Where Is the Public Calendar?

CSUN Web Calendar

Training Workbook

7-22-2009

WHERE IS THE PUBLIC CALENDAR?

The “main” public web calendar maintained by University Advancement and is available at http://www.csun.edu/calendar/

Each calendar has its own unique address:

· http://www.csun.edu/calendar/athletics/

· http://www.csun.edu/calendar/pac/

· http://www.csun.edu/calendar/theater/

This is an early screenshot of the University’s public web calendar:

LOGIN

Enter your CSUN User ID and Password
Click the “Login” button.

SELECT YOUR CALENDAR

On the right side of the page will be a list of calendars you have access to. This screenshot shows a system administrator’s view; you will probably not see as many calendars here.

· Click the “View Calendar” link next to the title of your calendar.

THE MONTH VIEW

The month view of your calendar is where you’ll add events; it defaults to the current month.

· Note the drop-down menu at the top left of the page. If you manage more than one calendar, you may select a different calendar and click the “View” button to jump directly to that calendar.

· Clicking the “Back To Main” button will take you back to the “My Calendars” page.

· Note the drop-down menus immediately above the calendar on the right side. These allow you to jump directly to a specific month and year. Select the month and year desired, then click the “Go” button.

· The links directly above the calendar allow you to jump back one year, back one month, forward one month, or forward one year.

· To add an event, click the “(Add Event)” link on the date you want.

ADD A NEW EVENT – THE EVENT DATA TAB

After clicking the “(Add Event)” link, you’ll see the Add New Event page. You’ll see four tabs here; while you can add information to all of the tabs, the “Event Data” tab is the only tab on which you must enter information.

You can add events two ways:

In a linear fashion – complete all fields:
Complete each tab‘s form and click the “Next” button at the bottom.
Click the “Add” button at the bottom of the “Sharing Requests” tab.

Quick add:

1. Complete the fields in the Event Data tab.

2. Click the “Sharing Requests” tab.

3. Click the Add button at the bottom of the form.

· What does the featured checkbox do? Checking this box places your event into the “Featured Event” space on the public view of your calendar.

o Only one event may be in the featured event space at any given time.

o If more than one featured event is “in the queue,” then the event closest to today’s date will be displayed. For example, if today is the first of the month, and there are two upcoming featured events (one on the 9th and one on the 10th), the featured event on the 10th will not appear in the featured space until the 10th.

o Featured events are displayed at the top of the calendar with a larger image (375 by 140 pixels). Any event may have an image associated with it, the image is just a little smaller.

o Featured events MUST have an associated image

o Day views do not display featured events

o Featured events that span multiple days will show the first day as a featured event, with subsequent days displayed as “regular” events

· Adding an Event Image: Click the “Browse…” button to open a file explorer window and select an appropriate image. The calendar will resize images to fit, but try to pick “web-size” images that are relatively small (raw images from your digital camera probably won’t turn out the way you expect).

o For featured events, images with “native” dimensions of 375 pixels wide by 140 pixels tall will look best.

o For normal events, images with “native” dimensions of 100 pixels wide by 75 pixels tall will look best.

ADD A NEW EVENT – THE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION TAB

The additional Information tab allows you to add helpful information related to your event. This information is completely optional, but be aware that the system will automatically add the default Contact Name, Phone Number, and e-mail address associated with your calendar. These values are assigned to a department when the department is initially set up in the system.

· Enter the appropriate information here.

· TIP - Location: if your event happens on campus, you may select a space for it here. This adds a location link for your event to the campus map. Start typing to reveal a list of locations on campus. There are quite a few, you may have to scroll to find the one you’re looking for.

· Click the “Next” button to move to the “Tags / Categories” tab, or to add the event to your calendar, click the “Sharing Requests” tab and click the “Add” button.

ADD A NEW EVENT – THE TAGS AND CATEGORIES TAB

The Tags and Categories tab allows you to add “metadata” to your event. This information is completely optional, but adding it will help visitors find your event, even if they aren’t browsing your calendar!

· You may select up to three top-level categories that your event “fits into.”

o Visitors viewing a top-level category will see your event in that category’s list of events.

