The FIU Calendar uses Localist by Concept3D, a helpful tool for creating posts for your events. High-quality event posts are important for ensuring your audience can find and engage with your event.
Getting started
First, log in to the FIU Calendar using your FIU credentials by clicking the Log In button in the top-right corner.
After logging in, use the dropdown and click Submit an Event.
If you clicked the right button, you should see a screen like the one above and are ready to get started!
Goals for your new event
Being informative and easy to read should be your primary goal as an event creator. An easy way to do that is to focus on answering the five W's and one H:
- Who is hosting, speaking, etc.?
- What is happening?
- Where do I go?
- When do I go?
- Why should I go?
- How do I attend? (Do they RSVP? Buy a ticket?)
You can do this in only a few words or using long-form content. In either case, you want to take advantage of the FIU Calendar's fields in the Add an Event screen.
Building your new event
The Add an Event page can be a little overwhelming, but it's very straightforward—just fill out the fields one-by-one and be as thorough as possible.
Event Name
This is the name that will appear in feeds and the calendar listing, so make sure to be descriptive and anticipate what your intended audience will understand. Naming your event Medical Faculty Workshop is much more helpful than Workshop or Faculty Meeting.
That being said, keep it short and sweet if you can, as longer names get cut off in event listings and calendar feeds.
Event Owner
Choose whoever is responsible for managing the event. Please note that unless you have proper permissions for posting directly on the FIU Calendar, you will need event approval from a department admin to publish an event.
Description
Your description can be as long or as short as you need it to be. We recommend your description be as concise as possible, but if your text is formatted well and easy to read, you're good to go.
Schedule and Location
Your audience needs to know when and where your event takes place. Make sure to be specific to avoid confusion. For example, tell them the building and room number instead of just listing the entire campus.
Classifications
Event Type is an important field that determines what shows up in the calendar thumbnail and what filters your event will appear under.
A good rule of thumb is to be as specific as possible. For example, if you're hosting a workshop, you should select Workshops & Webinars, not Academics.
If you select a more specific Event Type, avoid selecting the general category it belongs to. In other words, if you select Workshops & Webinars, do not select Academics—it only clogs up the search filters!
The Audience is whoever you expect to attend your event. Note that the people hosting the event may not necessarily reflect the audience. An FIU alumnus hosting a lecture for students would have Students as the Audience instead of Alumni.
Departments
Your event's Department is one of the main ways it can be filtered on the calendar and in feeds across websites.
Selecting a department also determines who can edit and approve your event based on the Calendar department admin list. Make sure to choose only the departments you want to have those permissions.
Photo
Images help engage your audience and set expectations for your event. Localist supports JPG, PNG and GIF files and recommends using images at least 940x557 pixels. Smaller images may appear distorted as the FIU Calendar adjusts them for different modules.
Also, try to avoid using text in your images. Universal web accessibility standards recommend avoiding text unless it is part of a logo. Text-heavy images get cut off on the FIU Calendar, so avoid it for design's sake as well.
For more information on using images on the FIU Calendar, check out Localist's 7 Tips for Optimizing Images.
Event Website
If you have a dedicated page for your website, the URL should go here. Please note that your college or department's website should not go here unless the page you're linking has information regarding the event.
Vanity URL
Localist will automatically generate a URL for your event, but you can edit this field if you want it to be more descriptive or concise. Try to avoid overly generic URLs.
Tickets and Registration
FIU does not have Localist Register set up, so uncheck that box. Once you have done that, you can input the cost and a registration URL for your event. This is where you should be posting Qualtrics forms, Webforms, Eventbrite pages and any other linked registration sites.
Publish
Unless you have a private event that you only wish to share via direct URL, the Visibility should be set to Public and Status should be set to Live.
For In-Calendar Promotion, you want to check Exclude from Trending Events if your event is for a small or specific audience. For example, an event restricted to only your department or only faculty should be excluded from trending events.
Example of a Well-formatted Event
This Leadership Lecture by Modesto Maidique is a great example of dense content that is well-formatted for its audience.
Sure, there is a lot of text, but the event's creator answers the five W's and one H easily by taking advantage of the FIU Calendar's different fields and by breaking up their text with headings and text styling.
On the other hand, your event might have very little content and might get away with a descriptive title, a few Calendar fields and one or two lines in the Description. For example, an event title like College of Medicine M.D. Student Open House is very informative on its own, answering the Who, What and Why in only a few words.
High-quality events help everyone
Event pages that are accurate, on-brand and informative are valuable not just for your department, but the entire university. It helps us maintain a consistent and excellent level of quality, helping every user within FIU's digital landscape find the information they need.
We appreciate your contributions to the FIU Calendar and encourage you to reach out to us at digimaint@fiu.edu if you have any questions or concerns to report!