Create a Calendar
NOTE: To perform any of the tasks listed on this page, you must first click "Calendar Administration" at the top right-hand corner of the PlanIt Purple home page. Log in using your NetID and password if necessary. This will take you to the Dashboard.
1. To create a calendar, click “create new calendar” underneath the heading "My Calendars."
2. Name your group’s calendar by typing its name in the “Calendar Name” field. Click in the “Description” field when you’re done. Once you’ve named your calendar, a list of calendars with similar names that already exist may appear below the “Calendar Name” field. If this occurs, be sure to see if any of the listed calendars already belong to your group; if so, you’ll need to contact that group’s calendar administrator for access. Do so by clicking the name of the appropriate calendar administrator. If a list of similarly named calendars does not appear, proceed to step 3.
3. Enter a brief description of your calendar and/or group in the “Description” field.
4. Choose a Default Event Category from the drop-down menu below the “Description” field. Events are divided into seven category types:
Academic: Events that present learning opportunities and/or are related to Northwestern’s course listings.
Fine Arts: Events specific to the Fine Arts (such as gallery displays or music recitals)
Athletics: As you may have already inferred, these events are sports-related.
Social: These events are more leisurely than scholarly.
Lectures & Meetings: Events by established clubs, groups, or committees, whether student- or faculty/staff-based; also academic talks and discussions.
Religious: Events involving spirituality or worship.
Other: Events not related to any of the above categories.
5. Specify whether or not your group is a student group by clicking either the Yes or No radio button.
6. Click “Request Calendar.” You’ll see a message thanking you for submitting your calendar.
7. Click the “Dashboard” tab to see a page listing the calendars you administer. The calendar you’ve just created will be listed on this page. From the Dashboard, you can create events in PlanIt Purple and control administrative options for your calendar.
Modifying a Calendar
It's entirely possible that once you've created a PlanIt Purple calendar, you'll discover there's some aspect of it you'll need to fine-tune. Keep reading to learn how to give your calendar a custom URL, change its description, and control its level of privacy.
Custom URL
A significant improvement in the new PlanIt Purple is the added ability of calendar administrators to customize the URL of their group's calendar. For example, if your group is a bowling league, your group's calendar URL can now be http://planitpurple.northwestern.edu/calendar/steves-awesome-bowling-league, rather than http://planitpurple.northwestern.edu/calendar/3015.
1. To give your calendar a custom URL, visit the Dashboard and click the name of the calendar you'd like to customize. It'll be listed under the heading "My Calendars." You'll be taken to the Calendar Admin page for that calendar.
2. On the Calendar Admin page, you'll see a heading that reads "Calendar Homepage." Underneath this heading is the current URL for your calendar. If you've never given your calendar a custom URL, your current URL will be a series of numbers. Changing your URL from this series of numbers to something different will NOT affect Web sites that link to your calendar, as PlanIt Purple will continue to recognize the old, numeric URL.
IMPORTANT: If your current URL is not a series of numbers, but is instead a recognizable series of words, your URL has already been customized. If this is the case, you should not change it unless you have informed everyone who links to your calendar that its URL will be changing. If you change a custom URL that has already been customized, existing links to the old custom URL will no longer function properly, and all pages linking to the old custom URL will need to be updated.
To modify your calendar's URL, simply click on the portion of the URL with a dotted line underneath it. An editable field will open where you can type the preferred name of your calendar. When you're satisfied with your custom URL, click the "Save" button next to the customizing field. You may now share your custom URL with whomever you like!
Editing Your Calendar's Profile and Description
Your PlanIt Purple calendar displays information about the group it corresponds with, including the calendar name, a short description of the calendar itself, contact information for the group administrator, the group's home page (if any), and the Default Event Category. You can change this information at any time in the Calendar Administration panel.
1. In the Dashboard, click the name of the calendar you want to modify.
2. To change the calendar name, click on the name of your calendar next to the [ edit ] text. An editable text field will open; type the new name of the calendar in this field and click "Save" when you're finished.
3. To change the calendar description, click the existing calendar description (right below the calendar name) next to the [ edit ] text. An editable text field will open; type the new description of the calendar in this field and click "Save" when you're finished.
4. To change your group's web address, click the text next to [ edit ] under the Web Address heading in the middle of the right-hand column. An editable text field will open; type the URL of your group's Web site in this field and click "Save" when you're finished.
5. To change the default event category for your group's calendar, simply select a category from the drop-down menu under the "Default Event Category" header near the bottom of the right-hand column. The default event category determines the category into which any new events you create for your group are placed. The default event category should be the category that most accurately reflects the type of events your group is likely to post most often. Remember: When creating events, you can always change the category from your calendar's default category if necessary.
6. When you're finished editing one or all of these fields, scroll back to the top of the page and click the Dashboard tab. Your changes will have already been saved.
More
Now that you've created a calendar, learn how to add events to it and modify the events you've added.
