Table of Contents
Overview
Setting Up the Public Events Site Navigation
Event Website Specific Settings
General Settings
Changing the Website URL
Disable Viewing Academic Events on the Public Site
Disable Form Submissions on the Public Site
WCAG Compliance
Accessing the Public Events Site
Related Articles
Overview
Coursedog makes it easy to publicize events across your institution and the broader community through a public events website that is automatically generated based on events scheduled via Coursedog.
This website is fully customizable, ensuring it matches the branding of your institution. With custom navigation, users can easily find the events that they are looking for, and you can easily feature your biggest events.
Refer to this article on how to set up a school's branding / theme within the Coursedog user interface (i.e. not the public Events site).
Setting Up the Public Events Site Navigation
PATH: Events > Settings > Navigation
Overview
The settings page in events contains a tab called "Navigation" – this is where you can edit the top navigation bar shown on the public Events website.
You can create multiple navigation lists, but only one navigation list can be used on the public events page since there is only one site, and one top navigation bar.
Navigation Editor
Overview
After creating a navigation list, you are redirected to the navigation editor. Simply drag & drop to determine the links that will go in the top nav-bar.
Link Options
Overview | Featured Events | Upcoming Events | Rooms | New External Link
Overview
There are 5 options for links; four are pre-built links (Today’s Events, Featured Events, Upcoming Events, and Rooms), and then there is one called “New External Link”.
Featured Events
This will show the next 7 days’ Featured Events.
You can add a pre-built question called “Featured Event” to the Form for any Event Type. This question determines if an event appears on the Featured Events page.
For an event to appear as a Featured Event on the public site, the “Featured Event” pre-built question in the Event Form must be set to Yes/True. If a user subsequently removes the field from the Event Form, their action does not modify any existing data events that were previously marked as Featured.
Upcoming Events
This will show the next 7 days’ events.
Rooms
This will show a view of individual room availability.
The purpose of the Rooms View is to show end users when a room is available so that they do not have to submit an event request to use a room on an ad hoc basis for studying or general use.
The Rooms View handles event details in the following ways:
Setup and Teardown Events DO display in the Rooms View.
Academic Events DO display in the Rooms View but show no details besides the title of “Academic”.
Private Events DO display in the Rooms View but show no details besides the title of “Private”.
Pending Events DO NOT display in Rooms View.
Canceled Events DO NOT display in Rooms View.
New External Link
Use this to link to a page that is outside of the Events page (e.g. your school’s homepage).
Event Website Specific Settings
Editing the Navigation List | Default Event Image | Whitelisted IP Addresses
PATH: Events > Settings > Website or Admin > Public Event Settings
Editing the Navigation List
The navigation list that is displayed on the public events site is set on the Event Website Settings page under “Navigation List”.
Select your preferred list from the dropdown.
Default Event Image
You have the option to add a default event image that will pre-populate for all event types at Events > Settings > Website Settings.
You can also set a default image for individual Event Types at Events > Settings > Event Types.
If you wish for an Event Type’s Default Image to be the default image displayed in the public site for events of that type, make sure “Use the default event image when an event has not specified its own cover image” is checked.
If you have a default event image configured and the “Show no image when no events listed” box is NOT checked, then the public event site will show the default image and the text “No Upcoming Events”. If you have the default image configured but the “Show no image when no events listed” box IS checked, then the public event site will just show “No Upcoming Events” (without the default image).
The minimum suggested image size is 325x325.
Whitelisted IP Addresses
The “Whitelisted IP Addresses” setting allows you to add specific IP addresses to whitelist for the public events site event requests.
This allows admins to limit event requests to on-campus computer networks or other specific IPs.
If no IP address is entered, there is no change to public events site behavior.
If one or multiple IP addresses are entered, only those IP addresses will have the ability to request an event from the public events site.
This means that the “Request an Event” option on the public events site will only appear for users using the Whitelisted IP addresses.
General Settings
Overview | Custom HTML | Website Colors
PATH: Events > Settings > Website
Overview
Coursedog makes it easy to create a public website that matches your institution’s branding and themes.
Under the General Settings section, you can upload images for your header and footer and also set the colors for different aspects of your public events website.
Custom HTML
To add custom HTML to be displayed on your public site’s header and footer, you can use the “Custom Before Page HTML” (used for creating a custom header) and “Custom After Page HTML” (used for creating a custom footer) fields.
There are a couple of restrictions to note in order for this functionality to work properly:
It must be valid HTML.
All CSS must be inline. Avoid using CSS rules that are not highly specific to the provided HTML. Otherwise it could affect the entire website.
We suggest (but do not enforce) that Javascript be avoided.
Once the content is saved, it will be displayed within the public Events site.
Website Colors
The description to the right of each color selection explains what it controls.
Reference the below screenshot for further guidance around what each setting impacts (color selection on the left, actual impact on a public site on the right). Image is also attached below as a PDF, for easier reference.
We recommend playing around with these to determine what works for your institution.
Changing the Website URL
Reach out to Coursedog for help changing the URL, but note that the steps are very similar to what is outlined for Catalog here.
Disable Viewing Academic Events on the Public Site
If you wish to disable viewing Academic Events in the public site, you may do so at the following path: Events > Settings > Website.
Make sure “Show Academic Event Filter” is un-checked.
Disable Form Submissions on the Public Site
To disable form submissions on the public Events site, navigate to Events > Settings > Website.
Ensure “Allow Public Form Submissions” is un-checked.
This setting is used to determine if the public event website will allow public form submissions and show the "Create An Event" input. By default this is checked (i.e. set to true).
WCAG Compliance
Coursedog’s External Events calendar is WCAG 2.0 compliant.
Here is a reference explaining the WCAG 2.0 requirements.
Note that the internal events application is currently not WCAG 2.0 compliant.
Accessing the Public Events Site
Go here to learn how to access and navigate your institution’s public events site.