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Group & Department Pages

Using Group & Department Pages adds a Group/Department directory to your calendar homepage so users can search via a particular Group or Department, or as a quick way to obtain extra information. Groups and Departments are used to bring disparate members of your audience together by highlighting events that happen at different places, but share a common host. Functionally, Group and Department Pages are the same, the information is simply hosted in separate directories.

In this article you’ll find:

  • Benefits of Groups and Departments
  • Adding a Group Page or Department Page
  • Assigning an Event to a Group/Department
  • Other Uses
  • Group/Department Management
  • Exporting Group or Department Pages
  • Bulk Add Groups or Departments
  • FAQ
  • Related Articles

 

Benefits of Groups & Departments

Beyond just serving as another means to filter events, here are some benefits of using Group & Department Pages:

  1. Users can see both upcoming and recent events on one page.
  2. Group Officers can upload a Group/Department description, logo, and a link to the Group/Department’s website to be displayed on the page.
  3. Users can upload photos and add comments to the Group or Department Page.
  4. Users can follow a Group or Department Page so that all events/upcoming events are added to their Localist calendar. Group Admins can decide whether or not to require follow requests by selecting skip officer approval in the Group or Department’s edit page.
  5. Connect and display an RSS feed for Group/Department related news and blog posts.
  6. Finally, simply get more eyes on your diverse list of Groups/Departments and their culture. Group and Department Pages also add another layer to how effectively your calendar can showcase your campus’ active community.

Bonus: Huge SEO boost for your calendar!

 

 

Adding Group & Department Pages

To add a Group Page:

In your Admin Dashboard, navigate to Groups > + Add Group

To add a Department Page:

In your Admin Dashboard, navigate to Departments > + Add Department

 

– Note –

If you’re not already using Department Pages and would like to turn them on, email Localist Support at support@localist.com

 

Group & Department Page Fields

  • Name:  This will be displayed as the group’s name in the directory listing and on the event list and details pages.
  • Description:  No character limit, but only around 150 characters will be displayed before being truncated on the main listing.
  • Group (or Department) Website:  This website will be linked under the Group or Department’s name on the landing page as View Group (or Department) Website.
  • Twitter Username:  This will be linked in a Twitter icon on the right side of the landing page.
  • Facebook Page:  This will be linked in the Facebook icon on the right side of the landing page.
  • Vanity URL:  This will give the group landing page a custom URL.
    • For example “The Fine Arts Cooperative” will be .edu/the_fine_arts_cooperative, but it can be changed to .edu/fac, etc.
  • News Feed RSS URL:  This feed will be displayed under Upcoming Events on the Group or Department Page.
  • Photo:  This photo will be displayed on the listing and landing page for the Group or Department. It may be used as a part of the Fallback Chain when an event does not have a unique photo.
  • Skip Officer Approval:  When checked, users who select Follow Group or Follow Department will automatically be added as a follower.
    • Note:  This does not equate to official group membership.

 

 

Assigning an Event to a Group or Department

When in an event’s edit/create form, you will see a section titled Filters. Group/Departments are listed with a corresponding drop-down.

– Note –

The Upcoming Events section of the Group or Department Page displays the five closest future events, starting with the closest.

 

 

Other Uses for Group or Department Pages

Traditionally, a group is a literal group of people and/or a host organization, such as a student group or a community club. However, we’ve adapted groups in several ways to to fit customer’s unique needs.While these organizations could have used filters, they decided to use landing pages to showcase a complete picture with a website link, description, etc. Here are a few examples:

  • Festivals:  A tourism organization is using group landing pages to list various festivals and series.
  • Brands:  A professional salon distributor is using group landing pages to highlight the various brands they are partnered with and conduct educational classes around.

If you’d like to change the Groups language or would like to discuss and brainstorm how your organization can adapt group landing pages, please email support@localist.com!

