Continuing our work from this summer, we've made additional improvements to our events features. These updates will make it easier for your supporters to find and create events on ControlShift! Here's what we've rolled out:
Event Lookup Pages
We've made a number of improvements to the event lookup pages to make it easier for supporters to find events. These changes affect the main public event lookup pages: the local organizing map (/local), the public-facing all events page (/events), and calendar lookup pages (/calendar/foo). In particular:
- Curated lists: Organization admins can now create pre-filtered event lookup page URLs, which are filtered by non-public labels (i.e., labels that have been applied to events but are not shown to regular site visitors in the advanced filters section of the lookup page). The URL will look like this: https://demo.controlshiftlabs.com/local?filter[labels]=[8], with the label's numeric ID. The names of these labels will still be hidden from regular site visitors. The ID for the label can be found by going to the admin homepage > Settings > Labels.
- New sort order: We've improved the sort order for search results. We were previously giving higher weight to in-person events that were happening the next day. We've extended the time frame for in-person events to receive a higher score (while still including that as only one factor that determines the sort order of search results).
- Multiple events, same location: When more than one event is happening in the same location, we'll now include all matching events in the same popup.
- Certain dates only: Supporters can now filter event lists by start date.
- Zoom level fixes: We've updated the highest map zoom level for single event search results. Previously, when there was only one event, we'd zoom in so far that the map wasn't really readable. Now we'll zoom in an appropriate distance while ensuring that the map is still useful.
- Timezones galore: We're now including timezones for all events in the event listings and event popups.
- Better embeds: We've improved the embedded map, and we now support tracking URL parameters from the page the map is embedded on, through the embedded map, and to the destination event page - allowing you to track the sources of your attendees.
Streamlined Event Creation Flow
In addition to making it easier for supporters to find events near them, we've also made it easier and faster for supporters to create events and for admins to recruit supporters to become hosts. Here's what's changed:
- Easier authentication: In addition to Facebook sign-in, ControlShift now supports Google sign-in. When enabled, users with a Google account can create a ControlShift account or log in with one click. Set up this new authentication option within your platform via the Settings > Integrations page or learn more.
- Associate with Partners: We've finessed the event creation pages for partners and calendars so that your supporters will get those associations correct when they create campaigns and events. Now when users click a Host an Event link in the header while viewing a partner or calendar page, we'll ask them if they want the event to be associated with that calendar or partner.
- Recruit hosts with less info: Previously, our host recruitment tool required admins to enter the full name, email address, and potentially zip code and phone number of a recruited host before being able to create an event on their behalf. Now all we'll require is the host's email address. The updated host account activation flow will require that they enter that information eventually, but you can skip any of those extra fields if you don't have that information yet. We're also now sending the activation email in the same language that the admin is viewing the site in.
- Easier uploads: We've updated the UI for bulk uploading a set of events via CSV. In addition to better help text for admins, we're also now allowing admins to specify the locale of an uploaded event and to enter an email address to assign the event to a host. The host of the event will then receive our host activation email.
Calendars
We've made some changes to improve calendar images. Previously, the same image was used for events in a calendar and when sharing the calendar hub page on social media. We now allow admins to set separate images: one for sharing the calendar hub page and one for event pages. Admins will also be able to crop the image for events appropriately.
External Events
For organizations integrating with MobilizeAmerica or EveryAction/NGPVAN and ingesting events from these external systems, we've made a series of improvements.
- Improved MobilizeAmerica integration: We've made numerous improvements to our Mobilize integration to make these external events easier to manage and easier for supporters to find. Specific improvements include:
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- High priority events in Mobilize will automatically be featured in ControlShift.
- We've improved our sync of recurring events to ensure that the upcoming versions of recurring events are always visible.
- We now allow syncing Mobilize tags to ControlShift labels. To enable the sync, we'll just need admins to create an exact match of a Mobilize tag (case sensitive) in ControlShift's Labels feature (ControlShift org admin homepage > Settings > Labels). We'll then automatically label the appropriate Mobilize events with the next sync. If the ControlShift labels are made publicly visible, supporters will be able to filter the events list by their chosen label(s).
- Admins can now map Mobilize event types to ControlShift event types. First, create corresponding event types in ControlShift (ControlShift org admin homepage > Settings > Event Types). Then go to ControlShift's Mobilize integration page (ControlShift org admin homepage > Settings > Integrations > MobilizeAmerica) and choose the Event Type tab. You can then set up the mappings you'd like to use. Supporters will then be able to filter the public event lookup pages by their chosen event type(s).
- High priority events in Mobilize will automatically be featured in ControlShift.
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- Improved EveryAction integration: We've also made a series of updates to the EveryAction/NGPVAN integration:
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- We're now scraping the event title from the event's public sign up page. Previously, we were using the EveryAction/NGPVAN event name, which could be different from the event page's public form name. The public form name isn't included in EveryAction/NGPVAN's API, so as a workaround, we're now scraping the name from the event page.
- We're now automatically adding EveryAction/NGPVAN events to ControlShift event types. ControlShift event types are created by going to the ControlShift org admin homepage > Settings > Event Types. Once created, the event type's CRM Sync tab will allow admins to map event types between ControlShift and EveryAction/NGPVAN. We were already syncing ControlShift-native events to EveryAction/NGPVAN using this mapping, but now we'll map the opposite way too. As we ingest external events from EveryAction/NGPVAN we'll assign the appropriate ControlShift event type based on the EveryAction/NGPVAN event type.
- We're now scraping the event title from the event's public sign up page. Previously, we were using the EveryAction/NGPVAN event name, which could be different from the event page's public form name. The public form name isn't included in EveryAction/NGPVAN's API, so as a workaround, we're now scraping the name from the event page.
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We're excited to have rolled out these improvements to ControlShift's events features – and there's still more to come! Keep an eye on our release notes, our subscribe(!), to be notified as new changes roll out.
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