As we continue to help folks migrate off of Events Calendar to an alternative option, we wanted to share some of our most frequently asked questions:
I’m not sure how to get started. Can you help?
We have put together some simple getting started steps for you so that you feel more confident with making a move off of Events Calendar.
We are also encouraging folks to set up time to meet with a staff member in our office hours if you have questions or concerns as you start building.
I don’t even know how we’re using events on our site. Where are they showing up?
For nearly all sites (unless someone has changed the Events Calendar settings), events will be publishing to /events. For example, yourwebsite.wisc.edu/events.
Some groups also publish an events list on their homepage or interior pages. And others might have a link to Events from their main navigation menu or utility menu.
In the back-end (editing view) of the site, the events are located on the left menu under the heading “Events.”
Will old Events Calendar events go away once the plugin is deactivated?
Yes. This is a very good question. As soon as Events Calendar is deactivated, those older events will no longer be accessible on your site. Therefore, if you need an archive, it is encouraged you leave this activated until you have time to archive the older events.
Speaking of archive, how do I archive my events?
There is no automated process for this, unfortunately. We have documented a few manual options (of varying technical complexity) in the KnowledgeBase:
Archiving Events Calendar events
We are also happy to chat over these options in our office hours.
I recreated all of my events in the UW Events plugin but they aren’t showing up on the site.
Recreating your events in an alternative option like UW Events is just the first step. From there, you then have to remove the pre-existing Events Calendar shortcodes from pages and swap them with a new events list. Depending on your chosen alternative, this may be the event listing page element (for UW Events), the Today.wisc.edu event listing page element (for Today.wisc.edu events), or an embedded calendar or events list (for Google Calendar).
If you are not sure how to get started on swapping out this content, please set up time to meet with a staff member in our office hours.
How do I accommodate recurring events in the UW Events plugin? Will I have to manually create them each time?
If you were hoping to use the UW Events plugin but have a number of recurring events in Events Calendar, you may want to consider the following alternative approaches:
- Create your recurring event content in a standard Text Block. Since the event happens at a regular cadence, all of the info can be advertised in a normal Text Block that is either placed on your events page or your homepage, etc. If you’d like for this info to appear on more than one page, you could utilize the Reusable Content plugin.
- Instead of UW Events, you could use Google Calendar or Today.wisc.edu. Both tools have options for building recurring events.
How do I share or visit past/passed events using the UW Events plugin?
Past/passed events are automatically saved in your site and are accessible in a couple of ways:
- If you just want to view your past/passed events, navigate to your /events page (if Events Calendar has already been deactivated) and click on the “Previous events” button.
- If you want to link to your past/passed events, follow step 1 above, then copy the URL in the address bar. Use that as your hyperlink for your page for sharing your older events.
- If you want to link to past/passed events within a certain event category, navigate to an event that uses that category. Scroll to the bottom where it says “Posted in” and lists the various categories associated with that event. Click the category of choice. Select the “Previous events” button on that page. Copy the URL in the address bar and use that for sharing a category list of past/passed events.