You can use the Event Calendar part to add a calendar to your website. Event Calendar parts can:
| • | Act as standalone calendars. For example, the academic departments at your school manage their own calendars on your website. Each department can create and maintain a separate Event Calendar part for its calendar. |
| • | Work as sub-calendars that feed events to a larger organizational calendar. For example, your website has a main calendar that lists events for all areas of the school. With the Event Calendar Group part, each departmental calendar can feed events from their Event Calendar parts into the main calendar for the school. For more information about Event Calendar Groups, see Event Calendar Group. |
You can use Event Calendar part properties to manage who views and manages each calendar. For example, a school may have a sub-calendar of faculty events that only users assigned to Administrator or Faculty roles can view or edit. You can also use Event Categories to manage the types of events added to the calendar and who manages them. For example, a soccer calendar may have categories such as Registration, Practice, and Games, and only users in the Coaches role have rights to add, edit, or delete events in these categories.
Calendar managers can create recurring events. When you edit recurring events, the manager can select whether to change all occurrences in the series, only the selected occurrence, or all future occurrences in the series including the selected occurrence. When you change an occurrence of an event, you cannot later make that occurrence part of a recurring series.
Calendar managers can select a time zone for the event. If an event does not have a time zone, the logged-in user’s time zone setting determines the date and time displayed for the event. For anonymous users or any user who does not have a time zone specified, the event displays the time and date based on the system’s setting. If your website users are all in the same time zone, we recommend managers leave the time zone field blank. If your website users are in multiple time zones, we recommend you set the time zone to the user’s setting.
When you enter an address for the event, you can select to include a Google or Yahoo! map link to the location. On the Events screen, you can click Preview map under Event Information to verify that the location you entered is correct. Calendar managers can also use the HTML editor to add pictures and hyperlinks to the event listing and to format text.
To cancel an event, a manager can select Mark Canceled. In the List View and Calendar Highlights, the event title is appended with “- Canceled.” In the Calendar View, the event name is struck through. For the calendar weblog, “Update” or “Removed” is added to the title, and readers who subscribe to the calendar weblog receive an updated calendar event posting through their RSS feed.
Website users have four views of the calendar: the Calendar View, the List View, Published Events, and Event Details View.
| • | The Calendar View displays a large monthly calendar. Dates with scheduled events are colored and list the events that occur that day. Users can click Filter Events to customize the categories of events that appear. Event names are hyperlinked so users can click them to read more information about the event. In this view, icons indicate whether an event is recurring, occurs in a time zone, or lasts longer than one day. |
| • | The List View displays a list of all the events scheduled for the selected period of time. Event names are hyperlinked so users can click them to read more information about the event. Users can filter events by date or click Filter Events to select the types of events to view. |
| • | If you enable the RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Event Publishing capabilities, calendar managers can post “stories” in a weblog form with details about upcoming events. Site users click Published Events to view the calendar weblog. Posted events also appear in site search results. Website users can subscribe to the RSS feed so they receive updates in their RSS reader about upcoming events. |
| • | The Event Details View is the page that appears when a website user clicks on an event in the Calendar View or List View. It displays the details for the selected event. |
In the Calendar View, List View, and the Event Details View, users can click Print View to open a window displaying the printer-friendly version of the calendar or event.
Also in the Calendar View, List View, and the Event Details View, users can click Export as iCalendar to export events in the iCalendar format (*.ics) so they can be opened in other calendar programs, such as Microsoft Outlook or Apple iCal. The export file includes only the events appearing currently in the calendar; if the calendar is filtered, filtered out events are not exported. If an event is time zone specific but not recurring, the event time is converted to UTC time in the export file. If an event is time zone specific and recurring, the export file includes the event time zone as well as the daylight savings rules for that time zone. The export file includes any *.html event descriptions but does not include event graphics. In the Event Details View, additional buttons appear so users can add the single event to their Windows Live, Google, or Yahoo! calendars.
Note: When using a version of Microsoft Outlook older than version 7, users should save the exported *.ics file to their local machine and use the Import an iCalendar file function in Outlook. If users with an older version attempt to import by double-clicking the saved *.ics file, it imports only the first event and discards any others. Users with Outlook 7 can double-click the saved *.ics file to import all events with no issues.
In the Calendar View and List View, users can click Import Events to add multiple events to the calendar at one time. On the Select import file screen, in the File field, users browse to a *.csv file that contains header columns and the values to import. Only the Start Date, End Date, and Title fields are required, but the import file can include values for all fields that appear on the Add Event screen, except Recurrence.
After selecting the import file, the user must map the import fields to those in the program. However, if the *.csv file’s column headers use the same names as the corresponding fields in Blackbaud NetCommunity, the program automatically maps the import file fields to the event fields.
Note: You can import data for all event calendar fields, except Recurrence. After you import the *.csv file, you can manually set an event’s recurrence.
Use the table below to set up *.csv files with values the program can automatically map to the corresponding event fields in Blackbaud NetCommunity.
|
Field Name |
Field Values |
|
Event Category |
Enter a category for the event. Your entry must match a category you previously created on the Code Tables page in Administration. |
|
All Day Event |
Enter “Yes” or “No,” “True” or “False” to indicate whether the event will last the entire day. |
|
Time Zone |
Enter the geographical location associated with the time zone where the event occurs, such as “Chicago” or “Los Angeles,” so the start and end times accurately reflect the scheduled time of the event for a viewer in a different time zone. |
|
Start Date |
Enter the start date in any standard date format. For example, you can enter January 1, 2011 as “01/01/11” or “1/1/2011.” This field is always required. |
|
Start Time Hour |
Enter a whole number for the hour. If you entered “No” or “False” in the All Day Event column, this field is required. |
|
Start Time Minute |
Enter “0,” “15,” “30,” or “45.” When you manually create an event in Blackbaud NetCommunity, you must enter this time in fifteen-minute increments. If you entered “No” or “False” in the All Day Event column, this field is required. |
|
Start Time AM/PM |
Enter “AM” or “PM.” If you entered “No” or “False” in the All Day Event column, this field is required. |
|
End Date |
Enter the end date in any standard date format. This field is always required. |
|
End Time Hour |
Enter a whole number for the hour. If you entered “No” or “False” in the All Day Event column, this field is required. |
|
End Time Minute |
Enter “0,” “15,” “30,” or “45.” When you manually create an event in Blackbaud NetCommunity, you must enter this time in fifteen-minute increments. If you entered “No” or “False” in the All Day Event column, this field is required. |
|
End Time AM/PM |
Enter “AM” or “PM.” If you entered “No” or “False” in the All Day Event column, this field is required. |
|
Title |
Enter the name of the event. This field is always required. |
|
Subtitle |
If the event has a subtitle, enter this information. |
|
Location |
Enter the address for the event. If you plan to include a Google or Yahoo! map link, enter the street address, state, and zip code so the program includes accurate directions to the event’s location. |
|
Map Link |
If you entered a location for the event, you can enter “Google” or “Yahoo” as the web mapping service. After you import the event, a Map link appears next to the location in the event’s details. |
|
Details |
Enter information about the event. |
|
Fees |
Enter the fees associated with the event as a number ($10.00) or as text (ten dollars). |
|
Contact Info |
Enter a contact name or email address. |
|
More Info URL |
Enter the URL that includes additional information about the event. This entry appears as a More info link when you open the event from the calendar. |