Internal post-mortem on the VCEDC web project, attended by Melissa Cusumano, Isahaque Mahmud, Isalia Ramirez, Łukasz Bugajski, and Mark Hope. The meeting served two purposes: (1) conduct a retrospective to identify process gaps that caused friction during the project, and (2) resolve a live blocker — a missing event registration form that was preventing the client from sending a scheduled email campaign.
Client contacts: Kathy (primary), Tracy (site admin)
Related client index: [1]
The single event page only displayed an "Add to Calendar" button. There was no registration form, blocking the client from sending a planned email to their list.
The free event plugin does not include a registration feature. The ticket add-on is also free but cannot integrate with Kit CRM, making it unsuitable for the client's workflow.
Isahaque will create a new, dedicated Gravity Form for event registration. Gravity Forms integrates directly with Kit CRM, preserving the client's existing subscriber workflow.
Implementation details:
- A unique Gravity Form is created per event (duplicated from a base form)
- The form is embedded via shortcode inside the white box on the event page template
- The shortcode label should read "Register" (not "Events Form")
- A corresponding unique tag must be created in Kit CRM for each event to track registrations separately (e.g., Event 2026 — Business Taxes and Loans)
- The existing email subscription form remains on the page below the registration form — these are two distinct forms serving different purposes
Client workflow (Tracy):
Tracy will need to manually paste the Gravity Form shortcode into each new event post. The team will document and communicate this process to her directly.
There was no formal checklist governing how the site should be built. This led to structural errors by the previous developer — most notably, news/blog content was built as individual static pages rather than WordPress posts. Isahaque had to identify and correct these issues after taking over the project.
"The blog news page — he built out each page individually versus posts. So you would never do that. If you knew it was a news or blog page, you would build it a certain way." — Melissa
The project began without all client assets in hand. Stock photos and AI-generated images were used as placeholders, but the client (Kathy) rejected them — the client wanted photography specific to their "Northwoods" region and ultimately needed to provide their own images. This caused significant rework and back-and-forth.
"Before we kick off, we should really have all assets from a client. We just start designing without the assets." — Melissa / Łukasz
The client was not informed upfront that the free event plugin lacked registration functionality or Kit CRM integration. This created a last-minute blocker at launch.
The client referenced multiple conflicting sources for copy (emails, Word docs, Excel files, a previous website, AI-generated drafts). No single source of truth was established, leading to repeated revision cycles.
| Owner | Task | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| Isahaque | Create new Gravity Form for event registration | 🔴 Urgent |
| Isahaque | Embed form via shortcode on "Business Taxes and Loans" event page | 🔴 Urgent |
| Isahaque | Create Kit CRM tag: Event 2026 — Business Taxes and Loans |
🔴 Urgent |
| Isalia | Test the completed registration workflow | 🔴 Urgent |
| Isalia | Notify Kathy & Tracy once fix is live | 🔴 Urgent |
| Isahaque | Draft standard development checklist (bullet points to start) | 🟡 This week |
| Isalia + Isahaque | Collaborate to finalize development checklist | 🟡 This week |
| Melissa | Pull Jeff into checklist review once draft is ready | 🟢 Follow-up |