Creating Effective Searches for 25Live Publisher Calendar Feeds

It is a CollegeNET Best Practice that all calendar event searches should be created by the generic Publisher User described in Step #3 of the Pre-Publisher Cycle. Doing so will allow a future publisher user to build on those feeds as well as keep pre-existing calendars functional.

Since all 25Live Publisher calendars are based on event searches built into 25Live, creating effective searches is the critical first step in building your calendars. There are a number of considerations to building event searches in 25Live Pro that will reveal only the events that you want on your new calendar. There are a number of elements that may make up an effective search for your calendar including the following:

Event Cabinet,
Event State,
Event Categories (if your calendars are driven by Calendar categories),
Event Resources (if your calendars are driven by Calendar resources),
Event Types,
Locations, and
Sponsoring Organization (possibly for departmental calendars).

In some cases, where a campus has many cabinets, you may choose not to include the event cabinet in your search and utilize other criteria to narrow your search results. Including the cabinet in your event search makes the search marginally more efficient in that it allows the search algorithm to ignore all other cabinets. If you are using a 25Live-oriented event structure, then you should definitely include the cabinet in your search.

Note: Plan for Mixed-In or Top-Level Calendars at This Stage in the Process

Often, a campus wants to create calendars for specific groupings of events like student events, faculty/staff events, major public events, and the like. Those calendars will be targeted at specific web pages on the campus's website. However, many campuses also want to fold these disparate sets of events into a group as a comprehensive campus events calendar. That can be accomplished one of two ways:

Creating a container calendar in 25Live Publisher to "mix" calendars together which is called a "mixed-in calendar" in 25Live Publisher, or
Creating a top-level calendar in 25Live Publisher and then publishing all of the feeds (calendars) as sub-calendars to that top-level calendar.

To see the process for building a mixed-in container calendar in 25Live Publisher, visit Building a Mixed-in Container Calendar in 25Live Publisher.

To see the process for building a top-level container calendar in 25Live Publisher, visit Building a Top-Level Container Calendar in 25Live Publisher.

Not sure whether you should use a top-level/sub-calendar structure or simply a mixed-in calendar, visit Understanding the Differences between Top-Level and Mixed-In Calendars in 25Live Publisher.

Your event searches for your calendar feeds that will be part of a mixed-in or a sub-calendar should be looking at distinct sets of events to avoid duplicates when you start mixing calendars together.

The criteria for an event search for a Publisher calendar is similar regardless of the approach taken to finding the events. The majority of Publisher calendars use an event search based on...

a Single Calendar Event Category
a Single Calendar Resource
One or More Event Types
Assigned Location(s)
a Sponsoring Organization

Additionally, most calendar searches will use the Event State to filter out Tentative events and only return Confirmed events for public-facing calendars. Let's explore what each of these searches would look like.

Event Search Based on a Single Calendar Event Category

In 25Live Pro, click the Go to Search link from the Dashboard.
Image: Go to Search button on the 25Live dashboard.
In the Search window, make sure that you are on the Events search option by looking at the drop-down list (see below).
Image: Select Object search dropdown.
Toggle from Quick Search to Advanced Search.
Image: Toggle to Advanced search.
Click the Add Criteria button to begin selecting the criteria for your search.
Image: Add Criteria button.
Select the following criteria:
- Cabinets,
- Event State,
- Event Category, and
- A second Event Category.
Make sure that there is an AND between each of the criteria selected. Now go through each of the criteria setting the following options:
- Under the Cabinets criteria click the Edit button to open a view of the available cabinets and click on your events cabinet.
  Image: Advanced search Edit button under Cabinets.Image: Advanced search checkbox options.
- Under the Event States criteria, click the Edit button to open a view of the event states and select Confirmed.
  Image: Event States Confirmed checkbox.
- Under the Event Category criteria, click the Edit button to open a view of the event categories and select the Calendar category that you want to use for this event search.
  Image: Calendar category checkbox.
- Under the second Event Category criteria, click the Edit button to open a view of the event categories and select the Do Not Publish to Web Calendars category (this category will be named differently at each campus). Alter the settings on this Category from Include Any to Do Not Include.
  Image: Dropdown set to Do Not Include for the chosen category.
With your criteria selected, click the Search button to execute your search and review the results.
Image: Advanced search highlighting Cabinets, Event States, and Categories filters.
Save your search giving it a name that identifies which calendar these events will feed.
Image: Search name and Save button.

