(BLOOMINGTON) – Indiana University will launch a new universitywide digital calendar this summer, replacing the old calendar with a mobile-friendly, accessible version that has updated functionality.
Bethany Nolan, of News at IU, the new calendar was created by California-based White Whale Web Services and uses their LiveWhale calendar software, which is also used by many other colleges and universities including New York University, Texas A&M and Brown University. The company created some customized details, however, to accommodate IU’s multiple campuses across the state.
“This is a fresh start that we believe will really reinvigorate the university calendar,” said Greg Polit, who leads the Digital Campus Planning and Sustainability team with the Office of the Vice President for Communications and Marketing. “It’s a whole new way of thinking about how calendaring is done here at IU, including how we categorize events and one we hope will be much simpler for our users as well.”
Work began on the new calendar in fall 2018. Beta testers began using the new system this month. The calendar will officially launch in fall 2019. But calendar administrators in the Office of the Vice President for Communications and Marketing hope that university users will begin populating the events calendar throughout the summer, both to practice using the interface and to more fully populate the calendar with content.
The old IU calendar will still be available for a transition period.
Unlike the current calendar system, which requires special sets of permissions, an individual administrator will be able to manage a list of users for their own department or unit. Users will then use their IU username and passphrase to access their own specific areas.
It will also feature updated search options, allowing users to sort by date, event type and certain genres of events — such as those tagged “health and wellness,” for example, or “free food” — as well as by internal tags managed by individual users and global tags managed by calendar administrators.
In addition, the new calendar will allow users to cross-post on other departments or unit calendar feeds with permission, making it easier for users to share specific events across multiple calendar feeds. It also creates a list of people who RSVP’d for a specific event, allowing everyone who responded to be informed easily in case of a room change or event cancellation.
What’s next?
Representatives from the event calendar team will be on hand during two upcoming sessions to explain the new features and to answer questions:
IU Bloomington: 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. Thursday, June 6, in Whittenberger Auditorium at the Indiana Memorial Union.
IUPUI: 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Friday, June 7, in Campus Center Room 031.
Space is limited; reserve a spot.
Unable to attend? A video version of the information sessions will be available after. Subscribe for the latest updates about the new calendar system.
Official training sessions will take place for current and new event calendar users June 13 to July 18. More information about the training sessions is available on the Events Calendar website.
Contact events@iu.edu with any questions about the transition process or the new system.
Information News at IU, https://news.iu.edu