Calendar Event Uploads

If your organization is interested in using the calendars feature and already has a list of events you're planning to host, you can use the event upload function to streamline the calendar process.

First you'll need to create your calendar. More information about calendar creation is available here: https://controlshiftlabs.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115007390027#newcal. Note: CSV event uploads will not work with constituency bound calendars (or calendars that require a host address). 

Once you've created your new calendar, you'll be brought to the calendar's admin page. Your newly created calendar's slug (the unique name of your calendar) will be displayed in the address bar. You'll need this slug to upload events to the calendar.

Once you've copied the calendar's slug, go to the admin homepage > Events > Import CSV > New Upload. From here, you can click the Download CSV Template to export a sample event CSV with the appropriate column headers.

Enter your events' titles in column A and their descriptions in column B. In column C enter their start date and time. The start date and time should be in the format DD/MM/YYYY HH:MM:SS AM (or PM or 24 hour time). In the location column, enter the event's location. Make sure that the location is in a format that will be recognized by Google maps.

If the event has a max attendee limit, enter it into column E. Otherwise delete this column. Then in column F enter the calendar slug.*  If your event doesn't have a location, you'll need to enter a time zone. (The name of the timezone uses the tz database format: e.g. America/New_York, Asia/Tokyo, Europe/Dublin, Africa/Abidjan etc. You can see a list of the timezones names here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones.)

When you've finished entering event information, return to the CSV uploads page, choose your calendar's events file, and click to upload. Once the upload is completed, it will be included on the events upload page.

By clicking "View" you can see more information about the uploaded events, including any errors.

(and if you get the "Host address can't be blank" error, like I did, it's because you've chosen the calendar setting that requires a host address. Turn that setting off and the upload will work correctly.)

_____________________

* As a reminder, you can quickly update a column by adding new text to one cell, and then dragging the cell to the bottom of the column. Like this: