Plugin should be generalized beyond calendar to include search

[aharriscrowne]

It would be useful to extend the work on this plugin to address accessing other ChurchCRM features externally from Wordpress. In particular, it would be nice for the plugin to offer access to the ChurchCRM search capabilities and display simple results. This would allow communities to give members access to the database without everyone needing login credentials. A live directory.

[crossan007]

@aharriscrowne I have some security concerns here. WordPress sites are generally available to the general public. A public-facing directory search should probably not be allowed.

Do you have anything in mind regarding this security aspect?

[aharriscrowne]

I get your concerns. In my case I am looking for a happy medium. I want my community to have their own Wordpress logins which I consider relatively insecure, but I don’t want to compromise the database with similarly insecure login credentials for everyone (even if they have limited capabilities), nor do I want to burden them with two logins and two sites.

A search behind a login seems like a good compromise because it would be pretty cumbersome for someone to query the database enough times to get everyone’s data even if they compromised someone’s Wordpress credentials. And it would give the community tremendous value and reduce dependence on a paper directory.

Do you have additional concerns I am not thinking of? I certainly agree that a search on a public Wordpress site is a bad idea and I don’t know how to prevent someone from doing that

[crossan007]

@aharriscrowne what data points / person fields should be available in this view?

[aharriscrowne]

@crossan007 Ideally, the full capabilities of the search are available for configuration just like in the main app, but I don't think that is necessary if it is too cumbersome or insecure. At a bare minimum a person's first and last name should be searchable and a household name should be searchable. Ideally the autocomplete would work like in the app, showing individuals and households. And selecting a person from the autocomplete would present the person's data points (phone numbers, emails); selecting a household would present the household datapoint and possibly the names of the individuals in the household.

Does that answer your question?