How to create an event on the forum

General
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1

Following up on my research in Alternative to using Eventbrite.

@jcm80 @shannond and others here is your step by step to use the new calendar plugin for events such as the community-call.

  1. Create a new topic with tag and on the :gear: icon menu select “Create event” (add the appropriate tag: e.g. community-call for the main community calls)

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  1. Add the event time (in your local timezone)

  2. Wait for people to join the event

NOTE: If you don’t need to send a message to participants then you can stop here. You don’t need steps 4-10.

  1. When it’s time to send out an announcement or link for the event, select “export event” in the top right menu on the event box
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  2. You will get a system message with a download of a zip that contains a .csv file. Open the csv file in a spreadsheet editor.

  3. In the spreadsheet, select the people that are “going” or “interested” and copy them to the clipboard.
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  4. Go to your messages and click “new message”.

  5. Paste into the “Add a user” box

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  1. Select “Send an individual personal message…”.
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    (If you don’t see this option please contact me @kaspar)

  2. Write your message (e.g. our private Zoom link) and send.

5 Likes
5

Hi @kaspar

Thanks for setting this up! Looks great, the only downside compared to Eventbrite currently is more manual effort for the call organisers to remember to send the day in advance/hour in advance reminders rather than these going automatically but I see that is on the plugin developers roadmap.

Just to check - is there some way that people who register for events can add it to their calendars? I looked at the plugin thread and it was unclear but as you’ve been playing with it I thought you might know!

Jenny

6

No problem, like I said before: since people are already signed up through Eventbrite I know it might be best to continue with that for now for the main calls. Having events built-in seemed useful anyway so I went ahead and set this up.

You can “add to calendar” through the event box menu but I haven’t tested that with Google calendar, which is probably what most people use.

7

I get an ICS file. In the Outlook web access we have to use for work, it is a 8-step process to get the web access to understand the ics file. For Google it is still 6 steps. You basically have to import it. It probably works better with a desktop client (insert another rant about services turning off SMTP).

The calendar may not be perfect for massive calls, but for things like the documentation call it great.

8

Does anyone know where the reminders from this plugin go/how they are displayed?

I messed up on the GOSH website meeting with @kaspar because somehow I failed to import the ics file properly to my Google calendar. That error is totally on me - I should have checked three weeks ago when I set the event up. However, I did set up reminders for one day and one hour before the event and I saw nothing. Where do they go?

Jenny

9

Aren’t the reminders just settings to go into the ics file?

10

Maybe :slightly_smiling_face:
If so, then the not being added to my calendar correctly would have stopped them.
I’m learning things!