Public Events Calendar Tips

Public Events Main Page Event Order
Public Events main page (events.eventsmain) display order depends on whether event is a recurring event or a one time event. If both were treated the same, it's possible that a long running event, for example a museum exhibit going on for 6 months, stayed on top of the page for several months due to the earliest start date. Events are listed in this order:

• Tier 1: one time events taking place today + 4 days, and recurring events that begin and end during that time frame. Ordered by start date.
• Tier 2: events that start between today + 4 days, and end greater than +4 days. Ordered by start date.
• Tier 3: Events that start and end beyond today + 4 days. Ordered first by start date, and then reordered by end date. (The reasoning being that if it ordered by start date, any long term events would always be there until they expire because they'd have the earliest start dates. Ordering by end date makes sure the ones that are ending soon show up. Otherwise you'd never see them because the ones with early start dates would always be listed first. )

Editing Categories in Public Events
Add, Delete or Edit Your Event Categories: Your station can customize category names, delete categories and add your own custom categories to your Public Events Calendar. Just log onto your Events admin tools:

• To add: Click"Insert a Category," type the new category name, click Preview and Save.
  
• To edit: Click"Search/Edit Categories," then Clickon the name of the category. After the small window pops up, edit the name, click Preview and Save.
  
• To delete: Click"Search/Edit Categories," then check off the box and Clickthe "Delete Checked" button at the bottom of the page.
• NOTE: You cannot delete a category that currently contains events. You must first edit those events and change their category or delete.
  

Create Special Limited Access User Accounts for Local Arts Organizations
To increase efficiency, consider creating separate limited access accounts for local arts organizations in your Public Events calendar.

While anyone can submit an event for your review via the 'submit event' link on your events calendar, you can give frequent users more access, allow them to enter AND edit their events (those with limited access cannot change layout options, etc.), making things easier on you.

Simply create a username and password for each organization using the "Manage Administrative Accounts" tool. When they Log in to the Events Admin Tools at http://events.publicbroadcasting.net/xxxx/events.eventsadmin, they'll be able to enter new event information and edit events they have previously entered (but nothing else), minimizing your data entry. You control the passwords and level of access.

ACCESS LEVELS: You decide if you want the events they enter to:

• Limited: Post events to a pending area for your review, and edit their events. Good for new organizations.
  
• Limited 2: Post events live with no review, and edit their events. Good for organizations that you've worked with for a while, and who are familiar with your events calendar.
• Intermediate: Can enter new events, search/edit/approve all submitted events, add/edit a new venue, add/edit a new presenting organization. Good for interns, internal station staff.
  

SETTING UP A LIMITED ACCESS USER ACCOUNT:

• From your main Events Tools page, Click "Manage Administrative Accounts".
• Click the "Add a User Account" link at the top of the page.
• Create a user name and password, and choose the access level.
• Click "Submit".
• Give the organization the events admin URL and their new username and password.
  

Export Events To Read On Air
The Public Events Calendar export function allows you to quickly generate an easy to read events listing for your on-air announcer, or for other uses.

• From your Events Admin page, Click 'Export Events'.
• Set the desired search criteria
• For File Type choose:
  
  • Compact (event info shown in a compact, easy to read format)
  • Verbose (events shown in blocks like a card catalog, with full       heading names)
  • Tab Delimited (for use in Excel or something similar)
• Then check and uncheck the fields you would like to read on air.
  
• Click 'Search'.
• You'll see a link at the top of the page. Clickon this link and print from your browser, copy and paste into another program or save file for later.

Public Events Archives
Event information is archived for 90 days, after that it is purged from the database. To archive information for longer periods, export event information quarterly using the Export Events feature.

• From your Events Admin page, Click 'Export Events'.
• Set the desired date range.
• For File Type: choose Verbose or tab delimited.
• Check and uncheck the fields you would like to export (you may wish to Select all).
• Click'Search'.
• You'll see a link at the top of the page. Clickon this link and print from your browser, or copy and paste into another program or save file for later.

Update Venues in Events
As your Public Events calendar fills up, it’s important to have the most up-to-date venue information available. The venue and presenting-organization list on the “submit event” form displays as an alphabetized pop-up window. This makes it a snap to view venues and organizations in the database and Select them for an event.

We recommend that you perform a little "spring cleaning" and check this list periodically to delete venue duplications.

• Go to: http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/xxxx/events.eventsadmin (substitute your station for the ‘xxxx’) and Click "Search/edit existing venues".
• Search all or search for particular venues to update.
• From this venue page you can Clickon the name of the venue to get to the upcoming events at that venue.
• Click on the venue name to make changes to any venue.
• Go through the alphabetized list and delete duplicates.

Venue Listing Page
In addition to searching for events at a specific venue, you can view all venue address information on one page.

• To access the page, go to the advanced search page, or if your template displays full search functionality in the side rail scroll to "Venue Listing" portion of the search criteria.
• Leave keyword field blank, and Click "search venues" to view all venues in the database.
• From this venue page you can Click on the name of the venue to get to the upcoming events at that venue.
• If you'd like to make this venue page available to your end users, you can add a direct link in your custom bucket and link to: http://events.publicbroadcasting.net/XXXX/events.eventsmain?action=
  searchVenues&newSearch=true&pg=results&venueKeywordSearch=
  (replace XXXX with your station call letters)

Add Graphics or Links to your Events Custom Bucket
Each Public Events Calendar template gives you an area (usually in left or side rail depending on the template you use) to add custom graphics or links. You can use this space to highlight sponsors for your events calendar, add links to other web sites or to pages within your site.

• To customize the link area, Log in to your events admin tools, and click on the "Edit custom buckets" link.
• You have two slots for uploading a graphic, link URL and a tease. If you require additional links, you may add html to the tease field and list multiple links that way. Some examples of how stations are using their custom buckets:
  

• KWMU