client of an existing one (Northern & Western Regional Assembly) got in touch with me to provide a quote to build a complex, nationwide photo competition website. They received other quotes referencing AI suggested cloud based solutions that could do the job but I outlined the issued with using a number of subscription based, cloud services with which you have less control and possibly more expense, then possible loss of access to data when subscriptions end Vs a manual build with WordPress and plugins where you have more ongoing, continuing control for less recurring cost. I used ChatGPT’s help to suggest the best build approach with WordPress for the list of specs provided and for the least financial outlay and sent a quote based on that. I got the go ahead and started the build.
Entry Submissions
First step was to install and configure a new WordPress site on the client’s existing hosting then match the design of their existing website including branding colours, fonts and layout. Next was to install the plugins required for functionality. I used my developer licence of Gravity Forms and their Post Creation addon to allow entrants to upload their photo entries and create new pending custom “Photo Entry” posts on the site that the admins could publish. I matched the fields in the form to fields created in the Advanced Custom Fields plugin. I then designed an Elementor single post template to use that data to show the single entries on the front end. I also designed an Elementor Archive template and Photo Entry Loop item to show the full list of entries with category filters on the “Entries” page.
Voting
Next step was to configure the ULike plugin to allow only registered members to vote on photos and to install another IP Limit Gravity Forms addon that only allowed 2 votes max from one user IP. The ULike plugin also publicly showed the amount of votes each photo got as well as handling the registrations/signups. I used a combination of the Dynamic Visibility for Elementor plugin and Elementor’s own visibility options to show and hide various sections of the website depending on whether you were registered and logged in or not and to hide the voting options once the voting had closed and winners were being confirmed.
Winners
Finally I designed a Winners page using Elementor and ULike widgets that showed a live leaderboard in both categories throughout the competition, just for transparency. An additional, late requirement from the client was to create a list of everyone who had registered to vote and had voted at least once so that they could be registered for a separate voters draw. This was achieved by running an SQL command on the websites database via the WP Data Access plugin. The command was generated via ChatGPT. The resulting list could be exported as a CSV file which the client could then upload to a free cloud based CSV randomiser to choose a winning voter.
Website Performance
- Entries: 173 total, (92 legitimate)
- Registered Voters: 3,666
- Votes Cast: 3,400
- Active Users: 13,000
View the website here – EUFunds.ie/photo-competition
