Calendar Hosting for Virginia Tech Organizations

Virginia Tech departments and registered student organizations can request a dedicated Web calendar for their group. Please read the information below to understand the details involved in maintaining a calendar. To see an example of a department's calendar, go to the Center for Academic Enrichment and Excellence Calendar.

If you would like to request a dedicated Web calendar for your group, please complete and submit the Calendar Hosting Signup Form.

Sponsors

A calendar can have many sponsors. Sponsors are organizations that can submit events to the calendar. Every event submission is either approved or rejected by an administrator. A sponsor can have one or more members who are entitled to act on behalf of the sponsor. These members can log on to the calendar using their Virginia Tech PID and password. If members need to be added or removed, please contact the calendar administrator. Typically, you will find an administrator's email address in the footer of the calendar.

Administrators

A calendar has one or more main administrators. Administrators can log on to the calendar with their Virginia Tech PID and password. They can also add or remove other main administrators. Administrators have full access to all aspects of the calendar. They can add, edit, and delete events; customize the look and feel; grant access to sponsors; and approve and reject event submissions.

Important: Administrators (and only administrators) may publish events without approval, but they also may change settings as described above. For this reason calendar administrators need to be very careful about assigning administrative privileges.

Customization

Administrators can customize the following aspects of a calendar:

Header & Footer

Any HTML can be added. If you want to use pictures, please place them on a different Web server and reference them remotely, e.g. <img src="https://filebox.vt.edu/org/SCUBA/calendarlogo.gif">

Colors

The background color, main color, and today color can be customized.

Authorization for View

By default, a calendar is viewable by the public. However, the authorization to view a calendar can be limited to certain Virginia Tech PIDs.

Event Categories

Categories can be defined for a calendar. Sponsors who input events have to classify their event into one of the predefined categories. Categories are also used for the Filter feature. Categories can be added and removed at any point in time.

Search Keywords

Search keywords can be used to improve the quality of the calendar search engine. You may want to define alternative keywords if you notice (by viewing the search log) that certain queries usually do not return the wanted results. For example, if many people search for "semester start" but the calendar has the event listed as "semester begin" you may want to add a keyword that maps the word "start" to its synonym "begin".

Featured Keywords

If you want to react to a particular query with an advertisement, you can do so by defining featured keywords. A keyword can be linked with an arbitrary message in HTML format. For example, if a user searches for "movies" you could display an advertisement containing links to local movie theaters. Featured keywords work whether or not the calendar contains any events matching the query.

Other Resources

• Event Calendar