Creating an event item
By Ed Mitchell 4th November 2010
Introduction
This is for transitioners using the ‘workspaces’ or ‘community microsites’ on the Transition Network platform. These are exactly the same thing functionally, except that the ‘workspaces’ are private groups for specific working groups who need privacy, and the ‘community microsites’ are public groups for TT initiatives. They are both bound by ‘membership’. One of the features of these spaces is that ‘members’ (ie people related to the group) can freely add their own news and events to them.
This item will show you how to add your own community event to these groups. It’s easy and quick, so get the tea on, brew up a brew, settle in and here we go.
Step by step guide
I am assuming that you are
- Logged in
- On the page of the group that you want to post an event item to
All this below was done with a normal user profile (test user1) who is a member of a public community microsite, and a private workspace.
1. Find ‘Create Community Event’ option:
This is in the green group navigation on the left. In this screengrab you can see it below the group’s menu. Click on ‘Create Community News’:
2. Create the event item:
Add a Title and the Start and End date and time. Timings are helpful as people know when your event happens. To add a time, you click in the ‘From date’ and ‘To date’ fields and a handy calendar will pop up. Click your dates, add the times.
3. Add a Location and some tags:
Location is pretty self-explanatory really, the more information the better. If you don’t add any location information, no-one will know where it is. Also add some tags. Tags are important as they help us all find information later. We try to keep the site information structure simple, but an event on a community herb garden run by nurses needs some classification beyond ‘Health’ and ‘Food’. So you might want to add ‘garden’, ‘nurse’, ‘digging’ etc.
Just below the location editing field is the ‘subscriptions’ option. If you click on the word, it will open up to show your options.
The general site settings are that the author of an item (that’s you) will receive email alerts if there are any changes to the item. This means that if someone comments on the item you will receive an email with that comment in it. Handy, eh? We’ll be making much more use of this functionality in the future, but one thing at a time…
Then add some details about your event in the ‘Details’ bit.
4. Final bits and save
You can select which group your event is in – on the whole this will only be a choice for those in multiple groups so you most folks shouldn’t need to worry. Add a file to the event if you need to.
Please bear in mind that every flyer, poster, word document that we add to the site makes our hosting bills bigger and burns more energy to store and deliver them. You should be able to describe the event in the ‘Details’ box really. I didn’t want to enable attachments to events at all, but was ‘persuaded’ we had to. Ah well. Please add attachments sparingly.
Comment settings gives you the options to disable comments – we have a default of ‘yes to comments’ so there are more ways for people to get in touch (and that’s the point of the site, right?), but you can turn them off if you want.
Click save and hey presto!
5. See your event as published:
Here you can see your event published and live. You will also see the lightbulb box telling you it has been created, and the ‘edit’ tab if you want to update it later. You can also see your content in the ‘my content‘ part of your account management.
Your event will also appear on the group’s homepage (see 6 below) and in the Community Events listings on the main site, and on the map. Fantastmo!
6. See your event on the group’s homepage
Here it is, listed on the homepage of test user1’s Community Microsite…
7. That’s it.
Now send the event link to your groups (and beyond) and good luck with your gig!