Event Search Based on a Single Calendar Resource

In 25Live Pro, click the Go to Search link from the Dashboard.
In the Search window, make sure that you are on the Events search option by looking at the drop-down list (see below).
Toggle from Quick Search to Advanced Search.
Click the Add Criteria button to begin selecting the criteria for your search.
Select the following criteria:
- Cabinets,
- Event State,
- Assigned Resources, and
- Event Category.
Make sure that there is an AND between each of the criteria selected. Now go through each of the criteria setting the following options:
- Under the Cabinets criteria click the Edit button to open a view of the available cabinets and click on your events cabinet.
  Image: Advanced search Edit button under Cabinets.
- Under the Event States criteria, click the Edit button to open a view of the event states and select Confirmed.
  Image: Event States Confirmed checkbox.
- Under the Assigned Resources criteria, click the Edit button to open a view of the event resources and select the Calendar resource that you want to use for this event search.
  Image: Specific Resources Edit button.Image: Resources calendar checkbox.
- Under the Event Category criteria, click the Edit button to open a view of the event categories and select the Do Not Publish to Web Calendars category (this category will be named differently at each campus). Alter the settings on this Category from Include Any to Do Not Include.
  Image: Dropdown set to Do Not Include for the chosen category.
With your criteria selected, click the Search button to execute your search and review the results.
Image: Advanced search highlighting Cabinets, Event States, and Categories filters.
Save your search giving it a name that identifies which calendar these events will feed.
Image: Search name and Save button.

Event Search Based on One or More Event Types

In 25Live Pro, click the Go to Search link from the Dashboard.
In the Search window, make sure that you are on the Events search option by looking at the drop-down list (see below).
Toggle from Quick Search to Advanced Search.
Click the Add Criteria button to begin selecting the criteria for your search.
Select the following criteria:
- Cabinets,
- Event State,
- Event Type(s), and
- Event Category.
Make sure that there is an AND between each of the criteria selected. Now go through each of the criteria setting the following options:
- Under the Cabinets criteria click the Edit button to open a view of the available cabinets and click on your events cabinet.
  Image: Advanced search Edit button.
- Under the Event States criteria, click the Edit button to open a view of the event states and select Confirmed.
  Image: Event States Confirmed checkbox.
- Under the Event Types criteria, click the Edit button to open a view of the event types and select the Event Type, or Types, that you want to use for this event search.
  Image: Dropdown set to Include Any Event Types
- Under the Event Category criteria, click the Edit button to open a view of the event categories and select the Do Not Publish to Web Calendars category (this category will be named differently at each campus). Alter the settings on this Category from Include Any to Do Not Include.
  Image: Dropdown set to Do Not Include for the chosen category.
With your criteria selected, click the Search button to execute your search and review the results.
Image: Advanced search highlighting Cabinets, Event States, and Categories filters.
Save your search giving it a name that identifies which calendar these events will feed.
Image: Search name and Save button.

Event Search Based on Assigned Location(s)

In 25Live Pro, click the Go to Search link from the Dashboard.
In the Search window, make sure that you are on the Events search option by looking at the drop-down list (see below).
Toggle from Quick Search to Advanced Search.
Click the Add Criteria button to begin selecting the criteria for your search.
Select the following criteria:
- Cabinets,
- Event State,
- Assigned Location(s), and
- Event Category.
Make sure that there is an AND between each of the criteria selected. Now go through each of the criteria setting the following options:
- Under the Cabinets criteria click the Edit button to open a view of the available cabinets and click on your events cabinet.
  Image: Advanced search Edit button.
- Under the Event States criteria, click the Edit button to open a view of the event states and select Confirmed.
  
  Image: Event States Confirmed checkbox.
- Under the Assigned Location(s) criteria, click the Edit button to open a view of the locations, locate the Location, and select the Location that you want to use for this event search.
  Image: Dropdown set to Include Any of the chosen Specific Locations.
- Under the Event Category criteria, click the Edit button to open a view of the event categories and select the Do Not Publish to Web Calendars category (this category will be named differently at each campus). Alter the settings on this Category from Include Any to Do Not Include.
  Image: Advanced search Edit button.
With your criteria selected, click the Search button to execute your search and review the results.
Image: Advanced search highlighting Cabinets, Event States, and Categories filters.
Save your search giving it a name that identifies which calendar these events will feed.
Image: Search name and Save button.

Event Search Based on Sponsoring Organization

In 25Live Pro, click the Go to Search link from the Dashboard.
In the Search window, make sure that you are on the Events search option by looking at the drop-down list (see below).
Toggle from Quick Search to Advanced Search.
Click the Add Criteria button to begin selecting the criteria for your search.
Select the following criteria:
- Cabinets,
- Event State,
- Primary Sponsoring Organization, and
- Event Category.
Make sure that there is an AND between each of the criteria selected. Now go through each of the criteria setting the following options:
- Under the Cabinets criteria click the Edit button to open a view of the available cabinets and click on your events cabinet.
  Image: Advanced search Edit button.
- Under the Event States criteria, click the Edit button to open a view of the event states and select Confirmed.
  Image: Event States Confirmed checkbox.
- Under the Organizations criteria, click the Edit button to open a view of the filter the organizations to locate and select the Organization that you want to use for this event search.
  Image: Dropdown set to Include Any of the chosen Organizations.
- Under the Event Category criteria, click the Edit button to open a view of the event categories and select the Do Not Publish to Web Calendars category (this category will be named differently at each campus). Alter the settings on this Category from Include Any to Do Not Include.
  Image: Dropdown set to Do Not Include for the chosen category.
With your criteria selected, click the Search button to execute your search and review the results.
Image: Advanced search highlighting Cabinets, Event States, and Categories filters.
Save your search giving it a name that identifies which calendar these events will feed.
Image: Search name and Save button.