BU Calendar is a web-based application developed at BU to support event calendars for various University academic, business and administrative units.  BU Calendar is a stand-alone application, but it is integrated with WordPress to easily display calendar events in a format that matches the look/feel of each site where the application is used.  With BU Calendar, you can manage your own users, create and edit your own categories, create custom fields, and even share your calendar (or individual events) with other BU Calendar users.

All functions of the BU Calendar application are managed through a separate Calendar interface (not through WordPress), although if your WordPress site is configured with your BU Calendar ID, the "Calendar" link on the WordPress dashboard will provide you with an easy way to access the administrative interface for managing your calendar events. Please note that you must have administrative access to BU Calendar in order to edit and manage events. Existing administrators can add new administrators via the access control option.

Overview

Accessing the application:

  1. Browse to your WordPress dashboard.
  2. Click "Calendar" in the navigation sidebar
  3. From the Calendar page in WP dashboard, click the "University Calendar" link to access the Calendar administration interface.

overview

Topics

Public topics allow you to categorize events by topics that will be displayed to all users of your calendar. These topics will be visible on your public browse page and other public calendar pages.

Creating a Public Topic:

  1. Navigate to the Topics tab.
    topics1
  2. Click Create New Topic.
    topics2
  3. Enter the appropriate information.
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  4. Click Create.
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Administrative topics are largely unused and only enabled on select sites; for the most part, administrative topics should not be used.

Events

Events can be displayed on your calendar or shared to other University calendar.

Creating an Event:

  1. Click the New Event tab.
    events1
  2. Enter the appropriate information for the new event in the form. (Title, Start Time/Date, End Time/Date, Description, Location, Link URL, Address, Cost, Notes, Contact Name/Email/Phone) Note: You may classify each event with a specific topic if you've first created one or more topics. Events may only be classified with a topic at the time of event creation.
  3. Click Save.

Viewing the Events on your Calendar:

  1. Click the Events tab.
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  2. You may view the events in the following ways: Month (calendar with names/times); Year (12 calendars - one for each month - with markers on days with events); and List (comprehensive list of all events including date, time, and summary of each).
    events3

Note: You may filter which events are displayed by topic and event status (approved, awaiting approval, rejected, deleted, or shared).

Calendar Options

Changing the Name of a Calendar:

  1. Click the Options tab.
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  2. Enter the new calendar name and an optional calendar description.
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  3. Click Save.

Changing Access Control Options:

  1. Click the Options tab.
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  2. Click the Access Control sub-tab.
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  3. Select an access control option.
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  4. Click Save.

Adding Users

  1. Click the Options tab.
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  2. Click Access Control.
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  3. In the Add User box, add the desired BU login name of the user (first part of the user's BU email address - everything before "@bu.edu")
  4. Select the type of role for the new user:
    • Subscriber - can view events and confidential calendars
    • Contributor - can submit events but cannot approve/deny events
    • Administrator - can make all changes/approvals/denials/etc.
  5. Click Add.
    options-addusers

Removing Users

  1. Navigate to Options > Access Control tab.
  2. Turn on the checkbox to the left of the user(s) you wish to remove.
  3. Click the Remove button.

Custom Fields

Creating a Custom Field:

  1. Click the Options tab.
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  2. Click the Fields tab.
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  3. Enter the appropriate information into the Create New Field box.
  4. Click Create.

Sharing

You can share events between any two or more calendars in the BU Calendar application (this includes all WordPress calendars). This can be set up in any of the following combinations:

  • All events created in a calendar are automatically submitted to another calendar.
  • All events created in a calendar & belonging to a specific topic are automatically submitted to another calendar.
  • Only specified events created in a calendar are submitted to another calendar.
  • No events created in a calendar are submitted to any other calendar (default behavior).

NOTE: A calendar must be set to automatically display events shared from another calendar before shared events will appear. This means administrators for BOTH calendars must configure sharing options for the sharing to work correctly.

Sharing All Events in a Calendar:

  1. Click the Sharing tab.
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  2. Select Share all events in this calendar.
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  3. Select whom to share with (either everyone or select calendars).
  4. Click Save.
  5. Administrators for the calendars that you are sharing your events with must then configure their calendar.
  6. Select Calendars shared with this calendar tab.
  7. Select the name of the calendar that you would like to share (accepting) events from.
  8. Select the options that you would like, then select Save.

Sharing Selected Events in a Calendar:

  1. Click the Sharing tab.
  2. Select Share only selected events.
    sharing4
  3. Select whom to share with (everyone -- or select calendars).
  4. Click Save.
  5. Administrators for the calendars that you are sharing your events with must then configure their calendar (see steps 5-8 above).

Note: If only sharing selected events, events can only be shared upon event creation.