Calendars

Our websites have the ability to display a calendar feed on a variety of pages. These feeds are controlled by a shared Microsoft Outlook calendar. These calendars are assigned to a school by the Communications Department. The school has one or more editors that are permitted to enter events into the calendar for display on the website.

Specific calendars may be assigned to specific pages in order to keep the main homepage calendar uncluttered. For example, a 'Clubs & Activities" calendar could be placed on the Clubs and Activities page allowing all club related events to appear here. Clubs can now be omitted from the home page calendar feed, keeping its content more relevant to everyone.

Calendar Subscriptions

The shared calendar communicates to the website via a subscription configuration that is accessed via the Content menu. Navigating to this selection displays the current subscriptions for that site (via the pull-down at the top center of the page.)

Synconization of the calendars happens on a schedule (typically every 1-2 hours) that is selected as part of the subsciption creation process. Each subscription has a "sync" button which when pressed will cause that calendar to synchronize the calendar with the website immediately.

Selecting the "Add Calendar Subscription" button at the lower right will open a new subscription for editing. Selecting one of the existing subscriptions will open it and allow it to be edited. In either case, the following information is necessary to complete the subscription:

• the calendar title
• the calendar URL (this URL is available when sharing the calendar from Outlook)
• the calendar format (iCal)
• the automatic sync period (select from pull-down)

Pressing the publish button will make the subscription active and cause an immediate synchronization.

General Calendar Guidance

• It takes about an hour for calendar entries to make their way to the school's website.
• All events are publicly visible.
• These calendars are only meant to display events on the school's pubic website; please don't share the calendar(s) with others or add invitees to these events.
• Make sure to use the 5 W's:  Who, What, Where, When and Why.  If these questions are answered for every event, you're much less likely to get phone calls or emails with additional questions.
• Hyperlinks can be added in the event description. Please do not place raw url's in the description. Use something like "Visit the Academy District 20 website for additional information".
• If entering a longer event (for example, school photos taking place for a period of two weeks), add a single day event for the start and ending dates. This way the website calendar feed won't be filled with the same thing for two weeks.

Please contact us at socialmedia@asd20.org if you have questions.