Preparing 25Live for Optimal Use with Publisher - Data Preparation

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Pre-Publisher Cycle
Selecting a Security Framework for Your Publisher Environment
Building a Publisher Functional Security Group
Building a Generic Publisher User Account
Preparing 25Live Data for Publisher
Building Calendars Using Event Categories or Resources
Publisher Cycle
Creating Effective Searches for Publisher Calendar Feeds
Creating a Calendar Feed from Your Search
25Live Publisher: Customizing Your Calendar for Publication
           1. Working with Publish Settings for a Calendar
           2. Selecting and Styling Calendar Views
           3. Selecting and Styling Control Spuds
           4. Selecting and Styling Promotion Spuds
           5. Styling Emails and Feeds
Setting Up and Styling Event Actions
Configuring Custom Fields and Event Templates
Embedding Publisher Spud Code in Websites
Post-Publisher Cycle
Analytics in 25Live Publisher
Monitoring Published Calendars and Making Modifications to Existing Calendars
Additional Publisher Resources
Example Publisher Calendars
Displaying a 25Live Publisher Feed in an Outlook Calendar (Desktop)
Displaying a 25Live Publisher Feed in an Outlook Calendar (Office 365)
Displaying a 25Live Publisher Feed in Google Calendar
Matching Series25 Fields with Publisher Fields
Setting Up Disqus Comments and Facebook Comments on Your Calendar Spuds
Installing the 25Live SharePoint Web Part

There are many decisions that must be made before implementing calendars using 25Live Publisher. These decisions determine which data elements must be built, what security must be set, and what additional modifications must be made to your 25Live environment. Calendar feeds may be built using any data element that is searchable including locations, event types, event categories, resources, and organizations. The element(s) you choose will determine which events display on your 25Live calendar.

Planning for Live Calendars

Before you begin building data structures and searches for event feeds, you need to determine which calendars you'll need. Common calendars highlight academic, athletic, or student life events, as well as major events that you want to promote to the general public. Additionally, academic departments and committees may be interested in having calendars on their web pages. 

Prior to making any decisions about how to structure data elements for calendaring, you need to undertake some important planning steps:

  1. Gather interested parties to arrive at a list of calendars
  2. Decide the order to build them in
  3. Select one calendarto become your prototype, or first calendar 
    • Focus your efforts on building, styling, and publishing that initial calendar before you move on to others
  4. Set a schedule of release dates for each critical calendar
    • Keep in mind that additional calendar release dates may get pushed back depending on how long it takes to prepare your initial calendar for release
  5. Plan for longer-term departmental and committee calendars

Keep in mind that your initial calendar will be the most time-consuming calendar – you are having to learn how to effectively search for and publish events as calendar feeds, select and build calendars, and style those calendars so that they look like part of the campus website. Many of the decisions you make on this initial calendar will save time as you build future calendars.

Common Data Elements Used for Building Calendars in 25Live Publisher

The number of data elements available for structuring calendar feed searches can be daunting at first glance. However, there are a number of elements that are commonly used by campuses, including:


Some of these elements feature prominently in the search building process for publishing live feeds. Other elements provide useful data that may be used in building special types of calendars.

Event Types

Event Types are are generic representations of the different kinds of events that take place on your campus, making them critical building blocks in the 25Live environment. They can be used to limit 25Live search results, make a connection between default reports and categories, or to recommend event criteria when creating events in the event form. Common event types include: conference, performance, break-out session, banquet, lecture/seminar, and student-sponsored activity.

Event Type List on the Event Form

Event Categories

Event categories in 25Live are used as an intuitive way to identify and search for events, making them the most common method for grouping events for calendar publication—since they already play that role in 25Live. You can create multiple event categories to help you determine which calendar an event is meant to populate. 

Tip: Hiding Categories

If necessary, a Functional or System Administrator can restrict the visibility of these calendar event categories from general requestors by abridging the list of categories in the 25Live System Settings. For more information concerning how to provide an abridged list of Event Categories to Requestors or how to hide Event Categories entirely from Requestors, review the article, Event Categories and 25Live Publisher.

25Live Pro - System Settings - Calendar Categories



Event Custom Attributes

Event Custom Attributes don't normally function as search parameters for publishing event feeds, but there are a handful of custom attributes that play roles within Publisher for specific functionality:

  • Event Image (File Reference data type) 
    • The Event Image is used as part of photo-driven calendars and promotional spuds in 25Live Publisher. As a file reference data type, this custom attribute needs to contain a link to an image that you want to populate the calendar published via 25Live Publisher.
    • The Event Image should be thumbnail-sized.
  • Detail Image (File Reference data type) 
    • Like the Event Image, the Detail Image is used as part of photo-driven calendars and promotional spuds in 25Live Publisher. As a file reference data type, this custom attribute needs to contain a link to an image that you want to populate the calendar published via 25Live Publisher.
    • The Detail Image should be a larger-sized version of the Event Image. It will display in the Event Description details when a user opens an event from a 25Live Publisher calendar.
  • Featured Events (String data type)
    • The Featured Events custom attribute is used in calendars to show a subset of a feed based off the text in this custom attribute.
  • Web Site
    • The Web Site custom attribute is a field for storage of a URL to an event's dedicated web page.
      25Live Pro - System Settings - Event Custom Attributes
External Storage for Event and Detail Images

You will need to determine a storage location for both your event and detail images for use with calendars.  CollegeNET does not provide a storage location for these images.

Requirements (Calendar)

The Requirements (Calendar) data element frequently goes hand-in-hand Event Categories when building Publisher feeds. This is because a calendar requirement can be automatically defined for each calendar event category, thus restricting requestors' ability to choose a calendar event category directly. Requestors may then indicate, via the Publish to Calendar editor in the Event Form, which calendar is appropriate for their event along with their reasoning. 

25Live Pro - System Settings - Calendar Requirements

Tip

Requirements can have Notification Policies defined, allowing a campus to set up a vetting process for events.


25Live Rules and Event Calendars

For more information on using rules with 25Live Publisher implementations, visit 25Live Rules and Event Calendars.


Event Resources

A newer approach is to build calendar resources for each of the major calendars on campus. Because resources rely on Assignment Policy to route tasks to an approver security group, this produces a vetting process for feeding events to calendars, with a clear gatekeeper (the approver). Using event resources allows a marketing or public information office the opportunity to review event details and act as the "owner" of calendars.

25Live Pro - Calendar Resources

Organization Records

After you have a few major calendars published to campus web pages, you will likely have academic departments, administrative departments, and possibly even some standing committees requesting calendars on their web pages. These departmental and committee calendars are typically aimed at a more specific internal audience. In these cases, defining event resources or event categories would be counterproductive, as the number of categories and resources would soon become unwieldy. You may instead rely on the Primary Organization as the main way of defining these types of calendars. 

It will be important that you educate faculty and staff in these organizations that their events will be routed based primarily on the organization record selected as the Primary Organization in the Event Form.

25Live Pro - Primary Organization