Series25 Troubleshooting: 25Live Publisher Issues

Is there an event on your calendar that shouldn't be there? Perhaps an event that should be but isn't? Having trouble now that you can't publish a single event? This article will help you understand the 25Live Publisher process and use that knowledge to determine what should and shouldn't appear on your calendar. 

Go More In-Depth With Training

Person typing on a laptopImage: Series25 Training Courses can help you learn more about this topic.

Series25 Training offers the opportunity to avoid issues that you might later need to troubleshoot. Learn more in courses, such as "Jazzing up your Published Calendars." See the Course schedule.

The Publisher Process

Publisher process diagram

Searches in 25Live are used to create live feeds or streams of data. Those feeds are then stylized in the Publisher administration site and published as calendars with their own unique calendar name which generates "spud" code (using JavaScript) for each piece of your calendar. Finally, that spud code is entered in your content management system (CMS), and your website is published live. 

The bottom line is, if an event meets the criteria to be included in your search, it should appear on your calendar within a certain number of minutes.

How to Troubleshoot Publisher Issues

If you know which search is feeding your calendar it's pretty easy to look up the criteria that make up your search but often the person that created the calendars has left the college and so you might not even know where to start. That's where we can help!

Find Your Calendar Name 

First, start by pulling up the web page your calendar is on, right-clicking in the calendar, and choosing View page source.

Animation of right-clicking the calendar name and viewing the sourceAnimation: Finding your calendar name is easy by right-clicking the calendar name and viewing the source.

In your page source search for the word "spud" and you should be presented with several snippets of spud code depending on how many calendar elements you have embedded in your page. Find the one that says spudType: "main" and note the webName. This is the unique calendar name we're going to look for in the publisher administration page.

webname line of codeImage: Search your page source for "spud" and note the webName.

Locating the Correct Calendar

Now that you have the unique webName your calendar is using, log into the Publisher administration page with your Publisher credentials (such as publisher@school.edu). If you don't have the information, reach out to support@collegenet.com for help.

On the left side of the calendar menu, navigate down to the Tasks section and select Manage Calendars

Manage calendars button under tasksImage: Use the menu in the Publisher administration page to locate the Manage Calendars link under the Tasks section.

In your list of calendars, you should be able to search and find the unique webName you located earlier. Note the calendar name (in this example it's "Main Campus Calendar") as you'll need this for the next step.

calendar unique webnameImage: Find the unique calendar webName in your list of calendars.

Find Your Calendar in 25Live

Log into 25Live and find Publisher in the More menu.

Publisher button in the 25live more menuImage: There is a direct link to Publisher in 25Live's More menu.

You'll be prompted to log into 25Live Publisher. Use the same credentials you used when you logged into the Publisher administration site. 

Publisher sign in Image: To log in to Publisher, use the same credentials you used to log in to the administration site.

Once you've done that, you'll be presented with a list of calendars. Simply type in the name or a keyword from the calendar you found in publisher administration (such as the example, "Main Campus Calendar") in the top search field then use the Search button.

Publisher overviewImage: Double-check the listed 25Live User and Query.

There are a few things you'll want to note. The 25Live User is the user that published the search that feeds that calendar. The query is the ID that exists behind the scenes that correlates with that search. The status shows me that the feed is active and that there are no issues with it. Finally, the update now button allows me to push the feed again (this can be used if you expect an event to be on the calendar but it isn't.)

Find Your Search

Log in as the 25Live user that published your calendar (for example, "pubadmin").

Masquerade under general settingsImage: If you don't have credentials for the user account that published the calendar, use 25Live's masquerade mode.

If you don't have credentials for that user or if that user has long since left the campus, you can leverage masquerade mode in 25Live by going to the  More menu, then System Settings > General.

query id in the query column of the publisher overviewImage: Finding the query ID in the Publisher Overview.

When you looked at the Publisher Overview area within 25Live, your feed had a query and that query contained a query ID. 

Finding search ID in URLImage: The search ID is in the URL of your browser when viewing a search in 25Live.

Go to the Search view in 25Live (logged in as the calendar publish user) and load an event search. Note that the 25Live URL now has numbers at the end of it. Those correspond with a unique query ID for that search.

Animation of pulling the query id from the end of a urlAnimation: Replacing the query ID in the 25Live search URL.

Simply copy the ID from your Publisher Overview, replace the number in the 25Live URL, and use your Enter key to load the search URL.

Advanced searchImage: Toggle to the Advanced search mode to view the criteria for your saved Publisher search.

In the 25Live Search view, toggling Quick Search to Advanced will show you the search criteria.

In the example calendar search pictured above, if an event is any type except section, has the confirmed event state, and doesn't have the category "Do Not Display on Web Calendars," it should appear on my main campus calendar. 

Are the correct events appearing on your calendar? Do you have duplicate events? Continue on to our Monitoring Published Calendars and Making Modifications to Existing Calendars article to find out why.