· Tags are listed alphabetically.

o You may add as many tags to your event as you like by simply checking the appropriate checkboxes; you may even add new tags as required.

o PLEASE make sure that the tags you check and / or add are actually relevant and NOT ultra-specific! A good tag is one that is likely to be re-used by other areas for other events.

o Respect your fellow calendar managers! Don’t “spam” the tagging system by selecting every conceivable tag for your event. No matter how important you feel your event is, loading it up with irrelevant tags won’t help – it actually hurts overall search and upsets visitors.

ADD A NEW EVENT – THE TAGS AND CATEGORIES TAB (a little bit more about tags)

Tags: tags are “meta descriptions” that aid search by allowing people to filter for events that have the same tags. An event that properly fits into one calendar (say, the Performing Arts calendar) but not other calendars - may interest visitors for other reasons.

For example, a performance by a comedian might warrant the tags “comedy,” “lectures,” “philosophy,” or even “50” if the event is associated with CSUN’s 50th anniversary. This allows a visitor to find events on the University Calendar that they’re interested in even if they’re not on the “main” University Events calendar.

Feel free to add new tags as necessary…just make sure they’re appropriate.

ADD A NEW EVENT – SHARING REQUESTS TAB

The Sharing Requests tab allows you to share your event with other web calendars on campus, allowing you to easily cross-promote events wherever it makes sense. The Sharing Requests tab displays a list of all the other web calendars on campus.

· To share your event with another calendar or calendars, simply check the boxes next to the appropriate calendars in the list. This will initiate an event sharing request to the managers of the selected calendars (details on next several pages).

· Clicking the “Add” button will add the new event to your web calendar, and will also initiate a sharing request to the administrator of the calendar(s) you selected.

SHARING REQUESTS

Sharing requests eliminate the need to copy events from calendar to calendar…shared events always display the correct information, which is especially important when an event is cancelled! When you choose to share your event with another web calendar, you’re asking the manager of the other calendar(s) if they’ll put your event on their calendar.

· HELPFUL TIP: make sure your event is actually germane to the other calendar; don’t “spam” your fellow web calendar managers with irrelevant sharing requests!

VIEW REQUESTS

Notification for your sharing requests will appear at the top of the “My Calendars” screen when you login.

· The other web calendar managers will click the “View Requests” link to view your pending request.

SHARING REQUESTS – VIEW PENDING REQUESTS

The View Requests screen allows you to preview and either approve or deny event sharing requests. It is divided into 2 sections: pending requests and completed requests. Past events will “drop off” the completed requests list.

· Click the event title to view a summary of the request (see next page).

· Approval options include:

o Approve as Featured

o Approve as Not Featured

o Deny

SHARING REQUESTS – VIEW A PENDING REQUEST

Clicking the event title presents a summary of the event sharing request. Click the “X” in the top right of the summary to dismiss the pop-up.

SHARING REQUESTS – APPROVE OR DENY A REQUEST

To approve or deny a sharing request, simply click the link with the desired action:

· Approve as Featured (if an event was added as a “normal” event, this option will not be available)

· Approve as Not Featured

· Deny

The option selected will be reflected on the other web calendar as follows:

· If the “approve as featured” option is selected, the event will appear on the other web calendar as a featured event.

· If the “approved as not featured” option is selected, the event will appear on the other web calendar as a normal event.

· If the “deny” option is selected, the event will not appear on the other web calendar.

* The administrator of the other calendar may change the sharing request status at any time at his or her own discretion.

CANCELLATIONS

There are times an event might need to be cancelled, which is where the power of the sharing request shines. To do this, the original creator of the event may:

· Select the event in the month view

· Click the Edit button

· Click the Event Cancelled checkbox (this option is not available when adding an event).

· Click the submit button

What happens when you cancel an event?

· The event now appears in all calendars (original or shared) with a “Cancelled” notation (see screenshot on the next page).

· If an event was featured, it will automatically be removed as a featured event; cancelled events cannot be featured.

· Individuals who requested event notification by e-mail or text message will be sent a cancellation notice by the method they originally requested.

EVENT CANCELLATIONS

This screenshot shows the detail of a cancellation notice on the web calendar.