In this document:

• Purpose
• Activation
• Usage
  • Features
  • Not accommodated
• Creating an event
• Displaying events on a page
• Featured image display
• Featured content block display
• ICS download option
  • Enabling ICS download feature
  • Considerations for ICS download feature
• Sharing UW Events from other sites
• Option for recurring events
• Troubleshooting

Purpose

The UW Events plugin will allow users of WiscWeb sites to easily create and display events within their site in a list format, using posts to deliver content such as date and location, URLs, images, and general information.

Activation

This plugin is not activated in WiscWeb projects by default. However, site administrators can activate it in the project by following the instructions in WiscWeb - Self service plugin activation / deactivation. 

Usage

The UW Events plugin is a useful tool to use to schedule and display events on your site and have them look integrated with the UW Theme.

Features

• Date/time
• All day events
• Multi-day events
• Short or long description
• Hyperlinks and buttons
• Event URL link
• Featured image
• Images within text
• Custom categories
• Page element (list display only)
• Embed content (e.g., a Google Map)
• Include social icons
• Author/guest/speaker
• Event sharing between sites
• ICS download

Not accommodated

• Monthly calendar view
• Registration/payment processing
• Display related events
• Recurring events

Creating an event

1. After activating the plugin, click UW Events on the left menu (specifically, the one that shows the calendar icon):
   
   
   
   • Your full list of events will appear here.
     
     
2. Select the Add New button at the top of the screen
   
   
3. Add a Title for this event
   
   
4. In the text field, add the event description including relevant information, images, contact information, and other details you would like to share.
   
   
5. For the event to be valid, you must set:
   • Event Start Date
   • Start Time (if it is an all day event, toggle that option and then start time is not required)
     
     
6. Optionally add:
   • End Time
   • All day event designation
   • Multi-day event designation
   • Location
   • URL/URL text
   • Featured image
   • Excerpt
   • Event Categories
     
     
7. When finished, click Publish (if this is a new event) or Update (if this is an edit to an existing event)

Displaying your events on a page

The UW Events listing page element can be used in 1, 2, or 3 column layouts.

To display your events on a page, follow these steps:

1. Click the Add Page Element button
   
   
2. Select the Events List option from the popup list
   
   
   
   
3. The events list defaults to the title Events, and can be updated as you see fit
   
   
4. Choose the number of events to display in the list (defaults to 5)
   
   
5. Other options include:
   • Specifying an event category or multiple categories to display
   • Choose to show the event excerpt
   • Choose the option to add a "More Events" link to the bottom of the list
     • Your URL for the master events list will become https://yoursiteURL.wisc.edu/events/ if you want to use that
       
       
6. Be sure to Publish or Update your page once you've made the change.

Featured Image display

Users can opt to display a featured image for their event. There are three different options for display:

• To the right of event text
• Above event text
• Do not display (this will show the image in the archive view of events but it will not appear on the actual event page)

Note: The featured image defaults to a 3x2 aspect ratio unless the photo has a width less than 800px. If less than 800px wide, the image will appear as its original size/dimensions. This may result in inconsistent display of images. Therefore, we recommend uploading images that are 900x600 or resizing your images (before uploading) to be a consistent size.

Featured content block display

Users have the option to display their events list as a set of cards, similar to what is shown for featured content blocks. They can also optionally set drop shadow and card style.

To utilize these options, the settings must be enabled within the UW Events Listing page element: 

1. Navigate to the page that is utilizing your UW Events Listing page element
   
   
2. Under the title, you should see a section called Style as featured content blocks
   
   
3. Select Check this box to style each event like a featured content block
   
   
    
   1. Optionally select:
      
      1. Apply drop shadow
      2. Apply UW Card Style

Display options

Featured content block display:

Featured content block with drop shadow display: 

Featured content block with UW Card style display: 

Featured content block with both drop shadow and UW Card Style display: 

ICS download option

The UW Events plugin offers an option for downloading an individual event from the event page. This is a setting that must be toggled on:

Enabling download feature

1. Navigate to UW Events > Settings in your dashboard
2. Under Enable event downloads, check the box to enable the feature
   
   
   
   
3. Under Event download button style, choose the preferred display option (either button style or hyperlink style)
   
   
   
   
4. Scroll to the top of the Settings page and click Update
   
   
   

Considerations for download feature

• The .ics download option will only display on the event page.
• Currently, it is not an option for display in the list view.
• The file download is not a shareable hyperlink. If you wish to share an event with others, please use the main event URL. They can download the file themselves from that page.
• When downloading an event to your calendar, the option will currently only show the title, date, and time of the event. Additional event details (like full description, imagery, hyperlinks, etc.) will not be ported over.

Sharing UW Events from other sites

WiscWeb users can also share UW Events from other sites using the plugin. 

1. Choose the External Events toggle at the top
   
   
   
   
2. Paste in the URL of the website you're pulling events from
   
   
   
   
3. If pulling in a list via category, type in the slug for that category (if pulling in more than one category, separate with commas) 
   
   
   
   
4. Give your Events a title (we recommend noting where the events are coming from)
   
   
   
   
5. Choose the number of events to display
6. Check the box to show More Events
   
   
   
   
7. In the More Events link text field, give a description of where the events are coming from
   
   
   
   
8. In the More Events link URL field, add in the /events link from that website
   
   
   
   
9. Publish

Options for recurring events

As of now, the UW Events plugin does not have the ability to create recurring events when you are creating your event. However, you can try one of the following options:

• Use the Yoast Duplicate Post plugin to create a single event, Clone it, and then update it to the new date and/or time.
• Create it as a page on the site where you advertise the regularly scheduled event.

Troubleshooting

• Cached events - When sharing an events list on another site, please consider that there is a cache that influences the post list. If you add or delete an event from the source website, it can take up to 15 minutes for that change to be reflected on the website that is sharing the events. To speed up this process, please just republish the page that has the shared events on it. This will flush the cache and show the changes more quickly.