New Online Calendar Coming Soon

We're preparing to launch a new online calendar system that will replace the current way we enter events into the website. It will go live on Thursday, Sept. 5. Any events happening after that date should be entered into the new system.

This new calendar is much more user-friendly and flexible than our current system, which means less work for you!

How the New Calendar Works

In this new calendar system, all web ambassadors will enter events into the main University calendar, which is located at https://calendar.louisiana.edu. From there, you can designate which departmental/office/college sites should display the event.

(This basically flips the current system around. Currently, all web ambassadors enter events on their own sites and they feed straight up to the University’s main calendar — there’s no flexibility for sharing events across sites.)

Each group/office/department on campus will still have their own calendar, and your events will still automatically display on your website.

New Features

There are a number of reasons we decided to implement this new calendar, but these are the highlights.

Sharing events across calendars

We are so excited that this calendar will help us develop a more collaborative approach to publicizing events. When you enter an event on the calendar now, it will automatically show on your website’s calendar, but you can also suggest it to appear on other websites’ calendar.

For example, if the Ernest Gaines Center is hosting a speaker who is:

• speaking about Ernest Gaines’ work,
• an alum of the University,
• earned their degree from the Department of English, and
• speaking at the Hilliard University Art Museum...

then the Ernest Gaines Center would create the event (since they are hosting), and then suggest the event to:

• Department of English
• Hilliard University Art Museum
• Alumni Association

The event would automatically appear on the Ernest Gaines website, plus the web ambassadors for the Department of English and the Hilliard Museum would be alerted that they have a suggested event to review (and approve).

RSVP

With this new calendar, we will be able to collect registration lists in the event listing. We cannot collect money (like registration fees), but you can get a list of who intends to attend and plan for enough chairs or enough pizza to accommodate the crowd.

Duplicating Events

Do you have a lot of similar events throughout the year? You will be able to duplicate a past event and just change the fields you need!

Training

If you have not already been through training on the new calendar system, we encourage you to sign up for a 20-minute session. We'll work around your schedule.

Like we mentioned, this new calendar is much easier to use than our current system, so we think you’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly.

All new web ambassadors who went through training between January and August this year should have received training on the new calendar, so you don't need to sign up unless you'd like a refresher.

Rollout

Go-live for the new calendar officially set for Sept. 5. All events on your current calendar will automaticaly show in the new calendar system when we launch.

Questions?

As always, feel free to contact me, Elizabeth Rose-Arcuri, if you have any questions! My email is elizabeth@louisiana.edu.