 

 

Group & Department Management

The following admins can manage Group or Department Pages:

  1. Platform Admins who are also “Group Admins”
  2. Event Admins who are also “Group Admins”
  3. Group Admin-only users

 

Managing Live Groups & Departments

For Groups:

1. Navigate via Groups > All

2. On this page you will be able to:

  1. Search Groups:  By Group name
  2. Edit a Group:  Select the Group’s name from the list.
  3. Remove a Group:  Select the red x next to a Group’s name.
  4. Add a New Group Officer:  Browse by name + select user + specify a group + add officer.
  5. Add a Group: Select the blue + Add Group Button

For Departments:

1. Navigate via Departments > All

2. On this page you will be able to:

  1. Search Departments:  By Department name
  2. Edit a Department:  Select the Department’s name from the list.
  3. Remove a Department:  Select the red x next to a Department’s name.
  4. Add a New Group Officer:  Browse by name + select user + specify a Department + add officer.
  5. Add a Department: Select the blue + Add Department Button

 

Managing Group & Department Officers

This is a Localist permission level. It is not an administrator permission, but allows the user to:

  1. Use the public event submission form to add events related to that Group or Department
  2. Edit the Group/Department description
  3. Send messages to Group/Department members
  4. Approve membership requests.

This is all done from the public-facing interface. Group Officers can also be added in the individual create/edit form for a group. You will see a similar space to the right of the form for adding a Group Officer. To view a complete list of all officers and their respective groups, navigate to Groups > Officers or Departments > Officers.

 

Approving Group & Department Follow Requests

Platform Admins and Group Admins can manage follow requests in the admin dashboard.

1. Navigate to Groups > Follow Requests OR Departments > Follow Requests

2. This page displays a list of all pending requests and can be filtered per Group or Department by using the drop down.

  • Reject:  This user will not be allowed to follow the group.
  • Verify as Officer:  This user will be allowed to follow the Group/Department and will be a officer for the Group/Department.
  • Verify:  This user will be allowed to follow the Group/Department.

 

 

Group & Department Pages Export

This information is only accessible via the API. Exporting in JSON is a far better format than a CSV export as it has the ability to properly and clearly convey items such as the filter hierarchy and multiple instances.

Note:  User information is available as a CSV download as an exception because for security purposes it cannot be publicly accessible and the information is considerably limited compared to event data.

Using the API to Export Events:

1. Build an API call.

  • Groups:  http://your.custom.domain/api/2/groups?pp=100&page=1
  • Departments:  http:/your.custom.domain/api/2/departments?pp=100&page=1
  • This will pull 100 results per page so to access the next 100 you will need to change the 1 in page=1 to 2, etc.

2. Enter the API call in your search bar and you will see the data populate.

3. Open http://konklone.io/json/ in another tab.

4. Copy and paste all data that is on the API results page and paste that information in the first box on http://konklone.io/json/.

5. Once pasted, the information will be added to the second box in a table format.

6. Select Download the entire CSV and in this CSV you will have all available data for the first 100 events.

 

+ Bulk Add Landing Pages

Downloading a Template:

1. In your admin dashboard, navigate to Groups or Departments > + Bulk Add Groups or Departments

2. On these pages you will see a link to download a CSV template.

 

Populating a CSV

Field data will need to be entered the same way you would enter it manually in the edit/create forms.

Available Fields for Groups and Departments

  • Name
  • Description
  • Type
  • URL
  • Photo URL

Type is referring to the default Group Type filters. However, if you create a custom filter to be applied to Groups then another column with the filter’s name, such as “Campus,” will automatically be included when downloading your template. After you are finished building your spreadsheet you must export the file as a CSV. On the pages where you downloaded the templates you will see a file button to select your CSV.

Note: Group Types are also assigned to Department Pages.

FAQ

Q:  Should Place Pages be made for a room?

A:  We recommend only making place landing pages for entire buildings that have an established address. If an event is happening in a room with a title, the room field accepts any text.

Q:  Is there a form for Users to fill out in order to request that a Group or Department Page be made?

A:  There is no public facing group submission form because this goes beyond the scope of what Localist is designed for–an events management system and not a group management system. We suggest including a “contact” link in your wrapper for users to submit such requests or questions.

Q:  Can Group members be added in bulk?

A:  No, as this also goes beyond the scope of event management. Further, “following a group” does not equate to membership as this function only adds the group’s events to the user’s Localist calendar.

Q:  Can Groups be marked as non-active?

A:  Groups can only be active or deleted.

 

 

Related Articles:  Permissions